Jessica, did you or anyone else see 'Half Nelson'? It's one of those that was out in the states while I was/am abroad, and I haven't been able to see it, though I really want to. Which surprises me, given Ryan Gosling.

I did, yeah. Very strong performances, kind of overwritten script, overall good. I honestly don't remember that much about it, but I'd say it's worth a rental if it turns up anywhere.

Insanity: the last refuge of the writer looking for bad guys that won't offend whole ethnic groups. I guess my point is, The reavers don't represent a side, so much as the author's need for an antagonist. Nobody will be making a respectful movie about their Isandhlwana moment.

Oh, I get you here. I imagine Joss & co felt like they were already riding the edges of bad taste by making their heroes analogous to unrepentant Confederates, and their Reavers (sorry for the misspell earlier) to Indians analogy is more Stagecoach than The Searchers. In the former, the Indians are an unknown force of doom. In the latter, it's the hero (an unrepentant Confederate) who is the force of doom.

Which makes the story theme-poorer, to my mind. And begins to unravel teh logic for making it a western at all.

Well, I don't know the backstory like many people here, so I don't know how much thought Joss & co put into Firefly, but some of the major later Westerns included a some-but-not-all approach to Indian & cowboy barbarity. Blood Meridian, for instance, featured a marauding band of cannibal Indians who mowed down anyone in their path regardless of race, somewhat like the Reavers. McCarthy tempered this view of savage Otherness quite a bit, though, by making sure that the reader understood that no one was exempt from this savagery. While the force of civilization was played by The Judge, a character of near-supernatural brutality, no one would describe the protagonist as having a heart of gold. The best I could come up with was "an amoral innocent." The kindest words that could be said about the protagonists of The Wild Bunch (aka "the best movie ever made") was that they showed a glimmer of nobility when backed into a corner by the forces of savagery (Mapache) and civilization (the railroad). However, the question of whether one could act morally in an amoral world was often the context of Peckinpah Westerns (even the ones, like Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, that set the protagonists into the Indian role), and I think that the impulse to make Firefly a Western came from the same place.

It's almost a messy accident that sympathetic movies can be made about the Indian tribes in the Wild West. I doubt that was a concern of most of the early Western creators.

And since none of that was on-topic, I'll say that we watched The Science of Sleep the other night, which was a lovely mess of a movie. Gondry's commitment to making his dreams live on-screen is admirable, but he asks too much of the viewers when he wants us to see that Charlotte Gainsbourg puts up with his stand-in naif because she's filled her apartment with childlike crap. If he'd spent more time on her character, showing us, for instance, why she never filed a restraining order against Bernal's man-child, rather than focusing on Bernal's increasing retreat from reality, the movie might have more there there.

(I personally think the western impulse from Firefly came from the "space ship low-fly freaks out the horses" image, and the rest of it was cobbled together from there.)

It's interesting, when I look at westerns, that most people look at westerns always in relationship to each other over time; my insitnct is to look at westerns in relation each to its own time, and what other movies are being made in that time. Except for the landscapes -- and those vary wildly too -- I don't see a consistency of theme like a lot of people do.

Whereas, I think Carter from Get Carter, and Lee Marvin in Point Blank, and Clint Eastwood in the Italian westerns -- have a lot in common.

I doubt that was a concern of most of the early Western creators.

I think you're right, although I think John Ford became more sympathetic to the humanity of his Indians over his career.

It's interesting, when I look at westerns, that most people look at westerns always in relationship to each other over time; my insitnct is to look at westerns in relation each to its own time, and what other movies are being made in that time. Except for the landscapes -- and those vary wildly too -- I don't see a consistency of theme like a lot of people do.

Oh, I do think most Westerns share a basic morality tale. The better ones are the ones where that morality has lots of shades of grey. Actually, despite the statement I made about Ford's growing sympathy for the Indians, I was just thinking about one of Ford's earlier movies - Fort Apache, I think - which had a very sympathetic view of the Otherness of Indians.

But I think you're right in the sense that Westerns, like any movies, are definitely a product of the times. I think it's more complex than that, though: there's a dialogue between Westerns as a genre over time, too, and I think that dialogue is sometimes more interesting than the context of time.

Whereas, I think Carter from Get Carter, and Lee Marvin in Point Blank, and Clint Eastwood in the Italian westerns -- have a lot in common.

Definitely. Spaghetti Westerns aren't like US Westerns. Those are good comparisons, because they're more like stylized gangster movies.

Edit - apologies for the serial Western posts.

Reavera as Indians iare not really the antagonist, though. The true antagonist in Fierefly is civilization versus savagery. Many Westerns use Indians to represent savagery--although nature itself is also savage and can be just as strong an antagonist. In Firefly, the crew is constantly fighting that savagery in themselves and in others. Greed, violence, fear, clannishness, selfishness, ignorance--those are the elements they fight and that is what makes it work for me. To say we have to have a group which equals Indians, seems reductivist to me.

The true antagonist in Fierefly is civilization versus savagery

What I meant was, you can do civilized vs. savage in many contexts -- you don't need cowboys and Indians. So although there is imagery of cowboys and Indians all over the show, the thematics are not, in fact, about cowboys and Indians at all. Or else there would be dispossessed natives on all those planets the crew keeps visiting. The term "Indian" in the phrase "cowboys and Indians" turns out to be an empty category.

It's cowboys and crazier cowboys, which is not the same kind of story. (And could as easily have been gentlemen and debauched gentlemen, if Joss had had a thing for duels at dawn.)

points toward "Shindig"...

Maybe Jane does?