Tuska’s thesis is that Westerns are not attempts to portray the old West with documentary fidelity, nor do they merely reflect the attitudes of the American public. They are the creation of directors and producers, great and insignificant, men indifferent to historical accuracy and full of their own insights and biases. Furthermore, these insights and biases rarely reflect the attitudes of the bien pensant liberal. This book will be a real eye-opener for the middleclass freshman returning to her suburban home from her first term at Sarah Lawrence, aghast at the revelation that her parents are—bourgeois. As for me, I am going to see The Searchers again. (ECK)

 

[The American West in Film: Critical Approaches to the Western, by Jon Tuska; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press]