“It just looks like more of Texas”: Journeys and Travel Narratives in the Western

Niamh Thornton

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Like the road movie, journeys are integral to most Westerns. While the road movie shares similar thematic, narrative and visual tropes with the Western, they are rarely compared. Where these links are mentioned it is largely to consider how the road movie expanded upon and is highly differentiated from the Western. This chapter is concerned with Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1968) as a particular example of the travel narrative in the Western and how both the period in which it was set, the Mexican Revolution, and the time in which it was made, the late sixties, gave the film a particular radical, countercultural focus which means that it has a lot in common with the road movies made during the same period.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication(Re)Discovering ‘America’ Road Movies and Other Travel Narratives in North America / (Re)Descubriendo ‘América’ Road movie y otras narrativas de viaje en América del Norte
Place of PublicationTrier & Arizona
PublisherWissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier
Pages1-20
ISBN (Print)978-1-931010-91-7
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 2012

Keywords

  • Road movies
  • Western
  • Sam Peckinpah
  • The Wild Bunch
  • Mexican Revolution

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