Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western - (International Library of Visual Culture) by Austin Fisher (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Ever more popular in the age of DVDs, eBay and online fandom, the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s have undergone a mainstream renaissance which has nevertheless left their intimate relationship to the troubled politics of 1960s Italy unexamined. Radical Frontiers reappraises the genre in relation to the revolutionary New Left and the events of 1968 to uncover the complexities of a cinematic milieu too often dismissed as formulaic and homogeneous. Establishing the backdrop of post-war Italy in which the Roman studio system actively blended Italian and American culture, Austin Fisher looks in detail at the works of Damiano Damiani, Sergio Sollima, Sergio Corbucci, Giulio Questi and Giulio Petroni and how these directors reformatted the Hollywood Western to yield new resonance for militant constituencies and radical groups. Radical Frontiers identifies the main variants of these militant Westerns, which brazenly endorsed violent peasant insurrection in the 'Mexico' of the popular imagination, turning the camera on the hitherto heroic colonialists of the West and exposing the brutal mechanisms of a society infested with latent fascism.
The ways in which the films' artistic failures reflect the ideological confusions of the radical groups is examined and the genre's legacy is reappraised, as the revolutionary energy of Italy's New Left becomes subsumed amidst the conflicting agendas of New Hollywood, blaxploitation and the 'grindhouse' revival of Tarantino, Rodriguez and Raimi. Reclaiming the Spaghetti Western from the domain of the merely cool and repositioning it within the spectrum of late-1960s radical cinema, Radical Frontiers analyses the genre's narrative and cinematographic inscriptions in their political context to uncover Far Left doctrines in these tales of outlaws and sheriffs, banditry and redemptive violence.

Review Quotes

'This is a major re-appraisal of a neglected set of 1960s films, films which become more and more interesting with the passing of the years. Fisher mounts a convincing case that these Italian Westerns, made in the wake of the success of Sergio Leone's films, managed to be popular and in their way serious, both at the same time, with their various perspectives on the Italian New Left. He takes us back to a time when action films had a point to them, beyond the action; when Westerns could be criticised in the press - in all seriousness - for following the fashion for student left-wing politics; and when Jean-Pierre Gorin, Jean-Luc Godard's creative partner, could say: 'every Marxist on the block wanted to make a Western'. Austin Fisher brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of those heady times.' - Sir Christopher Frayling, Professor Emeritus of Cultural History, Royal College of Art

'While maintaining the highest scholarly standards, Radical Frontiers is accessible to non-specialists in Italian studies or film studies, written in a clear and unfussy style, and full of fascinating and vivid insights on the interface of politics and popular culture in a turbulent and important moment in recent Italian history. Austin Fisher's grasp of the political complexion of this moment (on both sides of the Atlantic) is subtle and nuanced, while his close textual analyses are lucid and insightful. I cannot think of another book exactly like it: by which I mean not only the obvious point that there are no competing studies of the political Western, but that its deft interweaving of political theory, political history and critical analysis gives it a unique place within contemporary cultural studies.' - Barry Langford, Reader in Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London

About the Author

Austin Fisher is Lecturer in Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media Arts and Production, University of Bedfordshire.