Reclaiming the Heroes and Heroic Attitudes of Classic Westerns: Open Range (2003)

This chapter discusses the way in which the cinematography in Open Range (2003) reveres and mythologises both the rolling prairie landscape and the cowboy on horseback. What is on offer is the American idyll, the environmental embodiment of the quintessence of Americanism, a mythic space offering the promise of individual fulfilment guaranteed to U.S. citizens within the country’s shared national identity. Open Range is an attempt to return to the surface certainties of Westerns made prior to heavy U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. When the idyll is threatened good men – and one man in particular who understands the necessity of the unavoidable brutality required in these situations – need to step up to restore order and re-establish a space within which civilised values can be restored.