For more than a century, Western movies have shaped how audiences imagine the American West—and, perhaps, how the West sees itself. But what happens when filmmakers turn their cameras on the West as it exists today? In this lively and wide-ranging talk, film historian Andrew Patrick Nelson traces the Western from its rise as one of Hollywood’s defining genres to its surprising afterlife in contemporary film and television. 
 
Moving from John Wayne and Clint Eastwood to acclaimed documentaries such as Unbranded and Bitterbrush, Nelson explores the difficulty of portraying a landscape already saturated with cinematic meaning. He then turns to the enormous success—and revealing contradictions—of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, a series that laments Montana's transformation even as it inspires viewers to head west. The traditional Western may no longer occupy the center of American popular culture, but its images, stories, and myths remain almost impossible to escape.
 

SPEAKER

• Andrew Patrick Neslon, Historian of American cinema and culture.