Critical Regionalism, Film Violence, and Regional Production
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University of Nevada, Reno Western Literary Reactions to the End of the Studio System: Critical Regionalism, Film Violence, and Regional Production A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Landon Lutrick Dr. Michael P. Branch/Dissertation Advisor May, 2018 Copyright by Landon Lutrick 2018 All Rights Reserved THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the dissertation prepared under our supervision by Landon Lutrick Entitled Western Literary Reactions to the End of the Studio System: Critical Regionalism, Film Violence, and Regional Production be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Michael P. Branch, Ph. D., Advisor Katherine Fusco, Ph. D., Committee Member Kathleen Boardman, Ph. D., Committee Member Paul F. Starrs, Ph. D., Committee Member Daniel Enrique Perez, Ph. D., Graduate School Representative David W. Zeh, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School May, 2018 i Abstract This dissertation asks what connections between film and literature exist beyond shared thematic content. As outlined below, the answers to this question have implications not only for western American literature and film—my two primary areas of focus—and for theories of critical regionalism. In recent years, critical regionalism has become vital for scholars exploring the connections between the local and the global. I argue that the roots of some place-based aspects in western literature run back to the mid- century end of the studio system. Because the decline of the studio system made filmmaking riskier financially, filmmakers used the appeal of violence to draw reliable audiences to theaters. Taking the changes to the western film genre wrought by the end of the studio system as a starting point, I argue that western authors resist the sensationalized image of the West by opposing homogenous, nihilistic film violence through the use of place-based sensibilities and strategies. Using four celebrated western writers—Charles Portis, Leslie Marmon Silko, Larry McMurtry, and Cormac McCarthy—my dissertation highlights the ways western writers have worked to create a more authentic vision of the West, as opposed to the desolate, amoral vision presented by post-studio films. My dissertation takes two fundamental questions as a starting point: Why are western literary characters suddenly in the 1960s faced with such violent situations in a region supposed to hold so much promise according to the western myth? And, why do characters react against their violent setting rather than integrating themselves into it? These questions have been thoroughly explored in the context of the multi-faceted social upheaval of the 1960s. By closely reading the ways these authors use place-based sensibilities to offset exaggerated violence, my dissertation pivots from the ii carryover effects of industrial change in the film industry to the important thematic response in western literature. Taking a critical regionalist perspective, this dissertation argues that western literature and film are bound together by more than their shared thematic or adapted content. In fact, that thematic content is an avenue for exploring how the film industry, not simply films themselves, shapes other forms of cultural production, such as literature. Methodologically, this project is situated at the overlap of genre theory, film history, critical regionalism, and western literary studies. By establishing connections between literature as a form of cultural production and the seemingly disconnected industry behind cinematic production, my dissertation analyzes western literature beyond an exchange of cultural trends and values. In doing so, I establish a deeper understanding of the complex network that makes up western American culture, what Neil Campbell calls “the rhizomatic West.” Tracing these lines of flight then connects regions with the forces of global capital. I argue that to fully understand the West, we must understand material forces that drive western imagery on the page and on the screen. iii Acknowledgments Many people have helped make this dissertation possible. For their financial support over the last year, I would like to thank the Bilinski Foundation for the Bilinski Dissertation Year Fellowship and Professor Ann Ronald for the James Q. and Cleo K. Ronald Dissertation Fellowship. I am humbled and honored by your extraordinary generosity. I would like to thank Kathy Boardman and Katherine Fusco for their input and guidance in developing this project. Thank you to my many friends for their encouragement, empathy, and willingness to listen to half-developed ideas and fully formed doubts, for responding with optimism, candor, and beer. For his unfailing support and guidance, sharp editor’s eye, and insightful suggestions over the course of many chapter drafts, and for sharing his increasingly precious time, I would like to thank my mentor and friend Mike Branch. I would also like to thank my extended family for their support, patience, and continued interest in my work. The roots you represent provided integral stability over the course of this endeavor. Thank you to my sister, Lyssa, and my parents, Cindy and Chris Ford, and Scott and Kimberly Lutrick, for listening, cheering, and never letting me stay down. Mom, thanks for flying back and forth from Texas just to spend weekends with us and join in our adventures. To my son, Lance, thank you for opening my heart. You inspire me every day. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my wife, Alita, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. Thank you for working incredibly hard to support me, for loving me while I struggled, for the laughter, coffees, kicks in the rear, slow walks, and everything I’ve ever needed. I love you. iv Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction: The End of the Studio System and a Changing Western Genre………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter Two: Resisting Regional Abstraction in Charles Portis’s True Grit……………35 Chapter Three: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and the Trauma of War Western.…..78 Chapter Four: Hollywood’s Effect on Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove……………114 Chapter Five: Wresting Violent Authority: Cormac McCarthy’s Unfilmable Western..155 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….192 1 Chapter 1. Introduction: The End of the Studio System and a Changing Western Genre “The western culture and western character with which it is easiest to identify exist largely in the West of make-believe, where they can be kept simple.” —Wallace Stegner I. In his slim but essential collection of lectures delivered at the University of Michigan Law School in 1986, Wallace Stegner articulated a vision of the American West with implications that are today still not fully realized. After explaining the various ways aridity, rural life, and environmental exploitation feature in the West’s identity, Stegner concluded his lectures by taking on the more fluid topic of western culture. Even from his lofty position as a writer and a mentor to Stegner Fellows who would go on to considerable fame, Stegner struggled to wrangle the West into a form that could be fully described. However, he uncovered an important tension between western insiders and outsiders. Both, he said, have romanticized the West, and both, he decided, have been homogenized by “media” that mislead westerners about who they really are (71). As the world becomes more connected and stands at a fork in the road between continued, expanded global interconnectedness, or a return to populist nationalism, the West looms large in the national imagination and the imaginations of people looking at the U.S. from outside. A view of the West as an enduring and vital component of American identity seems at odds with Stegner’s conception of the West as a place subject to the homogenizing forces of “media.” Although it is not clear which media Stegner would have blamed for homogenization, a discussion would no doubt begin with Hollywood cinema. Like many others, I am convinced that Hollywood has played an 2 important role in shaping a misleading version of the West. It is easy to believe that Hollywood, with its generic conventions and moneymaking machinery, has homogenized the West into a clichéd representation replete with problematic representations that nevertheless remain easily digested and popular. What is less obvious, and less explored, are the ways western literature has resisted the homogenizing forces of global capital present in Hollywood productions, and the ways western authors have taken aim at distorted tropes in an effort to preserve what they see as authenticity. My study begins with western writers walking up to their local post offices, looking back over collars raised against the wind and under hats lowered against the sun, and nailing to the façade a sign that reads: UNWANTED: Hollow Representations of the West. This dissertation draws upon the interdisciplinary overlap of film genre theory and critical regionalism to more fully understand western American culture in the late twentieth century. Reading both inscription (writing for film and literature) and production (financing and shooting films), this project examines how filmmakers and writers influence each other. I argue that the mid-century restructuring of the American film industry made the western genre violent in ways that were in turn resisted by western literature beginning in the 1960s. In making such an argument, my research is framed by two histories of production: first, the material production of films, including financing, ratings, and distribution; second, the literary and cinematic representations of the American West. Despite western studies’ complexity as a network of cultural and industrial influences on aesthetics, narratives, and representations of the region, the interaction between film and literature has been confined either to adaptation studies or to scholarship that ranges freely between the two media—considering both together as a 3 unified “representation” of the American West. This dissertation considers film and literature as separate fields linked by more than shared thematic content or adapted narratives.