Chapter 24 - Cinematic Influences

Summary

Even though Cormac McCarthy’s position in relation to the Western genre is subversive, working against a genre still requires thorough familiarity with the conventions of that genre. Two of McCarthy’s Western novels, namely Cities of the Plain (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2005), were originally written as screenplays, placing his writing within the context of the cinematic Western. Given McCarthy’s interest in both the genre and medium of Western films, an investigation into his cinematic influences is apposite. The publication dates of McCarthy’s Western novels follow the emergence of a revisionist shift in the Western film genre. The first wave of revisionist appeared in the mid 1960s and early 1970s. Largely influenced by social and ideological disillusionment following the Vietnam War, the films were characterized by their cynical, amoral, and above all violent portrayals of the so-called Wild West. There are numerous nuances of similarity between McCarthy’s Western novels and the most influential Western films of the pre-revisionist and revisionist eras, namely, those directed by John Ford, Sergio Leone, and especially Sam Peckinpah.