Western. The quintessential American cinema, as André Bazin rightly characterized it. However, it may be that the western is also the quintessential cinema; otherwise, it is not explained why this very limited spectacle, both nationally and thematically, had such a global impact.

The western may be a mirror of American history, it may serve as the best interpretive tool to see how American society reflects through mythical patterns of the 19th century its evolution and contradictions; at the same time, however, this cinematic genre borrows for its shaping the most ancient expressive means: epic and tragedy, and from a certain point on, the novelistic path, as we will see in the pages of this book.

In other words, the western answered, better than any other cinematic genre, the ancient need of the individual to live (even if imaginatively) the myth of adventure, to recreate the epic world of the feat, of trials, of bravery, but also of human passions, through a mythology that, while not completely contemporary, has enough characteristics to be accepted as the latest epic of the industrial age.

An edition aimed at students and scholars of cinema, creators, and the general public interested in engaging with cinema and its history from a theoretical and critical perspective.