The Western transplanted Greek nostos to the new world where an American hero stepped out from the chorus as the first filmmakers left New Jersey and Chicago for Colorado, Texas, and finally Hollywood, California. Joe Carducci traces the development of action film Acting after the Westernmakers went west. The realism of late 19th century Actualities continued into these Westerns of the 1910s which featured cowboys and Indians born before the closing of the frontier in 1890. This new untheatrical style of acting developed within the 2nd unit culture of the action genres into the sound era by John Wayne and others, until a Montgomery Clift took training from stuntman Richard Farnsworth for Red River, and a Marlon Brando spent his downtime on One-Eyed Jacks studying Ben Johnson. Finally Carducci looks at the cultural collision of the sixties and seventies as Manhattan cinephiles reject the style triumphant in the careers of Bronson and Eastwood.
Stone Male : Requiem for the Living Picture