I've always classified the westerns into 3 different era's which were:
Classic: early 1900s - Mid 70s
Modern: late 70s - 1999
Neo: 2000 - Present
There was a discussion on here a few weeks ago about how much of a Revisionist Western Unforgiven really is, especially when compared to other examples of the genre that do more to deconstruct the Western.
For me though, Unforgiven is more a story about how the West became mythologised, rather than simply trying to be revisionist itself.
It's about how stories and events become warped and exaggerated. The truth is replaced by the story. Consider the moment where The Schofield Kid is first telling Munny about the prostitute being cut up. "They cut up her face. Cut her eyes out. Cut her ears off. Hell, they even cut her teats."
We know this isn't completely true - we saw it happen. She had her face cut up, but the rest is an embellishment. Even a recent event like that has become deeply exaggerated by the time it reaches William Munny's ears. The story, as repeated by The Schofield Kid, is effectively a microcosm of what would happen to the West. The truth is in there, somewhere, but it has long been subsumed by an even greater lie.
For that reason, one of the most important characters in Unforgiven is the writer, Mr Beauchamp. At first he idolises English Bob, using his version of past victories as the basis of his Duke of Death stories, in particular the story of how he shot seven men (notably Two Gun Corcoran) whilst 'protecting the honour' of a lady in a Wichita saloon.
Beauchamp's illusions are shattered though as Sheriff Little Bill reveals he was there in the saloon that night, and the events as written are completely warped. In reality, rather than blasting away seven men in quick succession, English Bob was so drunk both his shots missed Corcoran. Luckily for Bob, Corcoran was so hasty in returning fire that he blew off his own toe, and by chance his gun blew up in his hand as he attempted a second. Thus disarmed (literally) and no longer a threat, English Bob walked over and shot Corky through the liver.
English Bob is not the honourable gunslinger his 'Duke' persona would have you believe. But it is too late. The story is already written down and published. The myth of the West has begun. Instead of people dishonourably killing unarmed men, or people so drunk they can't shoot straight, Beachamp has presented it as an exciting world of noble gunslingers of consummate skill and the highest prowess.
As a result of his learning the truth, Beauchamp begins idolising Little Bill. He becomes the noble lawman, the Sheriff figure of t
Putin refers to (if you are interested you can look up his statements and views on this, including video footage, that I linked below) recent research from Russian historians pointing to the "fact" that this story was fabricated by the Vatican emissary of Moscow at that time to hurt Russia's national interests, namely citing Vatican's interest in converting Orthodox Russia into Catholicism.
This is only one of the times Putin spoke about it, bit according to him the debate is live among historians. https://youtu.be/F0g07j4HohU
Looking for revisionist westerns that are more like dramas about the frontier life and less about the typical tropes of outlaws, lawmen, natives, or even gunslingers.
I've just finished watching Unforgiven (1992) and I watched Hostiles (2017) and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007) this past month just to name a few films I've seen recently. I've been told McCabe and Mrs Miller is a film I should check out that's worth watching
Even without recourse to Western Sources, which is, of course, always going to sensationalistic, there is literally nothing in the actual text of Chinese Law that can be defended if they even want some semblance of consistency:
>第二章 极端化的主要表现
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>第九条 受极端主义影响，下列言论和行为属于极端化，予以禁止：
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>（一）宣扬、散布极端化思想的；
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>（二）干涉他人宗教信仰自由，强迫他人参加宗教活动，强迫他人向宗教活动场所、宗教教职人员提供财物或者劳务的；
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>（三）干涉他人婚丧嫁娶、遗产继承等活动的；
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>（四）干涉他人与其他民族或者有其他信仰的人员交往交流交融、共同生活，驱赶其他民族或者有其他信仰的人员离开居住地的；
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>（五）干预正常文化娱乐活动，排斥、拒绝广播、电视等公共产品和服务的；
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>（六）泛化清真概念，将清真概念扩大到清真食品领域之外的其他领域，借不清真之名排斥、干预他人世俗生活的；
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>（七）自己或强迫他人穿戴蒙面罩袍、佩戴极端化标志的；
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>（八）以非正常蓄须、起名渲染宗教狂热的；
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>（九）不履行法律手续以宗教方式结婚或者离婚的；
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>（十）不允许子女接受国民教育，妨碍国家教育制度实施的；
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>（十一）恐吓、诱导他人抵制享受国家政策，故意损毁居民身份证、户口簿等国家法定证件以及污损人民币的；
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>（十二）故意损毁、破坏公私财物的；
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>（十三）出版、印刷、发行、销售、制作、下载、存储、复制、查阅、摘抄、持有含极端化内容的文章、出版物、音视频的；
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>（十四）蓄意干涉或破坏计划生育政策实施的；
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>（十五）其他极端化言论和行为。
>Chapter II: Primary Expressions of Extremification
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>Article 9: The following words and actions under the influence of extremism are extremification, and are to be prohibited:
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>(1) Advocating or spreading extremist thinking;
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>(2) Interfering with others' freedom of religion by forcing others to participate in religious activities, forcing others to supply properties or labor services to religious activity sites or religious professionals;
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>(3) Interfering with activities such as others' weddings and funerals or inheritance;
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>(4) Interfering with others from having communication, exchanges, mixing with, or living together, with persons of other ethnicities or other faiths; or driving persons of other ethnicities or faiths to leave their homes
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>(5) Interfering with normal cultural and recreational activities, rejecting or refusing public goods and services such as radio and television;
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>(6) Generalizing the concept of Halal, to make Halal expand into areas other beyond Halal foods, and using the idea of something being not-halal to reject or interfere with others secular lives;
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>(7) Wearing, or compelling others to wear, burqas with face coverings, or to bear symbols of extremification;
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>(8) Spreading religious fanaticism through irregular beards or name selection;
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>(9) Failing to perform the legal f
Always wondered how the media and government construed historical facts to fit their agendas. Keeping it to Western society since they're much more guilty of this than other nations
Looking for some books to read in the Western Genre. My starting point has been film, the Coen Brothers adaptations of True Grit and No Country for Old Men having inspired me in this regard. Anything similar to that, as well as Western Films such as The Assassination of Jesse James, 3:10 to Yuma, Unforgiven being other typical Western examples, whilst Taylor Sheridans Hell or High Water is another modern Western example. Thanks in advance!
like so much of reddit I have been playing endless hours of Red Dead Redemption 2 and have been craving the same type of world immersion but in a text format. I also have really enjoyed the TV series Longmire, if that helps.
I'm really looking for books that emphasize a. world building/immersion and b. character/morality exploration.
I am also happy to read Classical westerns but I am more interested in the social commentary that comes out of the revisionist movement .
Popular Mechanics recently published an article about a secret Taiwan invasion plan drafted by China.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/news/a28510/china-secret-plan-invade-taiwan/
In 1 sentence filled with Revisionist history, it tried to summarize the political history of China (regarding Taiwan):
>The island nation of Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China, was created in 1949 when Chinese nationalist forces evacuated the mainland and ceded it to the victorious Chinese Communist Party.
1st, ROC was not created in 1949. It was created in 1912.
2nd, ROC occupied (retook by treaty rights) Taiwan since 1945, end of WWII, and maintained sovereign jurisdiction over Taiwan as a province of China ever since.
3rd, Taiwan is a Province of China, as recognized by all international treaties. It is not a "Island nation".
4th, ROC has never "ceded" mainland to PRC. The 2 governments are still technically in a state of Civil War over the entirety of China (including Taiwan).
This type of revisionist history is ignorant propaganda at its worst.
I’m looking for recommendations for some of the best Neo-Westerns you’ve seen, along the lines of Hell Or High Water, the ‘manuscript’ portion of Nocturnal Animals, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, (is that classified as a Neo-western?), Let Him Go if it were a better movie.
Also feel free to recommend any period westerns that have been made recently that are worth watching.
Mikhail Kalinin’s tenure as head of the Soviet Union was short-lived. Installed after the Fall of Moscow and death of Joseph Stalin, Kalinin died not long after in 1946. Through political wrangling, Lavrentiy Beria was able to oust his replacement and take over the remnants of the Soviet Union.
What followed were massive purges that fractured the Union; some of the opposition fled east and formed a Soviet Republic at Novosibirsk, while Beria and the rest of the Soviet remnants were left at Perm. Led by Andrei Zhdanov, the Novosibirsk government’s pro-Stalinist alienated many, causing Marshal Georgy Zhukov and others to flee further east to the city of Krasnoyarsk in 1950. There, another Soviet Republic was proclaimed, ruled through the socialist United Popular Patriotic Front. Taking on the role of Premier in the government, Zhukov is assisted by Party Secretary Alexei Kosygin.
1952 opens with Zhukov setting the ground work to not only reunite with Novosibirsk but with Perm and Russia as well.
Before any attempt at unification, Zhukov must first settle internal issues first. The Tuvans have been waging an insurgency against Krasnoyarsk and Zhukov enlists the help of the NKVD secret police and its head, Ivan Serov. The question is though how much power/resources should the NKVD get?:
- A bare minimum
- A token increase
- A vast expansion
Giving the NKVD a bare minimum will not go too well (see Collapse section below). Rather, a token increase or vast expansion will see the Tuvans defeated and brought in for peace negotiations. But, a vastly expanded NKVD will have an unforeseen consequence far, far down the line.
With the Tuvan problem solved, Zhukov will next move to the political issue to solve, factionalism. There are two main camps in Krasnoyarsk and can be seen in the Political Faction UI, accessible through the Emblem of the Soviet Union button on the cabinet level of the country tab. They are:
- The Sniper Clique, led by Vasily Zaytsev, followers of Traditional Socialism, supporters of less reactionary policies.
- The Plurinational Committee, led by Andrey Vyshinsky, who fight for the rights of minorities. To that end, new Generals will become available including Mao Anying (Mao Zedong’s son) and Eric Honecker.
When one is favored (by taking its Plan focus) and the necessary preparati
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Along with “does pineapple belong on pizza,” “is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie” is one of the most contentious debates on the internet. And while I have my opinion on the “Die Hard” question (and the pineapple one) that’s not the film I’m here to tell you is secretly a Christmas classic. There are plenty of other articles that have already done that and frankly it’s a little played out to claim “Die Hard” as your favorite Christmas movie, as good as it is. For the real deep Christmas cut tell people that your favorite is 2002’s “Catch Me if You Can.”
But before we can definitively call “Catch Me If You Can” a great Christmas movie, let’s get into what actually makes a Christmas movie, or at the very least what people point to as making something a Christmas film. On the most basic level it’s a movie set at Christmas. This is a pretty simple and solid solution but it provides a few wrinkles and means you have to count films like; “The Godfather,” “The French Connection,” and everything Shane Black has every made as Christmas movies.
For me it’s always been akin to what makes a western, i.e. a specific setting, aesthetic, and to a lesser degree theme. We all know a western when we see it, even if it’s a “modern” or “revisionist western” like “Hell or High Water” or “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” Sure some critics will claim that somehow “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” isn’t a western but “Star Wars” is, but frankly those people can shut the fuck up. (Side note someone should make a proper Christmas film set in the old west.)
Just like westerns, Christmas films have secondary genres, or are secondary genres themselves, depending on how you look at it. While a lot of Christmas movies are also in either the family or fantasy categories, pretty much every genre has been covered as a Christm
... keep reading on reddit ➡Was always interested to hear a different perspective. I'm hearing some arguments from pro-communists that a lot of disparity for quality of life was a bit overblown by Western revisionists. But surely the sheer amounts of people trying to cross to western Germany would contradict that? Would be interested to hear your insights.
Introduction
This is the first post in a series on the Opium Wars of the late nineteenth century, which were conflicts between Western powers and China, resulting from the sale of opium by Western merchants to Chinese traders. More specifically, the wars were military incursions by Britain and France aimed at compelling the Qing Dynasty’s government to lift its prohibition on the trafficking of opium to and within China, in order to preserve the incredible profits being enjoyed by British and French companies.
Although the historical interpretation of the Opium Wars is still much discussed and debated, it must be understood that the wars were attacks by Western powers, on a military inferior opponent, in order to secure Western economic interests and force their opponent into unequal treaties ceding territory and trading privileges.
These actions were morally unjustifiable, despite being legal under commonly agreed on international law at the time. In fact even certain British politicians condemned their country’s involvement in both the opium trade and the opium wars, and a British lobby group called the Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade repeatedly challenged the British government on the issue, though with little success.
For an in-depth look at this history, covering additional topics and drawing from a far wider range of sources, see this video.
A politicized history
In this section I’ll explain how the history of the Opium Wars has become simplified, mythologized, and manipulated for political purposes in both the West and in China. I’ll be quoting the article “Drug Abuse in China: Past, Present and Future”, by Lin Lu, Yuxia Fang, and Xi Wang, published in 2008, citing it as Lu et al. I’ll also be quoting the work “The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China” published in 2011 by Julia Lovell, professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at the University of London.
Lovell explains how a simplistic history of the Opium Wars has taken hold in both Western and Chinese scholarship. She describes this history thus.
>History books, television documentaries and museums chorus a simple, received wisdom about the conflict, which goes something like this. In the early nineteenth century, unscrupulous British traders began forcing enormous quantities of Indian opium on Chinese consumers. When the Chinese government declared war on opium, in order to ave
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