Three neo-Westerns that reimagine the genre

I  spent the last month of winter swaddled in a neo-western cocoon. Three movies I have waited a year to watch due to pandemic delays finally became available: First Cow, Bacurau, and Nomadland. All three have quickly taken their places among my favorite movies, and while they vary greatly in mood and style—from slow and meditative to thrilling and majestic—they all play with the tropes of the American western.

It is perhaps not surprising that in the second half of the Trump administration these directors—all women or people of color—turned to the western to explore contemporary American life. American mythologies about the West are, after all, an early expression of an “America first” ideology. The western genre in popular culture crystalized White supremacist fantasies about mastering the land and exerting control over all non-White others. As these forces have reasserted themselves in public discourse, these artists break open the genre to reveal the stark racism of the original fantasies. But they also reimagine the genre through alternative communities, allegiances, and hoped-for futures buried within its tropes.

In the classic western, White pioneer families must be protected against lawless bandits and wild “natives” by a new class of cowboy hero so that Manifest Destiny can unfold. First Cow (directed by Kelly Reichardt and available on Hulu) eschews these heroics to explore an intimate, unlikely friendship between Cookie (John Magaro), a White camp cook with aspirations to open his own pastry store, and King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant with dreams of making his fortune.