CFP: Financing the Frontier: Money and the Cinematic West (7/1/13; 11/20-24/13)

From: Cynthia Miller <[email protected]>

CALL FOR PAPERS
“Financing the Frontier: Money and the Cinematic West”

An area of multiple panels for the 2013 Film & History Conference on
Making Movie$: The Figure of Money On and Off the Screen November 20-24,
2013
Madison Concourse Hotel (Madison, WI)
www.filmandhistory.org/The2013FilmHistoryConference.php
DEADLINE for abstracts: July 1, 2013

AREA: Financing the Frontier: Money and the Cinematic West

Film and television Westerns, especially those treating the American West,
often disguise the role of money as a narrative element, a structuring and
thematic principle, just as the external systems of production,
distribution, consumption, and appropriation often disguise the role of
money behind the glitter and glamour of celebrity. Financial matters play
second fiddle, either to cowboy virtue or to movie-star verve. Whether it
is disguised or advertised, however, money is a complex figure in the
cinematic Western. How, for example, does money define heroes or villains
or the national character itself? When does the ethical or moral identity
of the frontier landowner or cattle rancher complement or conflict with his
or her financial station? Money can create or destroy. How is the
“wildness” of the West or the conception of progress or the conquest of
nature a function of money—a function both of the instrumental power it has
and of the assumptions it carries? How does money bring order or chaos to a
frontier civilization? Why does money fail and when does it succeed on the
frontier—as an image, a means, or a principle—and for whom? For that
matter, how does it bring order or chaos to the Western myth-makers in
Hollywood—or to their modern audiences?

This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes proposals on the subject of
money in Western films and television programs. Possible topics include,
but are not limited to, the following:

* Guns for Hire (Wyatt Earp, My Darling Clementine, Bat Masterson, For A
Few Dollars More, High Plains Drifter Sukiyaki Western Django)

* Robbery on the Range (Cat Ballou, The Train Robbers, Wild Bunch, Butch
Cassidy and The Sundance Kid)

* Economies of Saloon Culture: Drinking, Gambling and/or the Frontier Flesh
Trade (Maverick, Paladin, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven)

* Commerce and Frontier Towns (Stagecoach, El Dorado, Rango)

* Gold Fever and/or the Land Rush in The West (Way Out West, McKenna’s
Gold, Ride The High Country, The Big Trail, Wagon Train, Wagon Master, The
Land)

* Working Women (Calamity Jane, Annie Get Your Gun, Gunsmoke, Dr. Quinn
Medicine Woman)
* Cash and Cows (Rustlers, Red River, The Cowboys, The Johnson County War,
Shane, Oklahoma)

* Native American issues:  treaties, exploitation, and revolution
(Geronimo, Cheyenne Autumn, Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves)

* Box office and production considerations of Western movies and television
programs

Please e-mail your 200-word proposal by July 1, 2013 to

Sue Matheson, Area Chair
Financing the Frontier: Money and the Cinematic West
University College of the North
Email: [email protected]
Proposals for complete panels (three related presentations) are also
welcome, but they must include an abstract and contact information,
including an e-mail address, for each presenter. For updates and
registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History
website (www.filmandhistory.org).