Customer Reviews

William S. Hart: Projecting the American West

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William S. Hart and Tom Mix helped establish the model of the western action star. Mix was a lovable character on screen who presaged Gene Autry, and Hart expressed a deeply thoughtful, stoic, Shakespearean quality that survived into the best work of Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood. Ronald Davis provides the first indepth look at Hart's life and craft. Hart is not always a pleasant person, but great artists often do not fit the mode of a "nice guy." Hart was deeply interested in the West and formed close friendships with some of the region's great characters (such as Wyatt Earp) in an attempt to broaden his understanding of what the "West" meant. This biography is well written and reads nicely, drawing on newly available letters from Hart's collection. Anyone interested in early Hollywood or the development of the Western should have this book on their shelf. Let's hope Davis will turn his attention to that other great early Western star, Tom Mix.

This slender volume offers an overview of Hart's life and an appraisal of his work, without detailed analysis of individual films.

Unfortunately, the tragic view of life which was central to Hart's personality and art appears to arouse the author's hostility. In fact, Prof. Davis has little use for Hart as a human being, assaulting him with a wide range of denigratory epithets: "rigid", "melodramatic", "immature", "self-pitying", "whining", and even "wimpish"(!). Hart's famous 1939 spoken introduction to TUMBLEWEEDS, which most viewers find quite moving, is here described as "bombastic". In short, the reader is caught in a clash of personalities between author and subject.

The book's greatest asset is an abundance of new biographical information, gleaned from Hart's own letters and other sources, pertaining mostly to his later years.

Diane Koszarski's COMPLETE FILMS OF WILLIAM S. HART, with its excellent introductory essay, is a good introduction to this film-maker's work. Despite Prof. Davis' efforts, there is still a need for full-length biographical study which takes Hart seriously as a person and as an artist.