GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10659-8 The inner frontier. Images of the USA in recent Western cinema (2000–2020) Marcus Stiglegger Accepted: 7 April 2022 / Published online: 9 May 2022 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract At the heart of the American western cin- micro-society, even if films are only told in Western ema lies the myth. And the western myth is closely mode, such as the crime thriller ‘Wind River’ (2017) linked to the frontier, that boundary between civili- by Taylor Sheridan. zation and wilderness that is constantly being nego- tiated. The frontier mythology is an integral part of Keywords Frontier theory · Western · Genre scholarly writing on the western, and especially cinema · Wilderness · Civilization · Hybriditiy · works well with the classical western of the studio Mexico · Borderland era, where the dichotomy of wilderness and civiliza- tion had been considered the key to the genre. The following study will go back to the original term Generic mythology of Western cinema frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner’s concept of fron- tier mythology and Matthias Waechter’s re-reading At the heart of the American western cinema lies the of this mythology, and will seek for a new angle to myth. And the western myth is closely linked to the discuss recent westerns in the light of current events. frontier, that boundary between civilization and wil- This is necessary as most of the exemples may look derness that is constantly being negotiated. This is like westerns, but most of them are only told in the how the idea of the pioneers and settlers was founded, mode of a western or use the classical form and ico- who made the newly discovered land arable in a bibli- nography to aim for something different than in ear- cal sense, secured the frontier in a constant conflict lier decades. Genre cinema has become more of a with ’the savage’ and expanded it to the west, north, discourse today which is not created according to a and south. The cliché of the hostile ‘savage’, the classical formula any more. This article takes this ‘Indian’ or ‘Mexican’ shaped the genre semantics of fact into account and will furthermore show that the the classic western films between 1930 and 1960, the outer boundary between civilization and wilderness is era of Classical Hollywood, the studio system. Even turned inward in films of the last decade: This means if directors like Robert Aldrich questioned the cliché that the ‘stranger’ is part of the self, the abject lurks image of Native Americans as early as the 1950s–in in one’s own forests and mountains–or in one’s own ‘Apache’ (1954)–the image of the ‘cruel savage’ dom- inated the screen, who was allowed to be shot dead in a row during breathtaking chases, very similar to the M. Stiglegger (*)  buffalo, those iconic animals of the ’wild’ west. It was Department of film studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany only during the renaissance of (New) Hollywood after e-mail: Marcus.Stiglegger@t-online.de 1967 that elaborate productions emerged in which the Vol.: (0123456789) 1 S 142 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 fate of the Native Americans themselves became the a particular focus in the body of the male hero. They focus. In the wake of John Ford’s ‘Cheyenne Autumn’ articulate the space of the functioning of what is (1964), a number of critical ‘Indian westerns’ were defined in the genre as the Law, and the space which seen illuminating the genocide of Native Americans is defined as outside it, as Other.’ In this sense Neal from different perspectives: ‘Soldier Blue’ (1970) sees the psychological western narrative as a process by Ralph Nelson, ‘Little Big Man’ (1970) by Arthur of the inscription of the Law on the human body. ‘All Penn and ‘Ulzana’s Raid’ (1970) staged the war this is inscribed quite systematically into the westerns between settlers, army and indigenous people with of Mann, Peckinpah and Hawks, where the relation- drastic means–often in analogy to the simultaneous ship to the problematic of male narcissism and male Vietnam War, the excesses of which are metaphori- homosexuality becomes, if not explicit, at least read- cally processed here. ily apparent.’ Seen from this perspective a film like At that time neo-westerns appeared, which trans- Sam Peckinpah’s bordercrossing ‘The Wild Bunch’ ferred the classic iconography of the genre to the pre- (1969) can be seen as a coded male melodrama about sent day in the United States, most successfully prob- the unfulfilled love the male antagonists Pyke Bishop ably the ‘Billy Jack’ trilogy (1971–1977) directed by (William Holden) and Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). and starring Tom Laughlin. Here is a half-breed with Peckinpah or Robert Aldrich (in ‘Vera Cruz’, 1954) arguments and fists for Native American rights and already used the frontier-mythology as a metaphor for a mark against races. In the modernized neo-west- topics going far beyond the realm of classical western erns the American founding myth is dealt with very mythology. sceptically. After the outer borders of the USA had The following study will go back to the original been defined, the frontier appears within the coun- term frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner’s concept try itself. This Inner frontier of the country no longer of frontier mythology and Matthias Waechter’s re- seperates the country by civilization and wilderness, reading of this mythology (Waechter 1996), and will but along the lines of town and country, one’s own seek for a new angle to discuss recent westerns in the and the foreign, and of class, race and gender. What light of current events. This is necessary as most of once had been the classic western idealization–the the exemples may look like westerns, but most of formation of the United States according to the law them are only told in the mode of a western or use 1861–1865–turns out to be the beginning of a rift in the classical form and iconography to aim for some- social reality that is shaping society to this day, the thing different than in earlier decades. Genre cinema deeply chaotic year 2020. has become more of a discourse today (Stiglegger The frontier mythology is an integral part of schol- 2020, 7) which is not created according to a classi- arly writing on the western, and especially works well cal formula any more. This article takes this fact into with the classical western of the studio era, where the account andd will furthermore show that the outer dichotomy of wilderness and civilization had been boundary between civilization and wilderness is considered the key to the genre. Rick Altman notes turned inward in films of the last decade: This means (2005, 32) with a nod towards John Cawelti: ‘the that the ‘stranger’ is part of the self, the abject lurks western is always set on or near a frontier, where man in one’s own forests and mountains–or in one’s own encounters his uncivilized double. The western thus micro-society, even if films are only told in Western takes place on the border between two lands, between mode, such as the crime thriller ‘Wind River’ (2017) two eras, and with a hero who remains divided by Taylor Sheridan. between to value systems.’ In his pioneer study ‘Hori- zons West’ (1969, 10–14) Jim Kitses creates pairs of antagonisms that signify the elemental frontier con- The frontier theory flict of wilderness vs. civilization in westerns, like the individual vs. the community, freedom vs. restzric- According to the seminal frontier essay by Frederick tion, honour vs. institutions, nature vs. culture, purity Jackson Turner, American progress has repeatedly vs. corruption, savagery vs. humanity etc. Along this gone through a cyclical process on the border as soci- frontier, the Law is established. Steve Neals com- ety had to re-develop as it moved westward: ‘Thus the ments (1980, 58): ‘These [dichotomies] in turn find advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement Vol:. (1234567890) 1 3 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 S143 away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth exuberance that comes with freedom. The conclusion of independence on American lines. And to study this of Turner’s theses is that with the provisional closing advance, the men who grew up under these condi- of the frontier, the first formation phase of the USA tions, and the political, economic, and social results in 1890 had been ended. It can be assumed, however, of it, is to study the really American part of our his- that the move to the west did not open up the only tory’ (Turner, 1893, Chapter 1). possible frontier, but that further challenges existend American history until the 1880s relates to that towards the north and the south, which to this day are western border in different ways. Nevertheless, viewed as a threat, challenge or the ‘foreign’, e.g. the according to Turner, this fact had hardly been inves- ongoing border conflict with Mexico. tigated seriously by historians and economists. The Matthias Waechter systematized this model in frontier that separates civilization from the wilderness 2019 by differentiating six perspectives: 1. the evolu- is the ‘fastest and most effective’ drive for ‘Ameri- tionist; 2. the political; 3. the cultural; 4. the mytho- canization’ (ibid.). The proceeding evolution of the logical; 5. the regionalist; and finally 6. the gender western border lured the Europeans across the sea theory. These are also the dimensions in which the and shaped these immigrants into a new type, the pio- frontier theory can be analyzed and still be applied neer of the frontier region. The move to the west was today. All of these aspects are discussed selectively not motivated by government bonuses, but benefited in the following sections and demonstrate how impor- from its own independent ‘expansive force’ (ibid.) tant Turner’s theses are still today as a basis for dis- that wanted to conquer nature. In this logic civiliza- cussion. Waechter (2019, 9–10) comments most tion was meant to take its place. What was conveyed extensively on the 4th category, quoting D. H. Law- as ‘pacification’ was essentially an act of brute force: rence from his ‘Studies on Classic American Lit- driving out and exterminating Native Americans, erature’ (1955): ‘[…] you have there the myth of the exploiting resources and hunting the buffalo. essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, Turner’s theses lead to a consideration of the the democracy, the floundering into lust, is sort of a impact this frontier way of life had on the new Ameri- by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, cans’ understanding of democracy. Individualism, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.’ (Law- which was shaped by the wilderness of the border and rence 1955, 72–73, quote in Waechter) In this con- conjured up a national spirit—and which ultimately text, Richard Slotkin’s ‘Gunfighter Nation’ (1992) is complemented the democracy of the official state, also noteworthy, in which the American myth of the since the wilderness escaped public control, became Frontier is viewed as a “cult of violence”. Slotkin dis- central. The ideal is a maximum of individual free- cussed along famous western films, how the still viru- dom, which finds its most extreme expression in the lent gun cult arose and was affirmed by the idea of right to own weapons. The east coast stands for the protection against the threats of the wilderness. As we European urban culture, while the west is an expres- shall see, this approach continues in the westerns of sion of ‘freedom’–this is where the myth of the Wild the last two decade–analogous to the discussions of West, which genre cinema propagated early on, is the Trump era about gun laws and the (ethical) legiti- based on. In this sense, the political and religious mation of the National Rifle Association. institutions of the East Coast are still seen today as a threat to the rest of the USA, as they tried to guide and influence the West even after the declaration of The inner frontier and the western genre independence. From this described disposition, a specific fron- Anyone who has visited the USA in recent tier intellect emerged, which combines rudeness and years–especially since Donald Trump took office as strength with sharpness and curiosity; this practical, President in 2016 –will have experienced this coun- inventive approach that invents new tools quickly; the try as deeply torn, as a melancholic place that seems masterful apprehension of material things that are to be dawning in the consciousness of its own fail- artistically lacking but powerful to achieve great ends; ure. Where the old energy is still unleashed, it deep- that restless, nervous energy; that dominant indi- ens this split and clarifies the inner rifts that run vidualism that works for good and for evil, and the through the country: in the latent conflicts of race, Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 S144 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 class and gender. At these ruptures, new borders layers and create an impression of the Inner frontier emerge, which would have to be explored and over- that pervades the United States today. come if they weren’t a final framework for national identity for some. For others, however, they are a new challenge; they activate intellect, ingenuity The faces of the inner frontier in westerns and a striving for another form of freedom. I would of the 2000s like to call these new borders the Inner frontier(s), because the border between civilization and wilder- The foreign as part of one’s own ness has never been fully opened up, rather it forms cyclically anew, which above all promotes the emer- The US Inner frontier can take many forms and even gence of inner borders. Don Siegel has dealt with shows–as we will see–the foreign as part of the own these aspects in his neo-western ‘Coogan’s Bluff’ self, as the abject. Even in the literature of James (1968): a sheriff from Arizona (Clint Eastwood) Dickey (‘Deliverance’, 1970) one can find the idea travels to New York, where he is confronted with that what is culturally foreign is mostly part of one’s continuous prejudices agains his rural identity. He own. ‘Heartland’ and ‘Bible Belt’ are synonyms for is continuously referred to as ‘Texas’ and ‘cowboy’. large areas of North America that are perceived as The film also tangles aspects of race-prejudice in ‘strange’ by the urban cities and coastal areas. The Arizona as well as New York. It seems that cinema abject lurks in the woods and inaccessible regions. has shown a conscience of the Inner frontier long The genre of backwood horror arose from this model before it had been discussed in recent politics. of the urban–rural conflict: The warning not to devi- The term Inner frontier appears in a slightly dif- ate from the path or to go too far into the forest is jus- ferent definition in Ramón Máiz’ book ‘The Inner tified here in a terrifying way: behind the mountains frontier: The Place of Nation in the Political Theory there are hardly imaginable creatures that become of Democracy and Federalism’ (2012), as this vol- a danger to life. In horror series such as the ‘Wrong ume mainly deals with the political limits of fed- Turn’ films, the parallel existence of ‘indigenous cul- eralism. In the present article, however, the term is tures’ is exaggerated when bloodthirsty forest dwell- intended more in terms of cultural philosophy and ers attack modern civilization primarily with archaic is now to be discussed in various aspects that are weapons: arrows, spears, clubs and traps. They reflected in western films of the last two decades. embody the latent fear of a revengeful return of indig- If the western film is the heart of the North enous America. American myth, then all updated variants can be More recently, a striking western in particular has understood as transformations of that myth. The cultivated this model of the Inner frontier between western as a genre has now become a discourse pioneers and the indigenous population as a model that mobilizes modality, transformation and hybrid- of fear. ‘Bone Tomahawk’ (2016) by S. Craig Zahler ity in order to do justice to contemporary phenom- begins with a seemingly incidental, but drastic event: ena with mythical motifs. In this context, the Inner a looter cuts the throat of his last living victim and frontier should be understood as the encounter listlessly searches his prey: some books. His friend with strangers in what is supposedly one’s own: advises him not to throw a Bible into the fire, as it one’s own country, one’s own city, one’s own fam- would bring bad luck. Horsemen approach and the ily. This alien dimension of the own is mostly pub- looters flee into a nearby canyon that opens into a rit- licly denied, it therefore appears as the abject in the ual site. Human skulls are impaled there and strange, sense of Julia Kristeva. Current westerns about the croaking screams can be heard. A little later the two indigenous population, slavery and religious fanati- men are dead, literally slaughtered by dust-covered cism show this Inner frontier in a drastic way. In creatures that utter high-pitched noises and are armed psychoanalytic theory, the abject is the denied own, with bone axes. which is, however, met with disgust and fear (Kris- This is how Zahler’s first directorial work begins. teva, 1982, 1). The westerns of the past few years The Western ‘Bone Tomahawk’ starring Kurt Russell have reflected these abject mechanisms in many appeared literally unexpected and still seems astonish- ingly old fashioned today: a genre film in the tradition Vol:. (1234567890) 1 3 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 S145 of New Hollywood of the 1970s, clearly inspired by Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) for help: In her remote Sam Peckinpah, Walter Hill and John Milius, wildly home in Keelut, Alaska, three children were abducted mingled with elements of the Italian cannibal film by wolves, including her son Bailey. Core finds a of the late 1970s. John Ford’s ‘Searchers’ (from the place marked by cold and darkness, and indeed he classic western from 1958), a group of men search- observes infanticide in a nearby wolf pack: the wolves ing for the woman kidnapped by Indians, encounter are eating their offspring. Medora also approaches the literal ‘savage’, enter the land beyond the mythi- Core physically because her husband Vernon (Alex- cal ‘frontier’, the border between civilization and wil- ander Skardgard) is in Iraq. She doesn’t know he’ll be derness. Nobody in this film is really sympathetic or back soon. An older native woman warns Core about heroic, nobody will survive unscathed. Zahler’s world Medora – ‘she knows evil!’ In fact, he finds the miss- functions according to the ancient ‘Lex Talionis’, the ing child in the basement and learns that Medora is law of the claw. In his films and novels, the stratum of possessed by a Tournaq, a wolf demon. civilization proves to be thin and fragile, under this Vernon, who is also Medora’s brother, returns and membrane lurking predatory killing rage, motivated begins to kill all people involved in order to ritually by a ruthless urge to survive. bury his son. It soon becomes clear to Core that the With all this latent aggression, Zahler’s audio- old shaman was right – since the influenza epidemic visual style is characterized by an almost classical in 1918, in which wolves ate the many dead of the realism. As in the New Hollywood films, he uses Yup’ik tribe, the place Keelut has been haunted by soundtrack music scarcely, confronting us with long these wolf spirits, who have repeatedly demanded takes that bring ambivalent characters almost uncom- child sacrifices. fortably close to us, and then suddenly lead to bru- As a director, Saulnier is interested in processes tal escalations of violence. Male bonding and the of violence, as he emphatically demonstrated in the heterosexual couple relationship remain the only previous films ‘Blue Ruin’ and ‘Green Room’. And models of temporary reliability. But this model can the demonic reference in this neo-western remains also be assigned to a biological determinism, which ambivalent, because ultimately there are no supernat- leads to the realization that we will all die. Sooner or ural elements here – only psychotic acts of violence. later. And life is an endless series of borderline situ- But the motif of obsession once again emphasizes ations, whether we want it to be true or not. In ‘Bone the Inner frontier that pervades North America: The Tomahawk’ it is the inexperienced and unscrupulous Native Americans appear as victims of genocide and looters who, rather by chance, desecrate an archaic pandemic and only live like ghosts among the white burial place, whereupon the provoked natives kidnap Americans of this northern border region of Alaska. the woman in return. The narrow passage through the It is also no coincidence that only Core, as an Afri- gorge at the beginning leads into a strange, frighten- can American, manages to survive between these ing world, like another time zone, in which people in worlds. The wolves symbolize the fate of the largely America of the late nineteenth century live like in the exterminated natives. The downfall of the North Stone Age. Everything about these Native Americans American natives remains a repressed guilt that can is strange and premodern: the stone axes, the rag- repeatedly penetrate to the surface by force. It is no ged clothing and the modification of the larynx that coincidence that films like ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and leads to an animal-like voice. Few films have staged ‘Hold the Dark’ combine motifs from the Western the revenge of the ‘defeated’ Native Americans more with the horror genre in a hybrid way. The generic frighteningly than Zahler, who at the same time dehu- hybridity itself already harbors the ambivalence that manizes them – in a more drastic way than the early characterizes the inner rift that pervades the Ameri- John Ford’s cinema can ever be accused of. can present. The Inner frontier between past and pre- Jeremy Saulnier’s ‘Hold the Dark’ (2018) based on sent, between guilt and repression, between natives the novel by William Giraldi paints a more ambiva- and invaders is a thin red line of horror. lent picture. Here, an indigenous wolf cult and animal atavisms are invoked to portray the lives of people in the snowy forests of Alaska. In December 2004, Medora Slone (Riley Keogh) calls the wolf specialist Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 S 146 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 The foreign in the war of the sexes which continues into the most recent discourses around the #metoo movement. Based on the experi- Not only the conflict between natives and other resi- ences of the pioneering days, stereotypical images dents of the USA characterizes the model of the of women emerged in westerns that keep popping Inner frontier, the social microcosms are at the same up: the prostitute, the teacher and the farmer. These time permeated by a latent conflict between the stereotypes convey the image of women assigned to sexes – primarily the gender battle between men and the women of the West in the process of civilization women, but also the discrimination of other gender and the opening up of the frontier. The dichotomy of definitions play a role here. In such microcosms, the this society is evident in the prostitute and the farmer opposite sex remains, to a certain extent, the alien in – male pleasure and family care were split up, while their own house. Religion, which is so important in women seemed to have neither dynamism nor stub- the USA, seems to unite, but at the same time it draws bornness. The figure of Liz may be physically mute, new boundaries, especially those between the sexes. but her step from one sphere to the other shows her as The woman is defamed, harassed and attacked as the a self-empowered person who also becomes a danger. tempter, the ‘bearer of original sin’ in an Old Testa- An iconic image of the film shows a metal gag that ment sense. In recent years, some western films and condemns the woman to silence. series have taken up the theme of women in the Wild The problems of an independent formation of West (Waechter’s 6th category of the frontier), and gender identity for the female protagonists of fron- the Inner frontier between the sexes always plays the tier society are not only evident in the Old West, but essential role. I would also like to show the cinematic are also handled in contemporary examples. ‘Wind reworking of the gender struggle using two different River’ (2017) by Taylor Sheridan deals with the examples. death of a young Native American who was frozen ‘Brimstone’ (2016) by Martin Koolhoven is to death after being raped by security forces of an oil located in the Old West, in which religion becomes a company in the wasteland of the Wind River Reser- weapon in the battle between the sexes. The film tells vation in Wyoming. The white tracker Cory Lambert its nested plot in four biblically named sections: Gen- (Jeremy Renner) has to mediate between the cultural esis, Exodus, Revelation and Retribution. The first worlds of the reservation and gets caught in a vortex three parts are assembled in reverse chronological of violence. order so that the film gradually reveals its inner logic. Taylor Sheridan is the author of a modern Frontier- Liz (Dakota Fanning) is a woman with a dark history trilogy that began with ‘Sicario’ (2015, by Denis Vil- as a prostitute. To escape from it, she moves to a fun- leneuve) and ‘Hell or High Water’ (2016, by David damentally Christian village and marries the widower Mackenzie). Sheridan himself sat in the director’s Eli (William Houston). One day a creepy priest (Guy chair for ‘Wind River’ and dedicated himself to the Pearce) appears in town and appears to be chasing phenomenon of countless sexual assaults against after Liz, her husband and their two children. Liz sees indigenous women in North America. He consciously herself isolated because she cannot communicate ver- chose a frontier man, a tracker and hunter who ties in bally: her tongue had once been cut out. with the deer slayer and trapper, that archetypal figure The film unfolds over four time levels in which of the as yet undeveloped borderland. This figure of the fate of a young woman is shown as a connecting the ‘trapper’ has always stood between cultures and element. The sinister aspect of her sexually degraded mediated among the residents of the frontier coun- and physically violated femininity seems to be passed try. He has to mediate again and again between the down from generation to generation. The priest incor- indigenous population of the reserve and the workers porates her nemesis, a personification of toxic mas- of the oil company and thus stands between cultures. culinity, paired with religious fundamentalism. Like As a deer slayer, he proves to be the genuinely Ameri- the prostitution system, the religious society turns can mythical figure. And so Renner acts in his role out to be a deeply misogynous system of oppression. as a mediator, but also a hunter. He has access to the In Liz, who was forcibly deprived of her voice, and Native Americans, knows their culture and their prob- the physically marked, ultimately false priest, the lems, but he remains the white tracker who supports film sums up a latent war between men and women, FBI agent Jane Banner (Elisabeth Olsen). Vol:. (1234567890) 1 3 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 S147 ‘Wind River’ shows the violent battle between the a young French filmmaker who undoubtedly focuses sexes (sexual abuse and femicide) as a continuation on the class and gender aspects of the novel. The key of the archaic conflict that ‘Brimstone’ mythically western elements are the constant travelling through exaggerates. The sexually encoded gender strug- wasteland locations and violence as a first choice in gle here is simultaneously shaped by racist tenden- an attempt to solving conflics. Also the title with the cies and a latent class conflict between the residents siginficant name of the town ‘Galveston’ is imporant, of the reserve and the employees of the oil company. reminding of classical western named after towns like The Inner frontier in ‘Wind River’ addresses cultural, ‘Warlock’ or ‘Rio Bravo’. While the film establishes gender-political, class-political, racism-based and modernized versions of the western stereotypes of mythical aspects, which makes the film interesting the gunslinger (the hitman) and the ‘whore with the for this topic in a complex way. The class struggle in golden heart’, it is too cynical to even grant a glori- the USA is proving to be particularly significant in ous showdown after the female protagonist had been the light of the political developments in the USA in killed. The film might be considered a gangster-cou- the 2020 election year, because the two-party democ- ple-road-movie told in the mode of western. racy decides and ignites its debates not only along the In New Orleans in 1988, the professional killer lines of race and gender issues (#metoo and migra- Roy (Ben Foster) is diagnosed with lung cancer. tion), but also as a class conflict with a focus on the He returns to his hometown Galveston after being urban / rural contrast: the poor allow themselves to betrayed by a gang boss: he managed to kill the hit be seduced by a lobbyist of the privileged minority men and free a young prostitute, Rocky (Elle Fan- using hate speech. The films in discussion use the ning). On the way, Rocky picks up a little girl, Tiffany Inner frontier struggle in past (‘Brimstone’) and pre- (Anniston and Tinsley Price), from her stepfather’s sent (‘Wind River’) to create relatable metaphors for house, whom she spontaneously shoots. the contemporary audience. In ‘Brimstone’ the mod- Pursued by the gangsters, Roy, Rocky and Tif- ern parallel would be the Christian fundamentalism fany flee to the sea. Numerous misunderstandings in the US-heartland, while ‘Wind River’ elaborates arise, in the course of which it becomes clear that on the peripheral conflict between natives and white Tiffany is actually Rocky’s child, conceived in abuse company workers, who infiltrate the reservation. The by her stepfather. ‘Galveston’ is the story of a long, fights here combine the elements of race, class, and tragic journey through the dreary parts of the United living space. States, a glimpse into poverty and social insecurity. Health and economic insecurities lead the protago- The foreign in the class struggle nists into crime, murder and prostitution, whereby they always remain at the lower end of the food chain. In the previous examples it becomes clear again and Rocky has no choice but to sell her body when the again that the foreign is always part of one’s own, last cent is used up, while Roy never escapes the even if it is denied as an abject of society (the pros- spell of the syndicate which betrays him. A dreary titute, the little gangster). This section will use the city in Texas becomes the eponymous metaphor for latent class struggle and the competing milieus of that rift between the milieus, between immeasurable the US South to illustrate how the Inner frontier is wealth and absolute misery, an Inner frontier of the formed here. It will hardly come as a surprise that it classes that is more than obvious for an artist social- is precisely here that the Western mode mixes with ized in Europe like Mélanie Laurent. The mode of the gangster and cop films as well as melodrama. western film always shines through when it comes With the adaptation of Nic Pizzolatto’s novel to pushing or overcoming the boundaries when Roy ‘Galveston’ (2018), the actress Mélanie Laurent was and Rocky rebel against their predetermined fate, but filming a tragic gangster melodrama whose meander- the pessimism of the film vividly shows how the eco- ing narrative structure is reminiscent of the similari- nomic situation is going for many people in the US. ties between the road movie and the classic western. The class boundaries seem impermeable, creating ‘Galveston’ is one of the most modern examples in ever new stages of dependence and impoverishment. this article, a film whose western mode has already Taylor Sheridan also wrote the screenplay for been filtered through numerous media levels, told by David Mackenzie’s neo-western ‘Hell or High Water’, Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 S148 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 in which two brothers, divorced father Toby Howard the basis for his screenplay ‘Sicario’ (2015), which (Chris Pine) and quick-tempered Tanner (Ben Foster), Denis Villeneuve made into a visionary neo-western. fresh out of prison, robbed banks venture to save their In ‘Sicario’ we follow the FBI agent Kate Macer ailing and heavily indebted farm. But all of that takes (Emily Blunt), who is sent with an undercover spe- place in Texas, and the two are not aware of Texas cial unit to the border area of A rizona and Mexico in Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), who wants to order to put an end to drug smuggling there if neces- solve a big case right before his retirement. Together sary. Their first mission turns into a disaster when the with his colleague Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham) motorcade is ambushed. Kate threatens to drown in a he analyzes the personalities and the methodology of network of inscrutable colleagues (Benicio del Toro, the robbers. He teases Parker with his half-Mexican, Josh Brolin) who move effortlessly between friend half-Indian ancestry, who counters this with remarks and foe. Even if there are partial successes, Gilick about Hamilton’s age. Together they determine which (del Toro) recommends his distraught colleague to bank could be robbed next, but they are too late – the quit the job: ‘This is the land of wolves now. And you brothers have already been involved in a shootout are not a wolf.’ In syndicate fashion, he executes the there, which results in two deaths and Tanner injured. drug lord’s entire family. Hamilton and Parker pursue the fugitives and Tanner Sheridan’s nihilistic view of American history, its manages to shoot Parker. Hamilton hits the shooter politics and its myths is intensively implemented in from an ambush. Toby succeeds in ‘washing’ the Denis Villeneuve’s epic desert images and sliding money in the casino and escaping with new wealth. tracking shots. The droning and pulsating music of The key moment of the film comes after Hamil- Jóhan Jóhannsson casts out a last bit of hope when ton retires and visits Toby’s redeveloped farm. Toby Kate Macer experiences the bloody hustle beyond explains to Hamilton that he wanted to save his chil- the border for the first time and the mutilated corpses dren from the poverty that threatened him all his life. of the syndicate victims dangle from the bridge. The As in ‘Wind River’, poverty is a curse for the people gangs – as suggested by the logic of colleague Gil- in rural areas, driving them into crime and deepen- lick, the eponymous sicario (‘murderer’) – can only ing the frontier of social classes. The films written by be fought with their own means. In the border con- Taylor Sheridan can be understood as an Inner fron- flict, the Inner and Outer frontier fall into one and tier cycle, as the next chapter will show. break out in a disturbing massacre, which is emphati- cally shown in the second part of ‘Sicario: Day of the The foreigner beyond the wall Soldado’ (2016). The logic of the cycles of all-encompassing brute The border conflict between the USA and Mexico is force associated with the border region is taken to not only an ongoing political issue that shaped Don- extremes following this spirit in a more recent exam- ald Trump’s 2016 election campaign (“We build a ple: John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone and wall!”), But also a further symptom of the Inner fron- devised by David Morrell, has always been a spirit of tier, which is connected here with the Outer Frontier. the frontier. As such a ‘ghost’ he visited his (foreign) Although the partially illegal immigrants and com- hostile homeland in the first film ‘First Blood’ (1982) muters from Mexico are popular and cheap workers as an unwelcome returnee from Vietnam. In the fol- in the US border region, they remain the ‘invading lowing films he had been instrumentalized as a killer foreigner’ that is subject to massive discrimination by abroad, in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Burma. His the border troops and homeland security. The foreign Indian and German origins were always emphasized is emphatically excluded: Trump urges that the border and qualified him as an outsider who was condemned conflicts between the USA and Mexico be resolved to live on the frontier. So it is hardly surprising that through a border wall thousands of kilometers long. in Adrian Grünberg’s fifth film ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ However, historical experience shows that smugglers (2019) he moves into frontier country itself and are very well organized and that some permanently becomes a true neo-western. The film thus shows dis- installed tunnels connect the countries far into the tinct connections to some classical westerns, where other territories. Taylor Sheridan took this theme as troubled westerners transgress the Mexican border to escape their past lives like Gary Cooper in ‘Garden Vol:. (1234567890) 1 3 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 S149 of Evil’ (1954) by Henry Hathaway or ‘Vera Cruz’ uses the American special operation primarily to seek (1954) by Robert Aldrich, or Robert Ryan in ‘The personal revenge. When he speaks of the ‘land of Wild Bunch’ (1969) by Sam Peckinpah. But instead wolves’, he says so in the USA–‘Sicario’ is accord- of fighting the war on ‘the other side’, ‘Rambo: Last ingly nihilistic in its parallelization of the two coun- Blood’ brings the war right back into the USA. tries, which seem to be caught in a spiral of violence At the end of the former sequel ‘John Rambo’ from which no one will leave. No covert US recon- (2007), we see the war veteran return to his father’s naissance can help. ranch in Bowie, Arizona. Thus it is not surprising ‘Rambo: Last Blood’, on the other hand, personi- that ‘Last Blood’ is now devoting itself to the western fies the conflicts and turns Mexico into a ‘realm of genre. The film begins with a catastrophic storm in evil’ in which only a few upright people can be found which Rambo, as a volunteer on his horse, retrieves (including a reporter who helps Rambo). But Maria some lost hikers from the storm surge. He returns to and her daughter only seem to find peace in the USA, his farm, which is run by the Mexican Maria Beltran protected by the border. John Rambo, who himself (Adriana Parazza) and her daughter Gabrielle (Yvette was initially not welcome and alienated from his Monreal). The native Rambo lives in harmony with homeland, has settled in the dying frontier country. the Mexican ‘strangers’ in his house. He has already The system of tunnels he built under the farm shows overcome the Inner frontier, literally settled down that he doesn’t trust the peace. He lives in a constant beyond the frontier. Or – as one could see it when he state of war, as flashbacks show. Even if he tempo- explores the pastures on his horse in the golden sun- rarily completes the mythical cycle with the final shine – he has become a mythical being of the fron- ‘gangster / regicide’, he has no solution for the virus tier himself. of violence that contaminates both countries. Except The tragedy begins when Gabrielle secretly travels for Maria, whom he sent away, he lost everyone and to Mexico to see her friend Gizelle (Fenessa Pineda) brought the war into his own country. Ultimately, and to meet her father. But he is hardly enthusiastic ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ dreams of ‘Regeneration and a little later she is drugged and sold as a sex slave Through Violence’ (Slotkin 1973), but does not over- by the local cartel. Rambo’s desperate search for the come the Inner or Outer frontier. In this way, the for- girl gradually turns into a hopeless crusade against eign beyond the ‘wall’ remains as an American night- the unscrupulous cartel brothers Victor (Òscar Jae- mare without contrasting it with a functioning utopia. nada) and Hugo (Sergio Peris-Menchetta). Rambo Instead of becoming an ideological dream of the manages to free Gabrielle and kill Victor, but she dies Trump Republicans, the film, like its protagonist, is on the way back to the ranch. the representation of a country at the end of its cycle, The ranch had been under-tunneled by Rambo, so scarred and traumatized by its unresolved conflicts, it is easy for him to turn the whole area into a system criss-crossed by boundaries in the self, dedicated to of archaic traps, as he had learned to do in Vietnam. the dream to create a better world by violence. When Hugo arrives with his men, he is hunted down by the native half-blood Rambo with bow and arrow and a Bowie knife, the traditional frontier weapons. Conclusion In a seemingly pagan ritual, he crucifies the Mexican at a barn door and cuts out his beating heart. In this article I analyzed contemporary takes on the Both ‘Sicario’ and ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ can be western-genre by returning to the founding myth of seen as an affirmative view of the USA / Mexico bor- the genre: the frontier theory. But besides the mani- der conflict: On the surface, they diagnose the Mexi- fold genre theorists who have worked on the mean- can border cities as ‘beasts’, as an inhuman limbo that ing of the frontier for the western before, I illuminate is only dictated by cartels. At the same time, however, these examples in the light of a contemporary con- both films find a way to create ambivalence by inte- cept which I called the Inner frontier. Along differ- grating protagonists whose lives connect the fates of ent subtexts like the foreign, the border, race, class both countries in a variety of ways. In ‘Sicario’, it is and gender, I showed how different films deal with the inscrutable Gillick, a former lawyer whose fam- the phenomenon of the Inner frontier which gradu- ily had once been murdered by the cartel, and who ally replaced the idea of the Outer frontier of the Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 S150 GeoJournal (2022) 87 (Suppl 1):S141–S150 foundation myth. This article finally highlights one original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Crea- problem: The conflict of the Inner frontier can cur- tive Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The rently no longer be understood as a process of pro- images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated gress, as Turner and Waechter assume in the con- otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not text of the classical frontier theory, but at best as an included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your expression of latent and repressed grievances that intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds manifest. the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit In the films discussed here, generic hybridity turns http://c reat iveco mmons. org/ licens es/b y/4.0 /. into a contemporary transformation of myths, which provides fundamental information about the deeply historical problems with which the USA has to strug- References gle. Born from a myth of violence, invigorated and expanded. In the 2020 election campaign, Donald Kitses, J. (1969). Horizons West. Indiana University Press. Trump deepened precisely that gaping rift in society Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror. An Essay on Abjection. that I have described as the Inner frontier. The trag- Columbia University Press.Máiz, R. (2012). The Inner frontier: The Place of Nation in edy of this mythical narrative is the certainty that vio- the Political Theory of Democracy and Federalism. Peter lence will always lead to further violence, a cycle that Lang. was firmly established in film history by John Ford, Neal, Steve. (1980). Genre. BFI. Robert Aldrich and Sam Peckinpah and is now bit- Rick, A. (2005). A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre (first published 1984). In Barry Keith Grant (Ed.), terly absorbed in the neo-western world. Film Genre Reader III (pp. 27–41). Austin: University of Texas Press. Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Slotkin, R. (1973). Regeneration through Violence: The Projekt DEAL. Not applicable. Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860. Wes- leyan University Press. Data availability Not applicable. Slotkin, Richard. (1992). Gunfighter Nation. The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America. Artheneum. Code availability Not applicable. Stiglegger, Marcus. (ed.) (2020). Handbuch Filmgenre. Geschichte – Ästhetik – Theorie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Declarations Turner, Frederick Jackson (1893): The Frontier in American History. http:// xroads.v irgin ia. edu/ ~Hyper/T URNER/ Conflict of interest There is no conflict of interest with regard chapt er1.h tml (Stand 3.7.2020). to this essay, authorship or research represented therein. Waechter, Matthias. (1996). Die Erfindung des amerikanischen Westens Die Geschichte der Frontier-Debatte. Rombach. Ethical approval The authors of the paper “‘The Inner fron- Waechter, Matthias. (2019). The Frontier Theory in American tier Images of the USA in recent Western cinema (2000–2020)” Cultural Studies: From Frederick Jackson Turner to Rich- have complied with ethical standards of research under the guid- ard Slotkin. In Anton Escher & Marcus Stiglegger (Eds.), ance of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. Mediale Topographien. Beiträge zur Medienkulturgeogra- phie (pp. 3–14). Springer VS. Research involved in human participation No research involved human participation. Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Com- affiliations. mons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the Vol:. (1234567890) 1 3