Chai noon : Jews and the cinematic Wild West / Jonathan L. Friedmann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Friedmann, Jonathan L., 1980- author.

Series:

Wisconsin film studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews in motion pictures.

Western films--History and criticism.

Western films.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin : University of Wisconsin Press, 2025.

Summary:

"Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish contributors have shaped the Western—once Hollywood’s most popular genre—ever since the silent era, both onscreen and offscreen, and some filmmakers have sought to infuse the genre with a distinctly Jewish sensibility. In Chai Noon, Jonathan L. Friedmann applies some of the central questions of Jewish film studies to the Western: What makes a movie “Jewish”? What counts as a “Jewish image” onscreen? What types of Jewish representation are appropriate? How much of a film’s “Jewishness” is owed to the filmmakers and how much to the viewer’s interpretation? This volume joins other reconsiderations of outsider and minority representations in Westerns to offer a more nuanced view of the genre. Friedmann engages with larger themes of Jewish identity in popular film, including depictions of race, ethnicity, and foreignness. He also identifies similar concerns within the invention and creation of the imaginary West writ large in American culture. The juxtapositions prove to be both unexpected and intuitively understandable."-- From JSTOR.

Contents:

How the west was made

Pre-code westerns

Code-era westerns

Television westerns

Post-code westerns

Comedic sensibility

Revisionist sensibility.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (JSTOR, viewed April 15, 2026).

Other Format:

Print version: Friedmann, Jonathan L. Chai noon.

ISBN:

9780299352134

0299352137

OCLC:

1515506290

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license