The West par Robert Redford

THe American West series is a entertaining look at various stories/myths of the American West. As you can imagine Hollywood takes some literary license with the facts but does present a compelling series of one hour shows. THe series does feature well known western historians such as Dr Paul Hutton as well as other familiar faces for commentary.

This is a good place to start exploring the fascinating history of the old west. Just don't take the contents of the shows for being gospel. After all, this is Hollywoods version of history.

The only real detraction in the series I found was the producers repeated insistence on having commentary by actors such as Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds and other actors who make their living memorizing lines written by others. Considering that most of these people barely have a high school education, let alone any expertise in American history, it is hard to believe that the producers seriously thought that these people, as well as politicians like John McCain, would add any significant insights or information to the series. Apparently the producers take the audience for being too stupid to recognize a washed up old actor as some type of subject matter expert because he starred in a movie about the West. Putting aside that only criticism The American West is an engaging look at one of the most exciting and historically important periods in American History. I recommend it.

"From the ashes of the Civil War", comes a period of rapid settlement of the American West. Much of the West was controlled by tribes of Indians, but it offered one solution to the festering resentment and conflicts that followed the war.

Also, there were some rebel soldiers who continued to fight against Northern supremacy and order. Jesse James and his gang began to terrorize and strike at Northern interests.

This is how "The American West"--an eight part series executive produced by Robert Redford--begins. With voice overs and reenactments, the show details the beginnings of what becomes a two-front war that General Grant wages from Washington.

The credentials of the historians who add their remarks are impressive. There certainly is a wealth of academic inquiry available to the makers of this show. Still, this is a true story that seems to be painted with a broad brush. And it does not answer some key questions about the motivations and actions of some of the actors in this vast drama.

It does, however, establish a basic framework that viewers can build upon with personal reading and further scholarship. As always, history is a complex matter, and the outline provided by this series leaves plenty of room for a more refined understanding.

This review is based on the version shown in Europe under the title "Robert Redford's The West". I'm not aware of any differences apart from the title and I'd be surprised if there were given the skimpy production values of the series. The series of eight one-hour shows sets out to tell the tale of the West through six lives Custer, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp. We get a narrative over reenactments interspersed with to-camera pieces from lots of actors who appeared in Westerns and some actual historians. I found the series very disappointing. The recreation of the Little Big Horn would embarrass a troop of amateur re-enactors. More substantial is the myriad inaccuracies and omissions. In telling the tale of the James brothers I don't recall a mention of the Younger Brothers. We're shown a map of the Battle of the Little Big Horn that shows Reno's and Custer's advances but doesn't show Benteen's nor is he mentioned in the narrative. Billy the Kid's escape all happens on the ground floor. There's no Pete Maxwell in Pete Maxwell's bedroom when Billy is shot. The viewer is given no context as to why either man was in the room (the link being Maxwell). As presented Morgan and Virgil Earp are shot on the same night. Others more knowledgeably than myself have and could point out many more flaws in the series. Did I learn anything? Yes. A young John Wayne met an elderly Wyatt Earp.

The story of the American West, from the US's expansion post the Civil War to the late 1800s. Told through the story lines of several famous central figures in that history: George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp.

A reasonably interesting telling of the settlement and taming of the American West. The lives of the famous figures are dramatized well, playing out like a docu-drama.

However, the documentary is fairly shallow. Because of the concentration on these main characters, you don't get to know about much else. There is some broader history but this is just to provide a context to the actions of these characters.

In addition, the jumping between the characters gets irritating. Rather than tell each of their stories in one go, giving each of them an episode, they jump back and forth, generally segued with "Meanwhile, x miles away..." (That sentence grew very irritating after a while).

Not entirely accurate either. Some of this is deliberate - changing history to suit the fragile sensitivities of today's youth - revisionist history, basically. Some of it is just sloppiness, e.g. Custer being shown as a 2-star general when he was actually now a Lt Colonel.

And then there's the interviews. Since when are Hollywood stars history experts? For example, just because Kiefer Sutherland played a cowboy in Young Guns doesn't make him an expert on the Wild West. The input by historians is about 5-10%, Hollywood stars the rest, and the stars don't have much informative to say.

Overall, reasonably entertaining but don't expect to get a decent knowledge of that portion of US history, or even an accurate one.

This mini-series produced by Robert Redford puts together some of the most iconic figures and events in the old American West highlighted by Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, George Armstrong Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull starting from the end of the Civil War to the Oklahoma land rush some 25 years later. It ends with a surprising final connection between Wyatt Earp and John Wayne. The recreations are compelling enough and expertly made for a TV production. The actors portraying the historical figures are relative unknowns. In fact, the series use a mix of historians and much more famous actors as talking heads to explain the significance of the events. As for its history educational value, this show cherry-picks the most compelling stories of the most compelling characters. It lays it out in order which gives the widely known stories their proper place in the chronological order. This helps to give them context and a surprisingly effective flow. It is able to paint a vast epic picture of a changing world.