10 Reasons You're Wrong About Westerns
3. The Consistently Gorgeous Cinematography
If you love great cinematography, you love the western genre.
Western films worked wonders for the art of cinematography in the early days, simply because it was the first genre brave enough to venture outdoors. In doing so, filmmakers realized that they could capture those breathtaking vistas that were inherently part of the setting of their films anyway.
Suddenly, earlier films looked positively claustrophobic by comparison. This revolutionized the genre, obviously, but it also revolutionized film as a whole. As we moved into the 1920s, suddenly film was less about simply presenting a subject to an audience and more about how one presented the subject.
This has remained true ever since and it is all thanks to the western and its ability to get filmmakers of the early days to think about things in a more cinematic and visual manner.
In recent years, the western genre has remained the home of some of the most gorgeous cinematography you'll ever see. Incredible cinematographers like Roger Deakins, Emmanuel Lubezki, and Robert Richardson have upheld the genre's proud tradition and delivered consistently gorgeous cinematography.