In the golden age of Hollywood, Westerns dominated the box office. From the 1930s to the 1960s, some of the biggest films in cinema were from the genre. Jeymes Samuel puts his own stamp on the Western in his directorial debut for Netflix, out in theaters Friday. With intense action sequences, violence and a love story at the center, “The Harder They Fall” has all the components that make the genre so iconic. However, it also offers something that many past Westerns have lacked — the truth.
According to Smithsonian magazine, 1 in 4 cowboys in the 18th and 19th centuries were Black. But looking at iconic films like “Dances With Wolves,” “High Noon” and “Rio Bravo,” it would seem that Black people don’t even exist. “The Harder They Fall,” however, positions Black people in the center of its narrative.
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