Like sifting for gold from a creek, each generation of filmmakers either preserves or discards the tropes of a genre to create works that can keep the past alive, while giving life to new forms of storytelling. The Western is perhaps the most stringent and lasting genre of American film, and each iteration has almost always ridden closely alongside its predecessors — often entertaining but seldom innovating. That is until Godless came along. Written and directed by Scott Frank, Godless has somehow managed to divert the gaze of Western lovers from the genre’s immense catalog of films to an unexpected place: television.
