The Western genre as treated by Hollywood is itself like a cultural palimpsest. Long before Hollywood was even a metonymic signifier for the entertainment industry, the westward expansion and the genocidal Indian Wars driven by Manifest Destiny were already the equivalent of America’s Dark Ages, at the very least in the sense that mythology and legend could be easily inserted into that period without running too much afoul of history. (Like how Europe’s Dark Ages are ornamented by King Arthur, and Roland and the paladins of Charlemagne, and the lost Ninth Roman Legion beyond Hadrian’s Wall, to name a few that come easily to mind.)

So when Hollywood first treated the era, it was already weaving together the contemporary with the legendary and with the historical.

Hollywood Westerns are as much about Hollywood itself as they are about Westerns.

Now, when Hollywood does a Western now, they’re not only contending with the history and legends actually laid down in the era itself, but they’re also dealing with Hollywood’s own treatment of the genre in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is why, even though the 2010 version of “True Grit” has a ton of dialog that is word-for-word identical to the dialog of the 1969 version of “True Grit” (and the 2010 version is supposedly even truer to the 1968 novel), the 2010 version is still an entirely different movie. (See also Pierre Menard)

“Rango” SPOILERS AHEAD!

So I’m not sure what to make of “Rango”. From the opening scene, I got the distinct feeling that this really wasn’t a movie for kids. Not just because of the fleeting references to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” as well as to the spaghetti Westerns perfected by Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. Not just because of the totally nude (and totally decapitated) Barbie doll (which adds to the sense that the opening scenes are an animated homage to cubist and surrealist art) or because of lizards condemning snakes to hell. But because of the way it tapped into the whole palimpsest of Western (as in civilization, not genre) culture, from Don Quixote references, to breaking the fourth wall, to the whole genre of stories and movies that are retellings of the Brave Little Tailor who killed seven in one blow. (The ones that come to mind first are “The Three Amigos” and “El Mariachi”, both self-aware Western spoof/parodies, but there’s also “A Bug’s Life” and “Galaxy Quest”—these are all somewhat encapsulated by the TV trope “Mistaken for Badass”) There’s also a scene that uses Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”, with moles flying on bats, evoking the imagery of WWI airplanes flying down a narrow ravine, but bursting into flames like TIE fighters. Then there’s the whole Western water war angle (although I’ve never watched “Chinatown”) There were some scenes and images that made me think more of science-fictional post-apocalyptic settings in the wake of catastrophic consequences of climate change than of the Old West.

In any case, I was entertained, and my brain was delightfully tickled.