The discrepancy between real history and myth has always existed, yet it has arguably never been as stark or as universally accepted as in the treatment of the American Old West. Since the invention of cinema, Hollywood has reimagined the frontier with a fervour that often bears little resemblance to the gritty reality of the late 19th century. This is nowhere more evident than in the legacy of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral—a relatively brief and seemingly inconsequential event that has nonetheless inspired some of the most celebrated westerns of the last century or so. Almost all of these films, from the silent era to the modern blockbuster, tended to "spice up" the narrative, embellishing details and simplifying characters for dramatic effect and censorship purposes. This process was, ironically, guided by the very principle espoused by the famous quote from John Ford’s 1961 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." On the other hand, historians and authors have long sought to provide a more nuanced, comprehensive, and accurate portrayal of these events. The latest entry in this effort is the Netflix-produced six-part docudrama series Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War.
Directed by Patrick Reams and co-written with Stephen David and Henry Fitzherbeth, the series consists of six half-hour episodes that cover the events before, during, and after the incident through a combination of dramatic reconstructions and interviews with historians. Shot mainly on Canadian locations to mimic the American West, the series is narrated by veteran actor Ed Harris, lending it a gravitas that befits its subject matter. Reams, who previously covered similar themes and periods in the History Channel docuseries The Men Who Built America, clearly wants to avoid the traditional Hollywood depictions of the gunfight that made Wyatt Earp, the deputy sheriff of Tombstone, Arizona, the embodiment of a heroic struggle for civilisation against barbaric criminality and corruption. Instead of opting for the revisionist route—portraying Earp as a cold-blooded killer—he refuses to go to the other extreme. Reams portrays the gunfight less than an inevitable clash of destiny, but more as the consequence of a series of minor misunderstandings that slowly escalated into an infamous confrontation, eventually leading to even more rounds of bloodshed.
Reams argues, and with considerable persuasiveness, that the mythic status of the Gunfight was achieved because its perpetrators served as convenient icons of much broader and deeper divisions in American society in the early 1880s. The conflict brought attention because of the role the silver mines around the booming town of Tombstone played in the process of the USA still financially recovering from the devastating effects of the Civil War. In this context, Earp symbolises the forces of law, civilisation, and capitalistic order, while his archenemy Ike Clanton, the cattle rustler and leader of the criminal gang called The Cowboys, symbolises the "old ways" of the Old West embodied in the open range and individual freedom. The series also introduces political overtones that are almost always ignored by Hollywood filmmakers—specifically that the Earps were Republicans and the Clantons were Democrats, with the US public at the time taking their respective sides on a sectarian basis. By grounding the personal feud in these macro-economic and political realities, Reams offers a refreshing corrective to the simplistic good-versus-evil narratives of the silver screen.
However, Reams at times goes slightly overboard with his attempts to give broader context to the violent episode in a small Western town. He tries to give the conflict meaning in an even broader, geopolitical context, bringing in figures like major banker J.P. Morgan, US President Chester A. Arthur, the Prince of Wales (Edward VII), and Lord Rothschild. The series depicts these figures as having a great interest in what happens in Tombstone and their own investments in the silver mines. While the financial underpinnings of the conflict are valid, these segments often look little over the top. They appear to be an attempt to fill the running time or "spice up" the events in a slightly unconvincing and sensationalist way, stretching the audience's credulity by suggesting that the fate of the Wild West was being negotiated in the boardrooms of London and New York.
Another significant problem with the series is that the event failed to have the proper Hollywood-like closure that audiences have come to expect. The series ends in somewhat of an anticlimactic manner, failing to provide the dramatic payoff that a well-crafted narrative demands. The series could have focused its final segment more towards the actual mythmaking process, showing how Wyatt Earp, simply by being the survivor and arriving in emerging Hollywood to serve as a technical advisor in the last years of his life, helped forge his version of the Old West story. Instead, the conclusion feels rushed and somewhat unsatisfying, missing the opportunity to explore the psychological and sociological mechanisms by which history is rewritten by the victors.
Despite these flaws and lost opportunities, Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War still serves as one of the better Netflix documentaries to date. It is surprisingly useful as a corrective to Hollywood myths, offering a perspective that is grounded in economic and political reality rather than just romanticism. While Reams occasionally falters in his execution of this vision—specifically with his penchant for grandiose geopolitical asides—it stands as a valuable addition to the body of work dedicated to understanding the true complexities of the American West.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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