It shows a knack for breaking the well-worn down to colloquial essentials. It delves into areas that we might not immediately associate with the West – for instance, the region’s significance in the Civil War, when Confederate troops marched into New Mexico as part of the mission to preserve and expand slavery. It incorporates highly qualified experts, from university professors to a very enthusiastic, wide-eyed gold prospector still infused with the spirt of ’49. It’s a handsome production, with cinematography that situates its subjects in wide-open spaces and captures the sweat and excitement of, for instance, a Black rodeo, one of many events included to demonstrate that, while the frontier has long been closed, the West is still very much alive. It is largely a series of slaughters and land-grabs that reminds us the West was won often through ugly, bloody measures taken against those who were already there. This is an earnest accounting of the West that didn’t make it into most John Wayne movies. Black cowboys, fearless madams, conquistadors, the Trail of Tears, the depletion of the buffalo, Alta California. The new four-part Curiosity Stream docuseries The Real Wild West tries its own hand at this task, dutifully highlighting stories and figures that have traditionally received short shrift from Hollywood and other purveyors of pop culture. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The adage comes from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, made by John Ford, the undisputed master of a genre that plays with the disparity between American myth and reality like no other.
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