Western movies used to be referred to, usually dismissively, as horse operas. It’s not a bad term for them. Like classical operas, they might have silly plots or bad acting, but these things might be redeemed by beautiful music, or at least a few memorable arias.

Horse operas had their arias, too — passages showing superb horsemen riding superb mounts through handsome scenery, or in rousing action sequences. The quality of the horses and the horsemanship in Hollywood movies was almost always of the very highest order, even in the crappiest B-Westerns, so if you love watching images of fine horses ridden by fine horsemen, there is almost always great pleasure to be had from any kind of Western.

If you’re “tone deaf” to these visual “arias” in Westerns, to the kinetic melody of the movement of men and horses through space, you may find the appeal of Westerns baffling, just as a musically tone-deaf patron will find the appeal of many operas baffling.

This is your problem, not the problem of the operatic works before you.

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