And not only that, they each defined completely different eras of the genre.
Wayne occasionally experimented with some darker stories and more ethically ambiguous characters.
InTrue Grit, he plays an alcoholic U.S.
Marshal who reluctantly teams up with a young woman to find her fathers killer.
But in these darker movies, Wayne is still portrayed as the hero whos in the moral right.
Waynes movies defined the traditional good-versus-evil Westerns of Classical Hollywood.
In a traditional revenge Western, the hero gets his revenge and rides off into the sunset.
But revenge is a lot messier than that, and Eastwoods grimmer revenge westerns reflect that.
On the other hand,Eastwoods Westerns embodied the ambiguous ethics and experimental approach of the American New Wave.
Eastwood upended the tropes that Wayne pioneered to spearhead the revisionist Western.
Custom Image by Yailin Chacon
