A great example of a modern Revisionist Western, can be found in Quentin Tarantino's first western film...
Tarantino has had a fascinating film career by making films that made tons of callbacks to classic films but were still miles away from feeling like carbon copies of the films and genres he's paying homage to. This was because of the style he brought to the film's that he made by containing long casual conversations that would at times have little connection to the story ("Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" for example); constant use of foul language and racial slurs; stories that were non-linear; dark humor; and extreme violence. And yet underneath all this madness were compelling characters that were relatable despite their horrible deeds, powerful morals, and enough elements left for interpretation for audiences to revisit his films to come up with interesting conclusions. He would successfully entertain and shock his audiences with his insanity while still giving them something familiar and food for thought. So, it would seem natural that Tarantino (who is always a big fan of westerns, particularly the ones made from Sergio Leone) would be the perfect director to make a Revisionist Western, and he successfully does so.
What's common in many westerns is that the setting would usually take place on the plains, or an old town surrounded by a desert landscape. The film does at one point go to a wild western town, but for most of the film, we're taken to a place that many westerns would dare not go which is a plantation full of slaves. That's not to say that westerns didn't show this location, it's just usually the abuse and racism that went on there were hardly ever shown. It would seem at times that slaves were happy serving their master as they cheerfully worked and sang in the cotton-fields. There were very few westerns containing adventure and action that would show the cruelty that went on during slavery at that time. Tarantino doesn't just show the slaves looking miserable as they work and sweat under the blazing hot sun but goes as far to show the physical abuse they suffered. You see them getting tortured, endlessly insulted through the use of the infamous N-word, and killed in the most awful ways imaginable. For a plantation under the title of "Candyland" that would've been appropriate for a plantation in a film downplaying racism like Disney's "Song of the South", this isn't far from sweet or so much as being bitter, its downright poisonous.
Seeing how the film doesn't take slavery lightly (of course, what would you expect from a mad genius like Tarantino), the film does what plenty of Revisionist Westerns are known for doing which is giving empowerment to groups who were usually oppressed. In many westerns, before this subgenre launched, Native Americans were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages who just killed for the sake of killing. In Revisionist Westerns like "Broken Arrow", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", and "Dances with Wolves" Native Americans were given a more positive approach by being portrayed as a sympathetic race of people who lost their land and way of life because of the white man invading their territory. Tarantino does this by giving empowerment to the slaves who we feel complete pain and sorrow for every single step of the way from witnessing their mistreatment. The best part is we don't get a white character as the film's primary hero who's against slavery, but instead a former slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who's given a badass approach as he gruesomely slaughters the people who control the plantation, something you don't see in many westerns. It's not often that you see an African American star as a cowboy. Of course, not all white people in the film are portrayed as heartless racists, the person who frees Django is bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who hates slavery and gets Django his start in the bounty hunting business as he aids him to search for his wife. In his first scene, he demonstrates his unhappiness with slavery by freeing the other slaves after killing one of their captors while leaving the other severely injured so the slaves can take their revenge. But there's a flip-side to the coin because not all slaves are innocent either. Sometimes slaves can be so loyal to their master that they themselves become just as ruthless which is evidenced through Samuel L Jackson's character Stephen who serves the film's main antagonist Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). That's another element that's hard to find in westerns or so much in films focusing on slavery, usually the slaves are just victims (as they should be portrayed) when they're not seen as happy servants.
A popular trope shown in Revisionist Westerns is how the heroes weren't as perfectly charming and law-abiding as most heroes in a traditional western were. Many of them (especially Clint Eastwood) were cold, selfish, and worked outside the law. Half of the time they would do criminal acts for personal gain, other times it would be for justice that the law couldn’t provide. Schultz is the kind of bounty hunter that Eastwood would play from "The Dollars Trilogy" if he was required to be sophisticated. He fights against criminals and is heavily against slavery, but he is a savage killer who does it for the money and sport, showing no remorse over having a man murdered in front of his own son. His gun is his tool to kill criminals, as his knowledge is to scam people to achieve his desires. Django himself though is a character we pity for due to his horrible life as a slave, and root for during his quest to rescue his wife as he kills slave owners, isn't the idea of a perfect hero either. He inherits Schultz’s rules and skills of being a bounty hunter doing the same unlawful acts as he does. At one point in the film, as Django disguises himself as a slaver, he goes the extra mile by being harshly cruel to the slaves without hesitation despite after suffering so many years of abuse. This behavior disgusts Schultz since he wouldn’t dare act exactly like the people he despises.
The art of film always changes through the passage of time, no matter how popular a story formula or a genre is. If westerns kept going in the same direction as they did when they first began, they would be outdated and no longer seen as relevant for how average they are. We have plenty to thank regarding Revisionist Western films for having the ambition to change the rules by giving audiences something new and exciting instead of showing them something they've already seen before that has become commonplace. Tarantino's involvement in the sub-genre is without a doubt a match made in heaven, who successfully gave audiences a western that has disturbed and thrilled them through its extreme portrayal of slavery and would continue to amaze audiences in his following western film "The Hateful Eight".
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