Essay on Western Movies Since 1960

The film “The Alamo” revealed the history of Texas and battle of Alamo about Texas revolution, early back in the mid-1830s. The film was released in 2004, which reflected how the Texans fought bravely against Mexicans government to preserve their independence from the Mexico. Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, William Barrel Travis, Davy Crockett, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna were the main characters of the movie. Sam Houston was the governor of the Texas and used to live with Indians. Jim Bowie was the colonel with a huge knife and was opportunities. William B Travis was lieutenant colonel who divorced his wife and Jim used to call him “Buck” in the movie. Davy Crockett was renowned as a bear fighter and sharpshooter. He used to play violin and everybody

John Ford built a standard that many future directors would follow with his classic 1939 film “Stagecoach”. Although there were a plethora of western films made before 1939, the film “Stagecoach” revolutionized the western genre by elevating the genre from a “B” film into a more serious genre. The film challenged not only western stereotypes but also class divisions in society. Utilizing specific aspects of mise-en-scène and cinematography, John Ford displays his views of society.

The Alamo was one of the most astounding and critical battles of our country. Its men were ruthless in their bravery and love of their country. Their mission for independence lives on in the hearts of all American’s today. Their legacy lives on forever and their courageous souls are still in the heart of the people of the lone star state. This is the story of bravery, love, tyranny, and liberty. This is the story of the Alamo

The American western frontier, still arguably existent today, has presented a standard of living and characteristics which, for a time, where all its own. Several authors of various works regarding these characteristics and the obvious border set up along the western and eastern sections have discussed their opinions of the west. In addition to these literary works by renowned authors, one rather convenient cinematic reference has also been influenced by these well-known, well-discussed practices of this American frontier. “True Grit”, a film recently remade in 2010 by the Cohen Brothers, crosses the boundaries of the west allowing all movie-goers to capture one idea of the western world. The movie, along with a few scholarly sources

Saunders of the Texas Trail Drivers Association that of the 50,000-75,000 cowboys who helped to created the West, 25 percent were black (Porter, 1971). However, to merely state that there were 13,000-19,000 Black cowboys is inaccurate simply because the American definition of a cowboy has become distorted. To understand the role of the blacks in the West, one must first comprehend what the cattle-industry workers or cowboys truly did.

Clint Eastwood’s, Unforgiven, represents a “new” type of Western that defies the formula previously used to create traditional Western films. Unlike Shane, a film with a clear-cut threat to the community, endangering all homesteaders, a lack of defense, creating an unfair advantage to the threat imposed, and a true hero, one who saves the day and must willingly return to where he came from, Unforgiven is a Western that is told through a different formula. Eastwood tackles this revisionist piece and lacks the three basic components to any classic Western film – a threat, lack of defense, and a hero.

According to the film critic, Phillip French, “The Western has always been about America rewriting and reinterpreting her own past,” if this is indeed the case, then the two most popular Westerns of the early 1990s reveal that many Americans had rejected the traditional interpretation of the Old West. The critically and commercially successful, Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, repudiated the patriotic frontier myth that had characterised the Western when it was the preeminent genre in American cinema. Informed by new Western historiography, itself an expression of political concerns that had been moving into the American mainstream since the 1960s, the movies display a complex and nuanced understanding of the frontier experience. Dances with Wolves rejected the traditional narrative of the inherent superiority of the Anglo-American hero conquering both Native Americans and the wilderness, and also focused on the environmental destruction that accompanied the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Unforgiven would similarly reject the frontier myth, replacing the democratic, civilised frontier town, with a brutal regime in which white men’s property rights prevail over any sense of justice. The film is noted for its self-reflexive nature, with a writer documenting and embellishing the tales of the Old West before the viewer’s eyes. This self-reflexion indicates that Americans were re-evaluating the myths of the frontier, and seeing them for what they were, creations by the

“Some of the features that are to become key elements of the genre are to be found in early silent Westerns from the late 1890s and early 1900s” (Westerns). Since this time, many of the famous films have become household names. For some people, the reason they have been introduced to this film genre is because of their grandparents or parents. For others, they may have a genuine interest to understand this culture that has transformed itself to fit with a new era of time. Although these films have been able to generate great amounts of revenue, they are full of underlying elements that show the cultural issues of that time period. Moreover, some of these elements may not be noticeable to everyone at first, but that is where the satire and parody come into play.

Dances With Wolves, directed by Kevin Costner, and The Searchers, directed by John Ford, looks into the fabric of this country's past. The media has created a false image of the relationship between Native Americans and White men to suppress the cruel and unfortunate reality. Both directors wanted to contradict these stereotypes, but due to the time period the films were created, only one film was successful. Unlike The Searchers, Dancing With Wolves presents a truly realistic representation of Native Americans.

In Matthew Bernstein’s essay, The Classical Hollywood Western Par Excellence, he states that while Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) “appears to glorify American history, particularly its expansion westward at the expense of Native Americans” (299) it also develops an “acute social observation” of life on the Frontier and it challenges elements of the myth constructed around this history (316). The film Stagecoach depicts not only the struggles faced by pioneers traveling through Indian territory, but the belief among people during this time period that anyone can go to the West to get a “fresh start” and live a completely new life without social prejudice. However, Stagecoach proves this myth to be false for various reasons. One example of this would be when Mr. Hatfield offers Mrs. Mallory water from the water canteen on the stagecoach. Once she accepts his offer, Mr. Hatfield pours it into a silver cup for her and does not offer anyone else in the stage coach water. Ringo then makes a comment to Mr. Hatfield that he should give the other lady in the stagecoach, Dallas, water as well. However, Dallas has a reputation of being a prostitute. So, Mr. Hatfield decides to give her some water but refuses to lend her the silver cup to drink out of, he makes her drink it out of the canteen instead. This example proves that these people were not getting a “fresh start” and only the upper class can share such luxuries as a silver cup with only other upper class people, social

The most serious Native American stereotypes are clearly visible in films of the early twentieth century in Hollywood westerns. The big screen stories about western cowboys defeating Native tribes proved to be extremely popular and lucrative. Hollywood then started producing western tales in incredible quantities . In most Westerns, white cowboys represent courageous, brave, and quick witted men while the Indians are the dimming past. Cowboys are logical. “Indians” are irrational. Together, cowboys and Indians are the ego and the heart of the Anglo-Saxon identity. Native American characters in twentieth century films have ranged from stereotypes including the bloodthirsty, raging beast to the noble savage. Still other Indian characters, whether they are heroes, bad guys, or neutral, were the characters with little to no character development or range in their personalities. These stereotypes have their origins in popular American literature dating as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, author of Celluloid Indians, notes that popular stories “centered on Native American savagery served as outlets for violence and pent up aggression in an early American society that prided manners and respectability.” (Kilpatrick 2) In these stories, the Native American population was seen as bad, though individual members could be represented as good. These stereotypes continued for years. One author, James Fenimore Cooper, began publishing a series of stories titled The Leatherstocking Tales in 1841. Kilpatrick emphasizes that Cooper

Every since John Ford’s 1939 western Stagecoach, the West has been portrayed in art, entertainment, and literature as a desolate arid landscape of mountains and deserts. The story or movie backdrop was usually set in America’s colonial era and often included small frontier towns with saloons, the local jail, and ranches on the outskirts of town. The main characters were ranchers, handsome gun slinging wayward cowboys donning Stetsons, savage Indians raging havoc against settlers, and outlaw gangs roaming the prairies holding up banks and railroads. Every story pretty much had a similar plot; the pursuit of wrongdoers, lawmen and bounty hunters set on catching that elusive bad guy, guns and gunfights, and the humble settlers protecting his family and land. The heroes that

The southwest is a region of the United States that makes our country unique. Without the southwest, we would undoubtedly lack the spirit, hope, beauty, and truth that this vast region brings to the rest of the United States as a whole. The southwest represents many things, such as journeying, racism, violence, the clashing and cooperation of cultures, and spirituality, as well as primitivism and pastoralism. All of these elements that the Southwest is comprised of is perhaps the reason why the rest of the country feels so captivated by it; why the southwest is considered a place to “find yourself” or to “regenerate”; and why literature and film regarding the Southwest has been and continues to be of the most popular genres. The western film was one of the most popular during the first half of the twentieth century. Audiences far and wide were mesmerized by actors such as John Wayne and Roy Rogers, and their roles as heroes who fought to tame the American frontier. This very concept, ‘taming the frontier’, gives way to a larger theme that was prevalent in many western films and literature of the southwest: ubi sunt, or rather “where are those who came before us?”. Director Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue portrays this idea better than any other western film; the concept of ubi sunt is undeniably the film’s overarching theme, clearly seen through its components.

Ford’s Stagecoach is an epic and revolutionary approach that displays the desert terrain and western inhabitant’s struggles. Stagecoach follows the lives of seven strangers in their attempt to arrive to Lordsburg, New Mexico. Each of these characters reflects the various types of people found in the western world. The film is laced with many American ideals of the time such as xenophobia, chivalry, the conventional standards of women, and much more. Stagecoach defies the conventional western film because it is no longer just men in a desert terrain with rifles.

The Western became one of the most popular film genres between the 1930s and the 1950s because of theses advances in technology. The development of smaller, lighter cameras freed the cameras from a tripod allowing more detailed camera work. To show moving effects cameras could be put on platforms that were attached to rubber wheels or steel rails like railroad tracks. The cameras could also be raised and lowered on cranes. Another thing that made Westerns more popular was the introduction of full colour in the 1930s and widescreen in the 1950s,