Western Genre Essay

Theatre, where western films were very popular .Many Hollywood films categorize western movies into the same unimaginative description and role. The plot of the film itself is foreseeable: seven westerners come together to defend a town from morally unethical baron, unsurprisingly become friends along the way, while making sacrifices. As uninteresting as this plot may be, adding diversified characters within the cast made the movie distinct from what many may have seen in western films of yesteryear

Hawks’ celebration of the Western frontier, as one could argue about most films, includes a great deal of quality material shrouded in substandard treatment. Red River (1948) is a sprawling, epic telling the tale of the rugged ranchers that dared the first great cattle drive along the Chisholm trail from Texas to Kansas. Complications occur when attempting to define the genre and Red River, especially, is a useful tool to do just that. As Kitses deliberates, the western genre is of a “varied and flexible

A Western Hero in Shane The western genre plays an important part in the mythologising of American history. The way the western genre and particularly the western hero are put across in such films as Shane, are most likely not how real life in the 1880s was. In Shane the hero arrived on horseback, he was confident, handsome and managed to charm the female character, Marion, almost immediately. Typically, throughout the film the mysterious gunslinger was wearing

Stagecoach: The Revolutionary Western 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

intertextuality. It borrows from Romero and ingrains itself in the survivalist genre “given impetus by 9/11” but it also draws inspiration from Westerns. Rick is representative of the ‘Sherriff’ with his dress codes and values. He sports a sheriff hat, hoister and is intent about keeping the law. The series poster emulates the western genre as Rick rides a horse amongst a congestion of cars. Walkers are referred to as herds. Western narratives typically revolve around individualistic battles that mirror

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance included round and flat characters, diegetic  and non-diegetic elements, while making an impact on American Cinema. Western films, according to Richard Barsam, and Dave Monahan, “predates the invention of motion pictures, and this single genre has fascinated European Americans since the frontier was just a few hundred miles inland from the eastern coast” (102-103) .     Previously, in chapter four; “a round character was described as a complex character possessing

The birth of the Western film comes from the unknown, lone hero whom defeats the villains on the frontier. In the case of the classical plot, the hero comes into society and ultimately fights for society against the villains using their own moral code usually ensuing violence and death. In the film, Shane, the Western hero, Shane, is just this hero whom cares about the good of society and stands up to the villains. Shane inevitably leaves upon defeating the villains showing that good triumphs evil

other western genres. It is a story that is formed from a novel by Upton Sinclair’s book, Oil! (1927) (Belton, 2009, p.401). Many westerns were based on dime novels that were written in the mid and late 1800s (Belton, 2009, p.246). American society was going through a transitional period from an agrarian society to an industrial society in the 1800s and early 1900s (Wright 2001; Desk Encyclopedia, 1989, pp. 27-28, 630-631). The change in revolutions could explain the difference in most western genres

Unforgiven, a film directed by Clint Eastwood in 1992 utilizing a screenplay written by David Webb Peoples1 tries to deconstruct the typical portrayal of Old Hollywood’s American frontier in regard to romanticizing violence thereby freeing the typical genre from its old, preconceived stereotypes. The main film stars three well-known actors: Clint Eastwood (as William Munny), Morgan Freeman (as Ned Logan), and Gene Hackman (as Little Bill Daggett). Eastwood dedicated this film to three film directors,

Clementine In the Western genre, according to Jim Kitses, anyone is able to understand it as a genre articulating a cultural mythology (Belton 249). In this case, the American psyche. It has been said that the Western represents the myth of the frontier, which meant the unsettled land at the edge of the frontier where land was unlimited and free for any man to claim. This notion dates back to the late nineteenth-century. Accordingly, Hollywood produced more Western films than any other genre between the