Progressive Western Film: High Noon

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The 1952 film High Noon, directed by Fred Zinnemann, is a whole new type of progressive western. High Noon explores what it means to be a different kind of hero, not one who fights with just guns and fists, but with heart. The choice to make the film in black and white instead of color is a major indicator High Noon is far from a classic western. In general, Classic Western movies, for example, The Searchers, use bright and bold colors to show how the wild west looked. In this film however, we get dark black colors that help convey to the audience that we are in a darker world. As mentioned above, color is a vital part of the western genre. Color is used to let the audience know who is a “good” and “bad” person. In contrast though, this

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