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Genre Features of Western Films
Genre Features of Western Films
Western film genre analysis
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All in all western films from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West to City Slickers and even Buck and the Preacher are made to be watched. Films are meant for entertainment. Yes sometimes they can be made to educate the viewers by showing action scenes, adventure stories, and lives of great people, as well as of successful men and women of all color. Still films are made for enjoyment. Viewers don’t want to see the history of the black soldier of US Army; they can watch that on the history channel. People go to the movies to watch action packed, adventure, comedic and love films.
Fievel Mousekewitz and his family (who are mice), who are from Russia run away from their homeland in the late 1800s, and board a boat headed for America to escape the Czarist rule of the Russian cats. Fievel, however, is separated from his family upon his arrival in New York Harbor. While he’s searching for his family throughout NYC, he discovers that there are cats in America too (his father said there weren't). Fievel meets a variety of friendly and hostile mice, and learns the ins and outs of NYC and how to survive as an immigrant. Eventually he makes friends with a cat named Tiger and together, along with others, Fievel finds his family and lives happily ever after.
Westerns have been around for many years. Some would consider westerns to be American classics because they describe early life in a mostly undiscovered America. In class two western films were watched and discussed. These two westerns were High Noon and Shane. On the surface, these movies are categorized as the same genre and look very similar but after further inspection it can be determined that the movies have a lot of differences. Of course, both movies share the same central theme of law versus social order, but the way each movie portrays this central theme is very different. This universal theme between the two movies can be investigated through, setting, violence, view of family, how women perceive guns/violence, and the choice of
In The Pathos of Failure, Thomas Elsaesser explains the emergence of a new ideology within American filmmaking, which reflects a “fading confidence in being able to tell a story” (280) and the dissolution of psychologically relatable, goal-oriented characters. He elaborates that these unmotivated characters impede the “the affirmative-consequential model of narrative [which] is gradually being replaced by another, whose precise shape is yet to crystallize” (281). Christian Keathley outlined this shape in more detail in Trapped in the Affection Image, where he argued that shifting cultural attitudes resulted in skepticism of the usefulness of action (Keathley). In Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, this crisis of action is a key element of the main characters’ failure, because it stifles the execution of classical narrative and stylistic genre conventions.
A more modern outlook on the film recognizes the film's flaws but gives it, it’s credit as the last fully realized work of one of the most important directors in American cinema history. Ford understood that an audience's recollections of older, less complex Westerns would add a layer of expressiveness to the viewing experience. The black-and-white structure helps him achieve this. Ford’s decision to shoot the film in black and white in 1962 produced a dark, anachronistic look, while the unconcealed soundstage effects of the film’s opening scene reinforced Ford’s vision of a wilderness, interiored Western frontier. Just as Ford intended, many of the flashback scenes are masked in darkness, whereas the frame tale is immersed in light. This con...
In keeping with the notion that mainstream film production is commercially rather than artistically driven, it is likely that Native Americans came to be depicted as villainous in order to produce the least amount of controversy and dissatisfaction as possible for majority white audiences. Of course, such portrayals constitute an absurd skewing of the truth, because, as Richard Slotkin acknowledges in Gunfighter Nation, “after 1700 no [Native American] tribe or group of tribes pursued… a general policy of exterminating or removing White settlements”. However, with major Hollywood studios such as United Artists (Stagecoach, Red River) and Warner Bros. (The Searchers) being financially-oriented businesses, maintaining a myth that exonerates white America for its brutality ultimately meant that the classical Western film could be passively consumed and enjoyed by the mass-market without demanding that audiences question their ancestry and the actual founding of the West. After all, to many viewers, classical narrative cinema primarily serves as a method of escapism, allowing them to be temporarily transported into a dimension that lacks the complications and incoherence of
“Film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or a refraction of the ‘real’; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image.” (Kilpatrick) Although films have found a place in society for about a century, the labels they possess, such as stereotypes which Native Americans are recognized for, have their roots from many centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, tells the story of a veteran of the American Civil War and how after his return home he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his younger niece.
Gunsmoke was the longest running radio show ever made. It is based on the historical city of Dodge. The series is centered around the character of Matt Dillon, who is the U.S. Marshall at Dodge. Each episode is one of his adventures, usually with his fellow helper, Chester, in keeping the peace and bringing justice in the area. Dillon's independence, sense of justice, and keen problem solving ever epitomize the stereotypical old-west hero.
Western films are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier. They are one of the oldest, most enduring and flexible genres and one of the most characteristically American genres in their mythic origins - they focus on the West - in North America. Western films have also been called the horse opera, the oater (quickly-made, short western films which became as common place as oats for horses), or the cowboy picture. The western film genre has portrayed much about America's past, glorifying the past-fading values and aspirations of the mythical by-gone age of the West. Over time, westerns have been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and spoofed. But, most western movies ideas derived from characteristics known to the Native Americans and Mexicans way before the American culture knew about it. What you probably know as a good old western American movie originated from a culture knows as vaqueros (cowboys for Spanish). They are many misrepresentations of cultures and races shown throughout movies from as early as 1920's with silent films. Although one could argue that silent film era was more politically correct then now a day films, the movie industry should not have the right of misrepresenting cultures of Mexicans, Indians and there life styles in films known as western films.
When one thinks of the cowboys the first thing that comes to their mind, or at least my mind would be a white man riding in the open parries of the West. But in many cases that was extremely untrue. "Nearly a third of all cowboys who helped build the American west were black (Black Pioneers Pg.16)". Many people do not know about this due to segregation. Mainly if not only white cowboys were given recognition due to the fact that slavery had just ended and many people were getting use to the fact that blacks were free and equal to them.
Unique to the United States, the Old West wields a powerful influence on the American imagination that can still be seen in numerous aspects of the nation’s culture, such as clothing lines and movies. Unfortunately, as is the case with most other periods, historic acknowledgement of African Americans’ contributions to the West is still not complete. Only recently, within the last few decades, have American scholars and the film industry earnestly begun to correct this period in regards to African Americans. In 2005, the Idaho Black History Museum (IBHM) in Boise assembled a display that incorporated the black cowboy into it.
The story of the American West is still being told today even though most of historic events of the Wild West happened over more than a century ago. In movies, novels, television, and more ways stories of the old west are still being retold, reenacted, and replayed to relive the events of the once so wild and untamed land of the west that so many now fantasize about. After reading about the old west and watching early westerns it is amazing how much Hollywood still glorifies the history and myth of the old west. It may not be directly obvious to every one, but if you look closely there is always a hint of the Western mentality such as honor, justice, romance, drama, and violence. The most interesting thing about the Old West is the fact that history and myth have a very close relationship together in telling the story of the West.
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.
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
America has come a long way with how people are treated as opposed to how things use to be not so long ago. In the film American History X (1998) we see how some parts of America were not adjusting to change in their towns which resulted in violent outbreaks and many deaths. Although throughout the movie we see the main character, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) that at the beginning of the film is in a “white power” gang and later transforms as a character to protect his brother and the rest of his family from being hurt and corrupted by the racist world that they were living in.
For many it was the American dream to be a cowboy. You were treated with respect, got all of the good looking ladies, and could do some pretty cool things when it came to guns and horses. This is shown in the movie The Searchers directed by John Ford. In this story a families ranch house is burnt down and robbed by a group of native Americans called the Comanche. They kill everyone in the family but two of the girls who are taken with them. The girls’ uncle Ethan sets out on a five year journey to find his beloved nieces. Throughout his journey to find these two young girls, we begin to meet uncle Ethan and we find that he is really not a pleasant human being. He is very violent, has a short temper, and throughout the entire movie he is blatantly racist towards anyone who is not white. This movie brings about tough questions for us to deal with, because Uncle Ethan who is played by John Wayne is racist towards the Comanche people throughout the entire movie which is no different from the rest of the movies white