More handpicked essays just for you.
Characteristics of the western genre film
Characteristics of the western genre film
Aspects of a western film
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The western is one of my personal favorite genres, not in the sense that I particularly like it but because it was one of the categories of movies I was raised on. I watched a host of John Wayne’s westerns, somewhere around two dozen, along with a few other movies from the genre. I still enjoy some of Wayne’s films, though I haven’t seen them in their entirety in years. What I’m trying to say is, I was excited to watch “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a purported classic of the genre. And while I liked the film, I was let down by it.
The film follows its titular characters as they perform their normal illicit activities: robbing trains and banks. They also do other things that make the lives outlaws seem glamorous, including drink, gamble
…show more content…
and sleep with women, including Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place (Katharine Ross). When a train heist goes wrong, we see Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) forced to evade a posse of tenacious, skilled lawmen bent on hunting down the infamous duo, causing them to resort to some desperate measures to escape. The main reason many regard this film as a classic is the duo of Newman and Redford, and they are easily the best part of the film. Newman is charming and likeable, as you would expect from him, and he is also convincing in the dramatic scenes of the movie. He makes the audience buy that his character is more than a lighthearted, carefree bandit. Robert Redford, in an early screen performance, matches Newman in every scene. He works as a great foil to Newman’s easygoing personality, and he is also believable in the more serious moments of the film. And, even though his character is more of the stereotypical, strong and silent cowboy, he has some excellent comedic skills, delivering a few of the film’s funniest lines. Of course, the two stars also share excellent chemistry. Redford and Newman have William Goldman’s Oscar-winning screenplay to thank for those lines. Goldman, whose work on “All the President’s Men” and “The Princess Bride” I love, delivers a good screenplay here, though not of the same stature of those landmarks. He does a fine job of demystifying the western to a certain extent by making these two protagonists more human, relatable characters, as opposed to the sueprheroesque qualities of John Wayne. He also writes his fair share of funny dialogue, including a plethora of one-liners and exchanges that made me smile. Another highlight of the film is the look of it. Director George Roy Hill, who received an Oscar nomination, certainly captures how a western should look. He and cinematographer Conrad Hall – who won an Oscar for his work here – use a suitable amount of long shots and natural lighting to make the film look like an authentic western. The costumes by Edith Head also serve this purpose, as they look very much like clothing people would wear during this time period, but also convey something about the characters. Butch’s clothing is a little high class and suave, like Newman’s character, while Sundance’s clothing is a little more rugged and practical, again like the character. While Roy Hill may have succeeded in capturing the look of a western, he failed at capturing the feel of a western.
My main problem with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” is one of tone. The tone in this film oscillates too much, leaving viewers unsure of how to react in several scenes. In most westerns, there is an epic feel but that is not the case here. That’s fine, as this film is a different type of western. But Roy Hill never manages the appropriate tone for that type of western either, as the movie often feels too serious, considering it’s more of lighthearted buddy comedy. This lack of a consistent, apropos tone that Roy Hill couldn’t blend took me out of the film and prevented me from ever fully investing in the minimal story.
Perhaps part of the reason for this inconsistent tone is the use of the score by Burt Bacharach, who won an Oscar for the score and original song on this film. Again, in keeping with making a nontraditional western, Bacharach uses more contemporary music. That’s a fine idea, but poorly executed as the music never feels like an interesting contrast to the setting, but merely out of place. Look no farther than the bicycle scene or the montage in the middle of film for music that seems inconsistent with the images
onscreen. On top of that, the score is used too sparingly. While I may not have wanted more of this particular music, Bacharach may not have scored the entire film this way. But Roy Hill, by design, wanted to use less music in order to make a unique western. There’s a reason that westerns employ music as often as they do, however, and this film felt somehow incomplete with the minimalist score. In fact, a decent score could have improved the film’s tone as music could have provided a more consistent mood for the film. Overall, I liked “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” but I by no means loved it. Newman and Redford are outstanding, Goldman’s script is solid and Roy Hill gets the look of the western right. In the end, though, I was too bothered and taken out of the film by the poor tone and music. This is a decent film and western, but it will not go down as one of my favorite films or favorite member of the genre.
“And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is a failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath” (Steinbeck 349). John Steinbeck, the author of The Grapes of Wrath, portrays the migrant’s resentment of the California land owners and their way of life and illustrates that the vagrants from Oklahoma are yearning for labor, provisions, and human decency. Similarly in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee elucidates the concept that people should be treated with inclusive human dignity and be affected by good aspects rather than deleterious behavior. In addition to both novels, “Suffering with Them”, “Evil’s Fate”, and “To Hope” share the same concurrent theme. To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath and “Suffering with Them”, “Evil’s Fate”, and “To Hope” illustrate a synonymous, thematic message that evil’s inhumanity, during corrupt times, induces a perception of hopefulness for good to conquer immorality.
There are many writers that convey their purposes using different methods. Many writers use different techniques to persuade their audience towards a specific idea in their writing. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain tells the story about a boy named Huck, who takes on many adventures along with Jim, a runaway slave. Throughout their journey, Huck starts to realize that African Americans are much the same as white Americans. He sees that the treatments of African Americans is wrong and cruel. Huck’s view on African Americans changes through the course of the novel because Twain introduces his idea of racism being immoral through the different uses of techniques. Writers like Walt Whitman, Brent Staples, Langston
My analysis begins, as it will end, where most cowboy movies begin and end, with the landscape.Western heroes are essentially synedoches for that landscape, and are identifiable by three primary traits: first, they represent one side of an opposition between the supposed purity of the frontier and the degeneracy of the city, and so are separated even alienated from civilization; second, they insist on conducting themselves according to a personal code, to which they stubbornly cling despite all opposition or hardship to themselves or others; and third, they seek to shape their psyches and even their bodies in imitation of the leanness, sparseness, hardness, infinite calm and merciless majesty of the western landscape in which their narratives unfold.All of these three traits are present in the figures of Rob Roy and William Wallace--especially their insistence on conducting themselves according to a purely personal definition of honor--which would seem to suggest that the films built around them and their exploits could be read as transplanted westerns.However, the transplantation is the problem for, while the protagonists of these films want to be figures from a classic western, the landscape with which they are surrounded is so demonstrably not western that it forces their narratives into shapes which in fact resist and finally contradict key heroic tropes of the classic western.
The University of Georgia’s theatre adaptation of the penny dreadful story, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, was very similar, design wise, to Tim Burton’s 2007 film of the same name. While the two were very comparable, they did differ in many design elements which include, lighting, costumes, color, and key structural set-ups.
The two films that are analyzed for similarities and differences to convey significant ideas for the integrity of their own story line: they are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, directed by George Roy Hill and released in 1969, and Thelma & Louise, directed by Ridley Scott and released in 1991. In these two films, we watch them search for freedom within ourselves and freedom from societal norms. Along the way this creates entanglement with the law and causing a constant chase throughout both films. What keeps these characters from backing down is their free-spirited, brave, and most important a firm grip on their own fate. This mentality keeps the characters on their toes from what’s holding them back, however their own actions, history
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck had many comparisons from the movie and the book. In 1939, this story was to have some of the readers against the ones that kept the American people in poverty held responsible for their actions. This unique story was about the Joad’s family, who were migrant workers looking for a good decent job. They were also farmers from Oklahoma that are now striving to find some good work and success for their family in California. This novel was one of Steinbeck’s best work he has ever done. It was in fact an Academy Award movie in 1940. Both the movie and the novel are one of Steinbeck’s greatest masterpieces on both the filmmaking and the novel writing. Both the novel and film are mainly the same in the beginning of the story and towards the end. There were some few main points that Steinbeck took out from the book and didn’t mention them in the movie. “The Grapes of Wrath is a
...nterviewees explained how much he loved one of the drug dealers who introduced him to the hustle. He always provided him with money and goods until he felt he was old enough to make his own money and become a drug dealer himself. The film explains how children who grow up in these areas make rational choices because in their eyes selling and using is a norm and an option to survival. "You do what you gotta do" according to Shanequa.
John Steinbeck wrote the The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 to rouse its readers against those who were responsible for keeping the American people in poverty. The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, migrant farmers from Oklahoma traveling to California in search of an illusion of prosperity. The novel's strong stance stirred up much controversy, as it was often called Communist propaganda, and banned from schools due to its vulgar language. However, Steinbeck's novel is considered to be his greatest work. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and later became an Academy Award winning movie in 1940. The novel and the movie are both considered to be wonderful masterpieces, epitomizing the art of filmmaking and novel-writing.
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
The classic gangster film focusing on a host of norms defined by some of the first gangster films. This genre originated as an escapism from the negative depression era. People would flock to see the gangsters go from rags to riches with their glitzy lifestyle and beautiful women. As Shadoian puts it, “The gangster’s fizzy spirits, classy lifestyle, and amoral daring were something like Alka-Seltzer for the headaches of the depression” (Shadoin 29). Not all this came easily for the gangsters though, bloodshed is defined as a part of business with guns a constant motif. Despite these negative outcomes, it’s easy to see how this genre was such a great elusion from the everyday where the American Dream seemed like it might not even exist anymore.
When one thinks of the United States of America, they probably consider our history, our culture, our media, our impressive cities and the extremely wide variety of beautiful wildernesses that we are lucky enough to still enjoy. We are lucky enough to have a melting pot of cultures in this country, and many different kinds of people. However, when thinking of an original, all-American figure, cowboys come to mind for many people. Our history and the settlement of the U.S. was unlike any other country, and the development of the country in the more western states came with the unique and fascinating time period referred to now as “The Old West”. The Old West was a crucial time in American history, and though it was a simpler time it also came with its share of excitement. Some of the most memorable details about the Old West were the characters that came with it, and some extremely interesting ones were the least conforming- the outlaws. Jesse Woodson James was one of the most notorious outlaws in American history. His name would go down in history as one belonging to a tough as nails and fearless bank robber who led a group of outlaws across the mid-west robbing banks and trains, and even murdering people. When we look at the big picture of what the U.S. has become today, The Old West certainly has had a large impact on our culture, and Jesse James certainly had a large impact on the Old West. Though most would argue that he was not a decent or moral person, one cannot argue that he was still a very interesting and unique icon of the west. So how did Jesse Woodson James change and leave his mark on the United St...
In One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and "The South" by Jorge Luis Borges, many similar devices are used by the authors. Their presentations and their uses are sometimes similar and at times dissimilar. There is one device that is used by both authors that is one of the most prominent devices in both works--the train. The presentation and use of the train in both texts is different, but in both it is a method of transportation and an evil entity that is an active symbol of change.
Although at times it is easy to get carried away with the adventure of a story, noticing the elements a writer has put into his work is very important. In reading “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” you can see both similarities as well as differences of how both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving chose to illuminate their romantic writing styles. The writers both use a mystical woodsy setting with supernatural twists to draw in readers. Underlying you will find the differing romantic themes each writer used, as well as how each writer chose to end their work.
The storyline is normally about a hero who comes to a town to bring peace and drive the villains out. A hero is usually seen as a vigilante as he is not told to come to help but does anyway. The hero often appears as a quiet, secretive, mysterious person who may make the audience admire him one minute and dislike him the next, he is also a very smart, cunning and adaptable which are all good values in a hero. The villain is usually fixed to one idea he thinks it is a smart cunning person but in the end is always defeated. Many scenes are set around the Saloon (bar) and there is quite often a romance involved with the hero and a local girl, the villain competing for her affections! There are two different types of villains in typical westerns Native Americans and white villains (cowboys).
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.