In David Laderman’s Driving Visions (2002), Laderman identifies three essential ingredients to the road movie genre - psychological identity crisis, socio-political critique and the revolutionary spirit of new Hollywood (“Driving Visions”, 27) where socio-political and historical critique plays a crucial role. Badlands (TM, 1973) undoubtedly fulfills these criterion set by Laderman and was particularly important to the genre, as it was part of a “boom of American auteur-driven breakouts that challenged American film making standards”(Runyon), and it left “a crowded legacy of road movies” in its wake (“Driving Visions”, 117). With Bonnie and Clyde (AP, 1967) as its precursor, the two films have many similarities, such as the ‘outlaw couple’. However, Badlands sets itself distinctly apart by changing Bonnie and Clyde’s romance for irony. This film marks a change of course for the road movie genre, and drifts away from the romance and modernism of pre-1970s road movies to irony and post modernism of later road movies (“What a Trip”, 50). Based on the historical events of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugates’ killing spree, Badlands portrays more than a mere re-account of the storyline. By using the framework of the road movie genre, Badlands is able to form a cultural critique of American society in an era of socio-cultural disruption (Curley) during the 1960s and 1970s. The genre also allows Malick to explore new cinematic styles and filming techniques by keeping a relatively loose narrative. Laderman’s criteria of psychological identity crisis, is clearly portrayed in the two main characters of the film. Kit represents a youth, who lives a boring life, and kicks a can as a form of amusement (Ebert). He has little prospect for b... ... middle of paper ... ...ns in the Road Movie." Http://www.ucd.ie. 28 Mar. 2014. . Danks, Adrian. "Death Comes as an End: Temporality, Domesticity and Photography in Terrence Malick’s Badlands." Senses of Cinema RSS. July 2000. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. . Ebert, Roger. "Badlands." Rogerebert.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. . Laderman, David. Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Laderman, David. "What a Trip: The Road Film and American Culture." Journal of Film and Video Vol. 48 (n.d.): 41-57. JSTOR. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. Runyon, Christopher. "The Terrence Malick Retrospective: Badlands." Movie Mezzanine. 22 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
Director Jim Jarmusch’s film Deadman displays many of the accepted conventions for Western genre films, but manipulated in such a way as to create a revisionist, rather than a classical, western. The most obvious example of this manipulation are the characterizations of the hero, William Blake, and his Native American partner, Nobody. Blake is an awkward easterner who travels westward unaware of the different rules governing western life, instead of the rugged, knowledgeable outdoorsman who “does what he has to do” to defend justice and honor. Nobody’s character is unusually independent, educated, and kind towards Blake, instead of the traditional Western genre’s violent, unintelligent Indian.
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.
In this paper I will offer a structural analysis of the films of Simpson and Bruckheimer. In addition to their spectacle and typically well-crafted action sequences, Simpson/Bruckheimer pictures seem to possess an unconscious understanding of the zeitgeist and other cultural trends. It is this almost innate ability to select scripts that tap into some traditional American values (patriotism, individualism, and the obsession with the “new”) that helps to make their movies blockbusters.
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...
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
The road movie embodies the human desire for travel and progression. The vehicle of journey is a contemporary metaphor of personal transformation that oftentimes mirrors socio-cultural desires and fears. Thomas Schatz believes that one “cannot consider either the filmmaking process or films themselves in isolation from their economic, technological, and industrial context.” This statement is especially applicable to the independent American films of the late sixties, a time of great political and social debate. Easy Rider (1969) was considered a new voice in film that was pitched against the mainstream. In the 1960s, there was a shift to highlight the outsiders or the anti-heros in film. This counter-cultural radicalism seems to have also influenced the 1991 film, Thelma & Louise. The characters of both films act as figures of anti-heroism by rebelling against the conventional and unintentionally discovering themselves at the same time. Despite their different backgrounds, the protagonists of Eas...
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
The reclusive film director Terrence Malick has to date, only directed a small number of films. His twenty year hiatus between directing Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), may provide the explanation for such a sparse back catalogue. Malick’s refusal to talk with the media, has led to hearsay, as to how he occupied his time during the hiatus. Malick’s directing debut Badlands (1973) is a collection of concepts, all carefully moulded together to create one iconic piece of film. This process draws in and also alienates the audience. Malick’s style is positively noted by critics to be influenced by European philosophy. This is clearly due to Malick’s study of philosophy at Harvard and Magdalen College Oxford. There is no given explanation to the mindless violence featured within the film, mainly due to the films resistance to the straight forward approach. The familiar and the unknown are carefully merged together. The only way of gaining an understanding into the hidden meanings within Badlands is by breaking down the film, by looking at the characters, the use of sound, the visual setting and the films genre. The illusionary effect of Malick’s style means that all is not as it seems.
Lethal Weapon 4 is one of the many Lethal Weapon series that amalgamates action, drama, comedy and heart warming stories into a well-packaged film. Part of the success of the film lies within the resplendent chemistry between the two partners Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. The profound relationship between the two characters is built on differences of age, class and race. Through fighting crime and contending demons Riggs and Murtaugh come to find common ground for bonding despite their disparities. Whilst comedy and action play an imperative part in attracting audiences, viewers participate in the evolving lives of the two partners. In the context to the black-white inter-racial relation, the co-operative partnership demonstrates...
Fast and Furious 7, a multilayered, mass mayhem, is an action packed and triumphant film directed by James Wan, written by Chris Morgan and starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson and several other actors. Throughout the past fifteen years of a devoted series, it has advanced from a basic low-budget movie about a couple of young adult street racers into an intercontinental law-breaking epic covering multiple continents and more than a dozen characters to partake. The scenes are increasingly substantial and preposterous, and it is tough to envision any other movie exceeding them. Before the traditional and multiple vehicle chases instigate, the immediate overall atmosphere is mostly mournful. The leading cast discourse ominously about
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.
Malick is also the director of movies such as, “Bad Lands”, “Thin Red Line”, “The New World”, and “To the Wonder.” Each movie features existential questions; relating to the purpose of life and the existence of god for “The Tree of Life,” Nature Versus Civilization for “The New World,” Love and the existence of god again for “To The Wonder,” and violence as a violation of man and as a violation of nature in “Thin Red Line.” Terrence Malick movies are beautifully filmed, especially “The Tree of Life,” The use of mise-en-scene in place of dialogue is shown heavily in this movie and also appears in several of his other movies including “Days of Heaven” (source here wordpress.) We also see a tendency to make the main characters partial “anti-heros.” Like the morally conflicted main character of “The Tree of Life” who breaks into people’s home, throws rocks at windows, hates his father, and questions his religion. Another movie that features this anti-hero persona, though based off of a previously explored topic, “The New World’s” main character is faced with conflicting morals about whether to pursue his the love of his life stay and help lead his own people who brought him to the new world in chains and attempted to hang him. John