Outlaw Heroes in Literature
In "The Thematic Paradigm", Robert Ray explains how there are two distinctly different heroes, the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero embraces common values and traditional beliefs, while the outlaw has a clear sense of right and wrong but operates above the law (Ray). Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. "The attractiveness of the outlaw hero's childishness and propensity to whims, tantrums, and emotional decisions derived from America's cult of childhood", states Ray. (309) Ray also says, "To the outlaw hero's inconsistence on private standards of right and wrong, the official hero offered the admonition, you cannot take the law into your own hands." (312) The values of these two traditional heroes contrasts clearly. Society favors the outlaw hero because we identify with that character more. We see ourselves more so in the outlaw hero than in the official hero. The outlaw hero has the "childlike" qualities that most of us wish we had as adults. To civilians it may seem that the outlaw hero lives more of a fantasy life that we all wish to have.
Robert B. Ray categorizes Casablanca as "the most typical" American film. Ray uses Casablanca as a tutor text for what he calls the formal paradigm of Classical Hollywood as well as the thematic paradigm that addresses the conflict between isolationism and communitarian participation. The film is typical in its appropriation of an official hero Laszlo, who stands for the civilizing values of home and community, and an outlaw hero Rick, who stands for individu...
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...n isolationist.
If Casablanca's audience had to choose between Rick and Laszlo, they would choose Rick because everything in the film has prepared them to choose him, who represents the rejection of America's involvement in world politics. Instead, the film relieves the audience of the necessity of choice by displacing the film's political conflict into melodrama, where familiar emotions overwhelm ideas. Although Victor Laszlo is always in Rick's shadow, he stands for the values of the father and the prevailing American belief in 1942 that freedom is worth fighting and dying for, which is the definition of the official hero. By censoring the theme of American reluctance to give up its autonomy, the film spares the audience the agony of siding against the values of the father, condensing the oedipal resolution to another shared experience between Rick and the viewer.
Casablanca was directed in an era almost entirely dedicated to propaganda, as far as the film industry is concerned. The movie promoted America and the Allies similar to most films of the time, but it did so in a much different manner. The story told in Casablanca follows the main character, Rick, through his personal affairs and love tango with another lead character, Ilsa Lund. The film begins with Rick alone running his saloon based in Casablanca, in which he seems very indifferent to other people’s affairs, and comes off as very exclusive. He is delivered letters of transit by a man named Ugarte, which are nearly priceless to any refugee desiring to flee to the United States or another unoccupied country. Rick continues to act disinterested, reluctantly agreeing to hide the documents. He holds onto them even after Ugarte is killed for having stolen the letters, although there did not seem to be an...
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
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
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.
Everyone has their own perception on what defines a hero; some may argue that they exhibit characteristics such as honesty or courage, while others may think that heroes have special power. Our society may have changed the values in which we associate heroes with, but one thing seems to have never changed: the main character of the book turns out as the hero. In my analyst, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye, is put on trial as we see through our own eyes how Caulfield can not be considered a hero in modern society.
In the essay “Beautiful Friendship: Masculinity & Nationalism in Casablanca”, Peter Kunze lavishly explains the magnificence of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca. Kunze focuses on how the movie not only highlights an exchange of relationships, but how the film has an underlying meaning between these relationships. He also implies that there is a more complex meaning behind every character in regards to their gender, economic, and social roles. The overall thesis of his reading is “the patriarchal ideology underlying the narrative commodifies Ilsa, leading Rick to exchange her with other men in an act of friendship and solidarity as well as to dissuade any perception of queerness between the strong male friendships in the narrative” (Kunze
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
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 1942 movie, “Casablanca” portrays a World War II era enclave where refugees fled Nazi Europe and used this unoccupied city as a safe haven while pursuing their dreams of coming to America. The main character is Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, who owns a nightclub and casino in unoccupied Morocco during the Nazi era. Blaine, whose sole purpose appears to be money, illuminates a sense of arrogance and self righteousness as he assists in retrieving the necessary immigration documents for those who are willing to pay the price for their freedom. Hidden deep within his memory are the reflections of a women that he once loved, Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman. The third leading role was that of Paul Henreid who played the Ilsa’s husband in the movie. Victor Laszlo, a Jewish activist who was on the run from the German Regime was once believed to be dead after being captured and placed in a concentration camp, during which time his wife (Ilsa) fled to Paris and ultimately had an affair with Rick Blaine.
...t it is clearly obvious what is about to happen using an establishing shot. Casablanca also uses camera angle specifically portraying Captain Renault and Strasser as less powerful people in the office scene. Editing allows for smooth transitions between shots and allows for us as viewers to experience the scene like we are seeing through the characters eyes. Lighting provides us a mood of the scene, specifically when Rick first sees Ilsa for the first time since Paris. The Music plays a role in how we as audiences should feel while watching the movie. And without production design movies would not flow correctly. Every setting is specifically chosen to depict the location where the scene takes place. Casablanca is a quintessential film because it ties up all the formal elements of classical Hollywood. Without this movie Hollywood may be a completely different place.
Despite not being considered as the traditional ‘hero’s journey’ which is outlined in Joseph Campbell’s argument of ‘separation-initiation-return’, Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine, in the 1942 film Casablanca, can be argued to follow this twelve-step journey. Campbell states “whether the hero be ridiculous or sublime…” (p.38), on this basis, Rick Blaine qualifies as a hero. These twelve steps are: Ordinary World; Call to Adventure/Disruption; Refusal of the Call; Meeting with the Mentor; Crossing the First Threshold; Tests, Allies, and Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave; Ordeal; Reward; The Road Back; The Resurrection; and Return with the Elixir. Although in some parts stages may overlap, this essay aims to argue that Casablanca still
One characteristic that almost all Film Noirs have in common is a certain mold of protagonist. While most genres of movie have a heroic, or at least optimistic and generally positive...
Laszlo is a known to be opposer to the Germans, so the Germans were looking for him. Lisa knows Rick can find them a way to get out of the country. The film started with the owner of a famous night club, Rick Blaine, receiving two important visa letters. These letters are so important because these letters are coming straight from above so one will go straight to America without any issue with the people that will check it. When a Czech underground leader, Victor Lazlo, came in town with Rick’s old love flame the plot gets thick. Now Rick Blaine has to make a decision whether not to help Lazlo escape the Germans and get back together with his long-time love Lisa or to help Lazlo run to the Americas to assist in a revolution against the Nazi’s. This clearly shows how the problems of war and love become very complex in the film. Casablanca is a great piece of movie history because not only did it do a great deal to show how people were affected by the war, but also because
Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca may be a black and white film, but the story that it tells is richly saturated with drama, romance, and plot twists.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...