Western Genre Essays

Although many of the motifs and structures used in Brokeback Mountain follow the western genre, the ultimate powerlessness and emotional involvement produced in the film fall into the melodrama genre.Masculinity and the western landscape are the two most symbolic elements in the western because of their power to be translated into epic mythologies and concepts of freedom.Chris Packard (2006) states, “If there is something national about the cowboy, and if there is something homoerotic about the partnerships he forms in the wilderness, then there is something homoerotic about American national identity as the literary West conceives it.” Because of this, homosexuality is not an issue that is readily explored in western literature or cinem...

Not many modern filmmakers have tried their hand at the Western genre since its death but James Mangold has directed 3:10 to Yuma, a Western created long after the end of the “classic” Western genre and amidst the height of the action genre.The western film genre has influenced many action films and it is easy to see how the western is still alive under modern stories.The Western genres character archetypes include a hero who is not driven by what is good or moral but by money or property.After looking at what makes a western and what makes an action movie and comparing a classic western to a western made in the action genre it is easy to see how modern westerns stray from the original idea of what the genre is.It is obvious though that ...

In the Western genre, women aren’t regarded as vital elements, yet at the same time their contribution is usually to play damsels in distress and show the humane side of the manly hero.Most Western movies focus on cowboy outlaws, who live by their own rules and follow their own beliefs on justice, while this film focuses on the transformation rather than the man.The social commentary in the film is overwhelming, sometimes seeming to drive the slow-paced plot.Criticism of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman .Jim Jarmusch’s Deadman is a complex interweaving of the rough and tough world of cowboys mixed with blatant criticism of the Western genre as well as the American lifestyle during those times in history.

Actor Hugh Grant is perhaps best known for his work in the romantic comedy genre .These actors usually stick to specific genres as they are suited best to them and are successful as a result .This is also true of movie producers .when promoting a film by its genre it helps the film industry from a money making viewpoint as since certain genres are known to generate larger box office intakes than others .The period of time is also relevant i.e.An example of this is the late director John Ford, who worked almost entirely in the Western film genre.They were placed into specific genres based on these elements .There are various aspects to what makes a film fit into a genre an example of this is Westerns usually have certain codes: for exampl...

He draws on other films within the genre, as well as adding and accentuating icons of his own (e. g. the coffin maker) to produce a sophisticated, post-modern vision of the Western genre.This all requires an audience that has a sophisticated knowledge of the Western genre.The two quotes above, the first from Anthony Mann and the second from Sergio Leone, both illustrate completely different views of the Western genre as a form of filmmaking.This intertextual parody of previous classic Westerns suggests that Leone expects his audience to have a sophisticated knowledge of the Western genre in order to gain full appreciation of his production.By the early 1950’s the Western genre had indeed become ‘bogged down’ with psychology, exploring th...

“At its GENRE THEORY 3 simplest, a Western is a man and his horse, taking on the struggles of nature and his fellow man”.Near the end of the film Ben Wade begins to help Dan Evans with getting him to the train so Dan Evans can collect the $200 bounty promised by the GENRE THEORY 4 law men.However most genres will likely have a sub genre According to Goodyknootz, B. , & Jacobs, C. P. (2014) Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed. )Some films can often mix 4 genres into a single film allowing the creator the free use of his imagination, however even these films ultimately will fall into a major genre category.Unfortunately genres can also cause some people to often judge a film based on it’s genre, if they’ve seen a certain film that wa...

There is also other genres not mentioned but again, these are some of the most notable.Though Samurai Champloo has less genre mixes within the show, the genres in it are more elaborated on and fleshed out for what they offer.For those that do not know what the spaghetti western genre is, a prime example would be a classic film like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood.One large part of Watanabe’s style consists of “genre mixing” and Cowboy Bebop’s most notable example of “genre mixing” comes from interesting enough, the show’s western influences.One western genre that can be seen clearly in the title is that of the cowboy western genre or more so, spaghetti western.

Not because Depp’s Blake resembles the actual poet, but because William Blake’s poetic themes can be recognized throughout the story.The hero of the Western, personified so well by Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood, draws his six-shooter fast and is lethally accurate.The most jarring difference from the Western genre in Dead Man is that the hero, William Blake, does not saunter into town with a pistol on his hip, let alone know how to shoot one.Considering the Western genre , as presented by Robert Warshow, one may note whisky-swilling gunslingers, prostitutes alongside their madams, and arguments over poker tables in smoke filled saloons resulting in someone being thrown through the glass window.Dennis Schwartz claims “Jarmusc...

Any new genre of music is going to be influenced by another genre or have a genre incorporated into it.By the 1930s they had taken the reels, waltzes, fiddle breakdowns, and other styles they had learned from their elders and combined them with blues, rags, jazz, swing, and pop to create a remarkably diverse and dynamic new sound that would come to be known as Western swing (Hartman, 144).Bob Wills died in 1975, but was still a major influence in up and coming young country artists like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack.The audience was surprisingly pleased with this unwanted change by the directors.I think Western swing is western music even though it is heavily influenced by other genres.

For example a crime/drama movie may start with a drama start but because the movie displays its genre the viewers will know eventually later on the movie will begin to involve crime scenes, what also defines the what genre it is, is the certain stock characters and dramatic situations associated with a specific category, such as a mobster having family issues.Uncovering the genre of a movie before viewing would reveal the movies subject matter and suitability.Cinematography and editing will have to use correctly for the audience to get a depth feel as well as visually.What defines a genre varies, props, locations etc.Crime movies usually involve violence, bad language, money and drugs.

All of those similarities are not used in the same way, however; they are used as tools to give this surface western a deeper meaning that no true western film ever explored.With a combination of elements related to the western genre and a genre Jarmusch creates all on his own, the viewer can begin to explore and appreciate the unique film, Dead Man.In western movies there is always a dirty town with the same characteristics.In Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, he pays homage to the classic style of western films while taking his own eccentric take that puts the film in a league of its own.It may seem like a western to the naked eye, but with further examination it’s very clear that Jarmusch was using it to mock American society when it comes to ...

Not only does the film force the audience to think about the effects of violence, but questions whether we as an audience, like Tom’s family, can accept violence as an ambiguous method of social order.To do this, the focus shifts away from films that play on the ... ... middle of paper ... ...oral world.However, while The Western has focused on various topics throughout its cinematic history, what ultimately serves as the primary critique of the genre, is the exploration of role of violence and aggression within society (Lusted 16).Instead, by allowing the character to live, Cronenberg not only suggests that there’s moral grounding within the use of violence, particularly in terms of its supposed protection towards the progression of soc...

The productions and rodeos added action and frivolity to the Western film genre.New York : Atheneum.The American film industry’s early attempts at the narrative Western were limited and in the early years were produced mainly in the east.John Ford’s Stagecoach (United Artists) has been hailed as the official Western Classic.Buscombe, E. (1988).

For example, one of the three killers sleeps with a Teddy Bear.Jarmusch combines these three elements to make his movie “Dead Man.” .Many situations and even dialogue are humorous.Additionally, Nobody calls Blake a “stupid fucking white man.” This is funny purely because it is not something that would be expected from his character.Elements of Western, Comedy and Thriller in Jarmusch’s Film Dead Man .

One of the best examples of such a cultural niche in cinematography is the genre of western, the term which relates to the classic American literary and film tradition based on the usually romanticized depiction of the history of the American West.Soon after its inception the genre of film became perhaps the most dynamically developing form of modern popular art.In this situation, film makers apparently felt that to keep western movies interesting and relevant for the audience adaptations were to be made to them so that a potential of this cinematographic genre to serve as a medium for a wider criticism of values of American society, and other societies of the Western world for that matter, could be fully realized.Finally, by the close o...

With careful attention to hyper-realistic mise-en-scène elements (most notably elements of setting) and naturalistic, largely non-obtrusive diagetic sound effects, Robert Altman crafts a successful ‘revisionist western’ that, while retaining many of the same themes and elements pertaining to the classic western genre, differs substantially in both tone and style in ways that promulgate Altman’s revisionist approach to the established genre.Departing from the larger-than-life nature of classical western heroes, director Robert Altman injects a darker realism into his protagonist that reflects the revisionist nature of the film.These mise-en-scène and sound elements work seamlessly together to achieve what I believe was Altman’s ultimate g...

According to The New Encyclopedia Britannica, the “Western” is defined as “an original genre of novels and short stories, motion pictures, and television and radio shows that are set in the American West, usually in the period from the 1850s to the end of the nineteenth century,” (598).The main genre used in most of Harte’s stories is the “Western”.Shaping the Western genre and writing some of the most memorable stories of all time, such as “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” was how Bret Harte was able to contribute to the rise of American literature.In fact, they are quite typical in modern Western stories, but Harte was the one to come up with them.All of these characters that Harte used are still seen in many Western stories today.

In conclusion, John Ford was an amazingly intuitive film director and has created two iconic western films.Stagecoach was made before World War II and Ford certainly makes use of many recognisable images that are representative of the traditional western genre: “corrals and ten-gallon hats, swinging saloon doors and Colt revolvers, stagecoaches … showdowns and shootouts” (Langford 54).Both films also question women’s roles in the western genre.However, Stagecoach can’t be depicted as simply a traditional western.Both films are about journeys in the pioneering American west of the latter nineteenth century and parallel the latter twentieth century road movie genre.

Rock music has many different subgenres that it has been broke down into and one of the most popular in the late 1960s and 1970s was acid rock or psychedelic rock.Rock and Roll first started as a genre that African Americans l... ... middle of paper ... ...and did covers of their songs.It primarily started as a genre of music based around African Americans.The genre had a unique beginning because it was the combination of jazz, gospel, blues, and western country music.With this being a new genre of music, many new ideas were brought into the music world that had never been thought of.

The 1960s and 1970s marked the height of the western television series, which was now successful in Europe: the western was fashionable - mainly in France, Italy and the GDR - thanks to the revival instilled by the spaghetti western and more, the number of televisions increased considerably due to the improvement of the standard of living during the Thirty Glorious Years.The Russian genre takes two forms: either a typical western but shot in the East, or an action film involving the Russian Revolution or the Russian Civil War in which the Turks play the role of Mexicans from the traditional western.In fact, the science fiction western can be seen as a sub-genre of western or science fiction.This first rapprochement of video games with th...

Dell Publishing.Bibliography: .Both McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Blade Runner are excellent films, they manage to succeed in subverting traditional genres in a way that creates fresh and different movies which both critics and movie goers have not seen before.Two genres which have always been Hollywood staples are science-fiction and the western.Hollywood Renaissance: The New Generation of Filmmakers and their works.

“The Searchers.” 25 March 2000 Retrieved 9 October 2007 From .The western genre would then never be the same.There are certain conventions that were common in the western genre prior to the redefining of the genre in such films as THE WILD BUNCH and A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS where the line between the heroes and the villains are blurred due to the violent, amoral actions of the heroes.This is somewhat undermined by the ending as critic Jeffrey Anderson points out that when niece Lucy jumps into Wayne’s arms as if “she were an android with no thoughts or feelings of her own” and Wayne’s/Edward’s easy acceptance of her despite her being a Comanche wife for two years is somewhat too much of a Hollywood style ending to accept.However, this en...

However, during later generations, the traditional cowboy ballad and honky-tonk styles would be resurrected and reimagined with the huge surge in popularity of "outlaw country" music from Texas and Oklahoma.Originating in the 1920’s in Southern United States, country music takes inspiration from American folk music and Western music.Rock-and-roll country took over country music sales, and, due to low popularity, recording firms in Hollywood dropped most of their Western singers.The new increase in production in Nashville also played a huge role, where the Nashville sound, rockabilly, and country rock styles reigned over traditional "cowboy" artists.During this time, country and western music as a style and genre lost most of its southwes...

For an audience, genre often provides a way of choosing a film they want to see.Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged auteur master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience’s fears and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character.Because of a changing nature of genres and subgenres, their fusion and our changing perception toward art, independent or foreign films that are becoming its own genre in western viewers eyes.Other films have elements of the genre, but also introduce new ideas.The periods in which a genre remains popular is called cycles.

Robert Allen comments wryly that ‘Tudor even hints that in order to establish what audiences expect a western to be like we might have to ask them’ (Allen 1989, 47).To take a genre such as the ‘western’, analyze it, and list its principal characteristics, is to beg the question that we must first isolate the body of films which are ‘westerns’.And whilst writing within a genre involves making use of certain ‘given’ conventions, every work within a genre also involves the invention of some new elements.John Hartley notes that ‘the addition of just one film to the Western genre… changes that genre as a whole – even though the Western in question may display few of the recognized conventions, styles or subject matters traditionally associate...

Although we get the token coffin maker shot, the other shots are unique to this particular “Western.” Among other things we see a building with dead carcasses hung from it, dead animals in the streets, and a man being serviced in an alleyway.When he meets the flower girl we move to a different level of the Western.Deadman appears to be a play on the typical Western genre .There are other plays on the genre such as having an Indian called Nobody, who is really more white than Native American as he was raised most of his life in England, and having Blake wander through a Birch forest rather than an open rage like a “typical” cowboy.We also get the token Christian missionary characters, but rather than them being pioneers as we would expect...

In particular, it indicates high degree of western culture.One of the main aspects of this culture is the tendency to reflect on the current issues, especially the issues facing the western world.One producer however eventually agreed to fund The Stagecoach film that has come to be referred as the film that brought a comeback for the American Western films and where actors were finally blended with the genre.An analysis of the three films provides an insight into the evolution of the western films.The culture seems to concentrate on political, social, economic and cultural issues facing the western societies at a given time.

But, most western movies ideas derived from characteristics known to the Native Americans and Mexicans way before the American culture knew about it.Women have not been the only misrepresented gender in western films.The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Western films are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier.The production of the film started when an obscure director named Sergio Leone was given $200,000 and a load of leftover film stock and told to make a Western.What you probably know as a good old western American movie originated from a culture knows as vaqueros (cowboys for Spanish).

It seems as though as soon as you find a clear definition of what a specific genre is, someone comes along and reinvents the category.Movie makers have stretched the definitions of genre to encompass the given criteria set up by the very people who created these staple types of films that movie goers are used to.The makers of these films had immense knowledge of the genre that they decided to redefine.It is this understanding of film that allowed them to make such monumental works.You have to have an understanding of what you want to destroy, before you began to do so.

Using genre approach this research proves that locations, darkness, hitting sound, screaming, dark colours are elements of horror genre.In this research I have learned that all these elements together give a greater impact and complete the convention of horror genre.When audiences think about the western genre they know that within this film category they may expect to see gun fights, horses and cowboys.There are many different types of genres like sci-fi, romantic, western, horror, comedy, etc.By using genre theory we can describe the type of film (Film Studies essay on Genre, 2006).