the western film genre and the American frontier
myth
Fall 2015 questionnaire
Type your responses to the questions using the template on the website. You will turn in a
hard copy on Wednesday, October 7. Please INCLUDE the question (and number) above
each of your responses.
General Questions:
1. Carefully review the program description on the syllabus. Devise a substantial
question that you would like to explore this quarter. Do not repeat a question that’s
already on the syllabus.
2. How many Evergreen programs have you taken? Describe something about your
favorite program thus far that has left a lasting impression on your learning?
3. Carefully review the covenant and note two or three agreements that are especially
important to being a successful participant in our learning community.
4. What academic skills do you need to work on? Also, please describe yourself as a
reader and a writer.
5. How might this program fit into your larger academic and career goals?
6. Have you started work on your Academic Statement? If so, how far along are you?
7. Are you a working student—full or part-time? If you don’t mind answering, what kind
of work do you do? Feel free to include anything else you’d like your faculty to know
about you.
Questions about Film (these will require a little research on your part)
1. Briefly describe your experience in film studies and/or filmmaking. If you have no
experience, then describe yourself as an observer.
2. Choose a genre of film, other than the Western, and describe five or six important
characteristics—in terms of style, narrative, conventions, representative films, and so
on—that define the genre.
3. **Research three Westerns, not included in our screening list (on the web) and answer
the following for each:
a. When was the film produced and what was going on at the time?
b. What period is the film attempting to represent? Briefly describe the action/
events that are being portrayed.
c. What is the connection between a. and b.?
**For example, Red River was released in 1948 (actually filmed in 1946), soon after World
War II, when the U.S. was entering a period of significant economic expansion, political,
cultural, and military influence around the world. The “setting” of Red River is Texas and the
story of the film dramatizes a 14 year period, prior to and after the Civil War, when white
settlers were crossing the frontier in huge numbers, Native Americans were being forcibly
removed from their ancestral lands, and the first cattle drives were moving a valuable
commodity to the newly constructed railroad for shipment other parts of the country.