American Cinema
• Today – Film Noir due – “The Making of
the West” notes
• Thursday – Thursday 10/2 – Westerns
• Friday 10/3 – Fall break
Western Movies
The Making of the West
An Overview
• Major defining genre of
American film industry
• Nostalgic look at days of the
untamed American frontier
• One of the oldest, most
enduring and flexible genres
• One of the most
characteristically American
genres
An Overview
• Telling stories set in the American West
• Nostalgic historical feel
• Has diminished in importance as the
United States moves further away from
the period depicted in these movies.
Setting and Time
• Set in the American West
• Almost always in the 19th Century (1800’s)
• Often incorporate the Civil War into the
film directly, or the background
• May extend further back into the colonial
period
• Or forward into the mid-twentieth century
• May range geographically from Mexico to
Canada
Some setting conventions
• Usually set against stunning American
landscapes
• In some movies the landscapes are the
stars as much as the actors
• Stress the harshness of the landscape, or
juxtapose the beauty of it with the
dirtiness of a town
Some possible
locations
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Isolated forts
Ranch houses
Isolated homestead
Saloon
Jail
The Hero
Typical traits
• Often semi–nomadic
characters
• Sole possessions consist
of clothing, a gun and
maybe a horse
Traditional Western
Heroes
• local lawmen
• ranchers
• army officers
• cowboys
• territorial marshals
• skilled, fast-draw
gunfighter
Iconography
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Stetsons
Spurs
Colt. 45’s
Prostitutes
Saloon
Sheriff
Faithful Steed
Indians
• Some high
technology of the era
present, e.g.
telegraph, printing
press, railroad
• Occasionally these
referred to as a
development just
arriving, showing the
end of frontier
lifestyle and the
march of civilization
Common themes
• Conquest of the wilderness
• Depicts code of honor rather than law
• Social status through acts of violence, or
generosity
Traditional Elements
• hostile elements (often Native Americans)
• guns and gun fights (sometimes on
horseback),
• violence and human massacres
• horses
• trains (and train robberies)
• bank robberies and holdups
• runaway stage coachs
• shoot-outs and showdowns
Traditional Elements
continued
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Outlaws and sheriffs
Cattle drives and cattle rustling
Stampedes
Posses in pursuit
Barroom brawls
Breathtaking settings and open landscapes
Distinctive western clothing (denim, jeans, boots,
etc.)
Spaghetti Westerns
• Revival of the western genre in Italy (1960’s)
• Low budget films
• Locations chosen for their cheapness, and
similarity to American mid-West (southern Spain
was often chosen)
• More action and violence than Hollywood
westerns
• Clint Eastwood started his career in these
Revisionist Westerns
• Questioned the role of native as a savage
• Questioned the hero versus villain theme
• Some gave women much larger roles
And Finally…
“As far as I’m concerned, Americans don’t
have any original art except western
movies and jazz…”
Clint Eastwood
The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly
• 1966
• Sergio Leone
• A bounty hunting scam joins two men in
an uneasy alliance against a third in a
race to find a fortune in gold buried in a
remote cemetery.
True Grit
• 1969
• Henry Hathaway
• A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and
a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young
woman track down her father's murderer
in Indian territory.
3:10 to Yuma
• 2007
• James Mangold
• A small-time rancher agrees to hold a
captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to
go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills
ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out
the rancher.