Stagecoach 1939

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Stagecoach1939

• Director John Ford
• Bfi sheet
• 180 degree rule youtube

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(No Transcript)
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Downing the Nigh Leader-Frederic Remington
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Dead Mans HandThe dead man's hand is a two-pair
poker hand, namely "aces and eights". The hand
gets its name from the legend of it having been
the five-card-draw hand held by Wild Bill Hickok
at the time of his murder (August 2, 1876).
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Yakima Canutt
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• The 180 rule is a basic film editing guideline
  that states that two characters (or other
  elements) in the same scene should always have
  the same left/right relationship to each other.
  If the camera passes over the imaginary axis
  connecting the two subjects, it is called
  crossing the line. The new shot, from the
  opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

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180 degree Rule

• This schematic shows the axis between two
  characters and the 180 arc on which cameras may
  be positioned (green). When cutting from the
  green arc to the red arc, the characters switch
  places on the screen.

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• Plot everything visibly and audibly present in
  the film before us
• Story the set of all events in a narrative, both
  the ones explicitly presented and those the
  viewer infers

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Genre

• Type of film also a system of signs used by
  producers, filmmakers and audience to Make
  Meaning
• Specific Plots , characters or cinematic
  techniques
• Screwball Comedy man and a woman overcoming a
  series of obstacles before they get together in
  the end
• Horror-low lighting, dramatic music, monster

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Why genres?

• Producers want successful formulas
• Target audiences
• Economically efficient in studio system
• Audiences pay more if they know what to expect
• Framework for director to express individual
  style/themes (sort of auteur)
• Way for audiences to differentiate between films

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Repetition and Difference

• FILMS BOTH REPEAT AND DIFFER FROM GENRE
  CONVENTIONS
• Genres repeat/familiarity/audience enjoys
• Audiences expect variations to prevent boredom
• Genre EVOLVES over time-The Western

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Western Genre

• Landscape-sweeping vistas of empty landscape,
  mountains, desert
• Hero intent on obtaining revenge
• Conflict between white and Indian
• Negative image of Indian
• Conflict with a Sheriff or Marshall
• Hero as LONER
• Iconography-guns, cowboy hats, posse, isolated
  settlers
• Set characters-sidekick, banker, good woman, bad
  woman, sheriff
• Fear of interracial mingling

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Iconography

• Repetition in genre develops iconography
• recurring symbolic images that carry meaning
  from film to film
• Westerns six-shooter, horse, desert, Monument
  Valley, white or black cowboy hats, physical
  attributes of start (rugged face of John Wayne)
• Audiences makes associations with iconography
  guy in white hat is good guy
• Saloon swinging open tell us there is going to be
  a violent confrontation

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Butte in Monument Valley
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7 basic plots

• The Union Pacific Story, centering around the
  construction of a railroad, telegraph or
  stagecoach line or around the adventures of a
  wagon train
• The Ranch Story with its focus on conflicts
  between ranchers and rustlers or cattlemen and
  sheepmen

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• The Empire Story, which is an epic of the Ranch
  Story
• The Revenge Story
• Custers Last Stand, or the Cavalry and Indian
  Story

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• The Outlaw story
• The Marshal Story

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Review Western Documentary

• Landscapes
• Outlaws
• Outcasts
• Legends
• Obsession
• Violence
• Great American Form of Film

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• Reapply and reinterpret history
• Moving on
• Myth of writers-not reality
• Hero-right and wrong simple moral code, early
  Westerns not much story or character
• Moral and historical values frontier to modern
  times

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John Wayne

• B actor who became A actor
• Personified Western from 1930s- 1960s
• Rough, cruel, not mean or petty
• Strong women
• Loner, not happily, reluctance, hero stands for
  something, violence

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• Later Westerns sour, people out of space to
  move racism, brutality
• Modern concerns overlay classic images
• Reinterpret legends
• 1970 myth of freedom-only outlaws are heroes
• More graphic violence
• Society more sophisticated sees Western as more
  corrupt

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• Investigates new interpretations of Indian-Cowboy
  mythology, now cowboy is villain
• Indian was in way of march of civilization in old
  Westerns

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Western Overview

• Myth
• genre
• Edwin Porter Great Train Robbery
• Influence on world view of America
• collective vision of American history
• optimistic vision of Westward ExpansionManifest
  Destiny (divine right, practical need, assumed
  superiority of American democracyWest belongs to
  us

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• Powerful popular fantasy that expresses deep
  truths and deeper wishes about American people
• ongoing genre of American self-definition
• rationalization rewrites history
• contrast between myth and reality

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• Man vs. nature
• white man vs. Indians
• sheer spectacle of West - idealized

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Evolution of Western John Wayne

• Americas image of self evolved over decades of
  Waynes career
• heroes resist modernity and struggle against
  machines and modern methods
• celebrates values of pre-industrial, rural,
  agrarian America where nature rejuvenates
  individual

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• Images of women (and men) -transformation of
  eastern women into frontierswomen
• transformation of feminized male youth or
  tenderfoot from the East into masculine figure
  by a Western tough guy
• women represent forces of civilization-values,
  family, community, education, cultivation,
  domestication

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• The Journey-often fleeing civilization
• ambivalent attitude towards progress (trains,
  stagecoaches, towns)

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• 1881-1886- time of Geronimo
• Starred John Wayne as Ringo
• two narrative threads
• Indian threat to travelers
• revenge plot
• nine characters-seven passengers and two drivers
  of stagecoach

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• John Ford Director traditional and sentimental
  values father, mother, home, family, law,
  decency, democracy
• populist praised the little people and the
  fallible institutions that protected them
• damned those who twisted the system to grab money
  and power

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• Emphasized visual images rather than talk
• counterpointed violent dramatic action with
  comedy and pathos
• American frontier as basic myth and central
  metaphor for the emerging American spirit-the
  bringing of civilization and fruitfulness to the
  savage wilderness

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DALLAS AND RINGO KID
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• Cinematography shows width and depth
• vast vistas of plains, mountains, sky
• complex allegories of good and evil
• plus-a good story

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• Coach metaphor for civilized society
• a machine built by civilized hands that sets out
  to tame the vast western wastes
• key conflict is between the microcosm inside the
  stagecoach and the savagery of the land and the
  Apaches outside the coach

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• Inside coach is whole society of white people, of
  different social classes and mental habits
• banker, sheriff, outlaw, salesman, doctor, prim
  wife, dance-hall singer, gambler, stage driver

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Each character has specific traits

• Gambler-chivalry and polish
• outlaw-sense of fairness
• doctor-drunken kindness
• delicate lady-sheds prejudices
• sheriff-concern for outlaws safety
• salesman-citified dude-like cowardice

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• All characters except one reveal underlying
  warmth, kindness, and camaraderie that make them
  equally decent human beings
• banker Gatewood is single unredeemed character
  who is a thief on the run-most outspoken critic
  of immorality of the others and on governments
  duty to protect him

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• Film is about character and important human
  values
• also has exciting staging and editing, especially
  final scene
• deep focus used instead of multiple editing,
  which inspired Orson Welles in filming Citizen
  Kane
• actors move in and out of scene, instead of
  multiple cuts

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• Dramatic uses of light and shadow to enhance mood
• use of ceilings a daring new innovation

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Classical Hollywood

• Perfect balance of social and psychological
• story, character, location, formal elements of
  lighting, framing, editing all in harmony and
  invisible
• considered a classic western
• Westerns reflect Americas image of itself, and
  change over the decades to reflect the audiences
  attitudes

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• John Waynes career shows this evolution
• 1930s-virtuous, clean-living cowboy with a heart
  of gold
• Stagecoach-more ambiguous, less perfect
• 1940s in Red River he plays an obsessive tyrant
• later, in The Searchers, his character goes out
  of his mind