American Cinema

1
American Cinema

• Today Film Noir due The Making of the West
  notes
• Thursday Thursday 10/2 Westerns
• Friday 10/3 Fall break

2
Western Movies

• The Making of the West

3
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

4
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.

5
Setting and Time

• Set in the American West
• Almost always in the 19th Century (1800s)
• 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

6
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

7
Some possible locations

• Isolated forts
• Ranch houses
• Isolated homestead
• Saloon
• Jail

8
The Hero

• Typical traits

• Traditional Western Heroes

• Often seminomadic characters
• Sole possessions consist of clothing, a gun and
  maybe a horse

• local lawmen
• ranchers
• army officers
• cowboys
• territorial marshals
• skilled, fast-draw gunfighter

9
Iconography

• Stetsons
• Spurs
• Colt. 45s
• 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

10
Common themes

• Conquest of the wilderness
• Depicts code of honor rather than law
• Social status through acts of violence, or
  generosity

11
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

12
Traditional Elements continued

• 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.)

13
Spaghetti Westerns

• Revival of the western genre in Italy (1960s)
• 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

14
Revisionist Westerns

• Questioned the role of native as a savage
• Questioned the hero versus villain theme
• Some gave women much larger roles

15
And Finally

• As far as Im concerned, Americans dont have
  any original art except western movies and jazz
• 
  Clint Eastwood

16
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.

17
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.

18
310 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.