Revisionist Western

The Hollywood Western has a rich history stemming all the way from America’s social and political events in the late nineteenth century (Bandy & Stoehr, 2012). With it came filmmakers and stars, like John Ford and John Wayne, whose names would become synonymous with the genre. The Western’s longstanding history has undoubtedly created conventions that audiences have come to love and expect. However, just as other genres have combined into hybrids or evolved, the classic Western is no exception. Unforgiven (1992) is an example of a revisionist Western film. Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, it tells the story of an old farmer, with a legendary reputation, who attempts to carry out one last job in order to earn some money for his family. The…

Westerns: The Final Chapter During my research, I came to the conclusion that I really didn’t enjoy westerns very much. In order to understand why I don’t enjoy westerns much, we must first get a basic idea of what a western is. Westerns are more of an older genre as they are not made much in the modern day and age. To understand westerns, knowing the basic themes and elements would be most helpful. The four main themes of a western include: Man vs. Nature, Good vs. Evil, East meets West and…

of a classic western. Everything from the horses, bounties, and violence point to this movie being a typical western film. However, because of the abundance of twists and turns it would be considered a revisionist western movie. Despite its few traits of a classic western, everything ranging from the unclear heroes to the absence of typical female roles lead to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly classifying as a revisionist western. A typical western movie has a very distinct and specific…

The Searchers is a “classic” western. It tells the story of Ethan Edwards who is accompanied by his nephew Martin Pawley and their five-year-long search to find his niece after she is captured and her family killed by the Comanche Indians. Little Big Man is a “revisionist” western. It tells the story of Jack Crabbe, a 121-year-old man asked to tell his story about his life, which includes being captured and raised by the Indians and living in a white society with a variety of jobs leading him to…

The revisionist western drama begins with cowboys, who look to be “bad”, all meeting up and riding into town, as a gang, on their horses. The film then shows us a man and woman getting married, also finding out the man is a deputy. Will Kane, the deputy, previously locked away Frank Miller, the outlaw, for a crime he was supposed to be killed for. High Noon is filmed in real time, the audience only know as much as the characters because everything is portrayed at the same speed between viewers…

Western being a genre itself has subgenres. The major common subgenres are pre-classic, classic, spaghetti and revisionist. Western movies, regardless of what subgenre, had a similar major attribute, which included; Narratives that took after a mission that the legend needed to partake in-characters, mostly males who isolate themselves from whatever remains of human advancement by having an unmatched level of mental/physical durability and chivalry settings in normal settings, for example,…

mix of genres and sub-genres. As anyone could make an argument for which genre they think is dominant in, “The Wild Bunch” (e.g. crime drama, romance, thriller, drug movie, dark comedy, etc.). The cinematic clues I’ve based my decision on is a subgenre of film known as the "Revisionist Western”. I’m sure you are asking yourself; how does this film that I chose enact the genre it is supposed to represent and how does it subvert it? Well, according to thescriptlab.com, “Western Film is a genre…

Western’s a genre with a purpose For almost as long as the medium of filmmaking has existed so too has the Western first showcased in Edwin S. Porter film The Great Train Robbery. Though overall a simple film in retrospect the way in which it pushed the medium forward was revolutionary in containing a narrative. Cowboys are the initial American heroes of filmmaking which all others pull from; Westerns as a male focused genre the central genre trope of masculinity have been constructed on a…

The following essay will compare the cinematic language of the two Western classics Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966) while analyzing the claim that both film respectably are pioneers of the Western genre during their times proven on the basis of their original work in editing and narrative, and its influence on other filmmakers. After a brief summary of both movies, I will continue with the analysis of both, in particular with the formal…

The brothers Joel and Ethan Coen and Wes Anderson are known for their distinctive visual and thematic styles of film making. Although their respective films The Big Lebowski and The Royal Tenenbaums both have a unique style all their own they do share a theme. This shared narrative motif is a nostalgic yearning for, or perhaps even obsession, with the past. In The Big Lebowski this obsession with the past can be seen at the very beginning of the film as we follow a tumbling tumbleweed, an iconic…