Western University

Paul Chaat Smith’s essay “The Big Movie,” which appears in The Norton Mix, addresses the question of why western movies portray the American Indian in the manner they do. Smith, who is a member of the Comanche tribe, looks at western films from the perspective of Indians. He provides a brief history of the American western movie, along with historical information about how and why Indians appear as they do in movies. He concludes with the observation that unless they appear within what Smith…

hard he tries, can’t escape trouble, Shane is the quintessential Western. A quiet movie overall, the final gunfight is sheer dynamite. Tense in built up and lightning fast in action, the 3-against-1 shootout is heart racing and iconic. The speed of the fight (gunfights then and now are typically quick affairs) keeps the scene grounded, as does Shane getting mortally wounded. The movie earns bonus points for one of the greatest Western villains of all time. Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) is…

Jarmusch’s film Dead Man (1995) is the departure from a typical western genre turned postmodern shown through cinematic qualities that emphasize a surreal feel and dream-like state throughout. The film is shot in black and white and follows the narrative tale of William Blake (Johnny Depp) a man wanted for the murder of a wealthy mans’ son, after he shot him dead in defense on his first night in the western town named Machine. Blake is met by an out casted Native American who goes by the name…

Zapatistas is a drawing from Jose Clemente Orozco. In this painting all of the of the characters look like they been traveling for a long period of time. It was painted on the year of 1931. All of the characters in the painting look like mexicans on horses. It looks like they are going thru the desert. There are many characters in this painting there are men, women, and horses. There is also a lot of color in this painting also. There is also a lot of dark paints in this painting.…

Over the hill of a small town there is a lone shadow of a man on a horse watching over the town making sure that everything within the town is safe and no bandit is going to raid or rob any of the townsfolks. He is the saver of damsels in distress, the rider of freedom and peace, however this image of the cowboy that so many people have in their minds is not the true cowboy, but an image from popular literature, to films. The real cowboys were the men that would run cattle drives making sure…

Who are the Antagonists in High Noon and Unforgiven High Noon and Unforgiven are films set in the Western culture depicting the livelihood of people in Hadleyville and Big Whisky respectively. The main antagonist in Unforgiven is the cowboys who decided to cut up a prostitute for having laughed at one of them for having a small penis. Their actions are what led to the other prostitute’s decision to put a bounty in their head. In High Noon, the main antagonist is Frank Miller. He was an outlaw…

One of the most enjoyable and well-known film genre is the Western, produced from the start of the movie business to even today. When one thinks of a Western, they might think of an iconic star such as John Wayne riding on a horse in a beautiful landscape. In one of the most classic Westerns, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Captain Nathan Brittles is tasked with simultaneously easing tensions with the aggressive Cheyenne Indians and transporting his…

writing produced places that could be thought of as barren, empty, unleveled … [and] needful of European influence and control” (319). Meanwhile, Kathleen Jamie’s essay “Shia Girls’ is a piece of travel writing that produced an idea of Pakistan for her Western readers. The keyword in the editor 's’ description of travel writing is “control,” both generally and for Pakistan. Before reading Jamie’s essay, Pakistan seemed an “empty” place for me and probably for most Americans. In our minds, when…

the cowboy western genre “The Wild West has always enticed the readers’ imagination” (Vanja 128). This research paper explores the context of Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers (2011). DeWitt’s use of a “stylized abstraction of western speech” (Vernon 1) offers its readers a respite from everyday life. Although it follows the traditional scheme of a cowboy western genre, the novel has certain innovations of its own (Vanja 130). The novel is narrated in a gritty 19th Century western speech,…

Screening: The Third Man (1949): Directed by Carol Reed, this black and white film had exceptionally articulate visuals of landscapes throughout the city of Vienna in 1948. In spite of being for the most part shot around evening time and in the sewers, the director does an incredible job capturing the overall character of the city. The music was fairly interesting, and added a feeling of peculiarity to the film. Although all the actors played their roles, respectively, Orson Welles was my…