Western Films

A close study of John Ford's Indian images in his Western movies, from Iron Horse to Cheyenne Autumn. While many believe that Ford's Native American portrayals began as negative (Stagecoach) and developed into more sympathetic treatments (Cheyenne Autumn), I argue that his Indian images have always been diverse (although not necessarily accurate). What never changed was Ford's depiction of Native Americans as a separate culture and identity outside of white society. In this way, Ford differs from Delmer Daves (Broken Arrow, 1950) and other filmmakers of his era whose Westerns advocated an assimilationist point of view. In other words, no "melting pot" for John Ford.

The American wilderness has been loaded with an ambivalent religious symbolism since the first puritan settlers. In the Xixth century, the idea of an Alliance between God and men in the wilderness of the New World was translated into a nationalist discourse of territorial expansion. Until the 1960s, Western films supported this imperialistic Protestantism. But the Vietnam War both discredited America’s godly mission in the world and the ability of its heroes to hear God’s voice in the wilderness. This paper focuses on the reactions of American cinema to this crisis of faith. It first analyzes the transcendentalist temptation of road movies after Easy Rider, films trying to revive the lost connection to America’s original and sacred land, before moving to mapping the shift of the Western genre from a Protestant to an Indian sacred wilderness after Little Big Man. The post-Vietnam American wilderness is an indigenous God and modern Frontier characters need to share in Indian spirituality if they want to achieve both American and heroic status.

Sinemada tür (genre) kavramı, esas olarak endüstrinin kendi içinden doğmuş ve eleştirmenlerin, seyircilerin ve son olarak da sinema yazarlarının katkısıyla yerleşik bir nitelik kazanmıştır. Sinemada tür, esas olarak, konu açısından benzer özellikler taşıyan, ortak yol yöntem kullanan, denenmiş olduğu için zarar riski düşük filmleri kapsayan bir terim olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Sinema, endüstrisini özel girişim ve kâr temeline dayalı olarak inşa etmiş tüm ülkelerde, tür filmleri kaçınılmaz olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Tür filmlerini edebi türlere giren yapıtlardan ayıran esas nokta, doğrudan ticari amaçlarla üretilen filmler olmalarıdır. Hollywood için en önemli mesele, her zaman neyin nasıl satılacağı oldu. Sonuçta iki aynı sistem, film türleri ve yıldızcılık, bu açıdan en güvenilir dayanaklar olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Hollywood, 1920'li yıllardan itibaren uluslararası ve homojen bir kitle olarak değerlendirdiği seyirci kitlesine yönelik filmler üretmeye başladı ve altmışlara dek uzanan bir dönem boyunca, "Stüdyo Sistemi" en parlak sonuçlarını aldı. Seyirci zaman zaman belli bir türe ötekilerden daha fazla ilgi göstermiş ve bu durum, o türün daha da serpilip gelişmesini sağlamıştır. Filmleri kendi koyduğu kıstaslara göre ciddi biçimde sınıflandıran ilk sinema yazan Vachel Lindsay'dir. (1915) Kurmaca-samimi-muhteşem olmak üzere filmleri türlerine ayırmıştır. Filmlerde sınıflandırma ihtiyaçtan ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu pozitif bilimin etkisi ile gerçekleşmiştir. Jacopsen'un edebiyat alanındaki türlerle ilgili ayrımı sinemada türleri ayırmada da kullanılmıştır. ABD' de birçok alanda olduğu gibi film sektöründe de rekabet ticari kaynaklı olarak artmıştır. Bu da film şirketlerinin kar elde etmesi için rekabete dayalı olarak filmde türler oluşturmasına neden olmuştur. Liberal, özgürlükçü ekonominin olduğu ülkelerde serbest rekabet vardır ve bu ülkelerde tür filmleri bulunmaktadır. Filmde türler tamamen ticari kaynaklı olarak ortaya çıkmıştır.

Few in Hollywood knew that James Young Deer, general manager of Pathé Frères West Coast Studio from 1911 to 1914, was really an imposter. After all, Young Deer had earned a reputation as the first Native American producer and had worked alongside D. W. Griffith, Fred J. Balshofer, and Mack Sennett.  For decades, he eluded film historians.  But after ten months of poking through dusty archives and faded vital records, the identity of this mysterious filmmaker finally came to light.

KAHRAMAN ŞERİF filmi: “zaman ve mekân unsurlarının var olması”, “klasik anlatı tarzı mevcudiyeti”, “çatışma ve çatışmanın şerif tarafından giderilmesi”, “erkek hegemonyası ve kadınların arka planda olması”, “iyi ve kötü karakterlerin varlığı“, ” filmin ideolojisinin varlığı” , “bireysellik, özgüven ve başarının işlenmesi”, “şiddet unsuru ve etkili bir son ile filmin nihayete ermesi” ve “görüntüleme ve ikonografideki gerekli unsurların varlığı” hususları birlikte ele alınarak değerlendirildiğinde Kahraman Şerif (High Noon)  filminin bir tür filmi olan western film türü özelliklerini getirmiş olduğu bazı yenilikler ve farklı bakış açısı ile genel olarak gösterdiği savunulabilir. Bu hali ile Kahraman Şerif filmi western türü dramatik özellikleri taşıyan bir filmdir.

L'articolo vuole riflettere la portata iconografica e tematica della serie tv Yellowstone, scritta e diretta da Tayler Sheridan e interpretata da Kevin Costner. Partendo da una rapida e sintetica riflessione sul Grande Romanzo Americano, gli elementi narrativi e tematici che dovrebbero presupporlo si possono rintracciare nella serie tv Yellowstone che, oltre ad un'ottima fattura tecnica, sa tessere esistenti ed eventi nella forma romanzesca più avvicinabile a quella tanto ricercate del Grande Romanzo Americano.

It is clear that the Japanese film up until the 1930s displayed a very characteristic “national style” which differed from the West.  Silent films were largely influenced by the traditional Japanese performing art known as kabuki.  Intrinsic to these early silent films was the presence of a physical narrator, the benshi, which has had a lasting influence to the present day.  Cinematic techniques were used in different ways and for different purposes.  Early reform of the Japanese film industry, in addition, to making film more realistic and accessible for the working classes also allowed women to participate in film and for an entirely new genre of film to be created.  The influence of the dramatic and visual arts has had a lasting influence on Japanese films up until the 1930s and has played a large part in the characteristic “national style” of Japanese film. 

1930年代までの日本映画までは西洋とは異なり非常に特徴的な「国家のスタイル」を表示していたことが明らかです。無声映画は、主に歌舞伎のような伝統的日本の影響を受けていました。これら初期の無声映画に固有しているのは、現在まで続いて影響を与えている物理的な語り手、弁士の存在でした。映画技術は、様々な方法、異なる目的のために使用されました。さらに、日本の映画産業の早期改革は、労働者階級には現実的かつ便利に、また許可された女性が映画に参加しており、映画の全く新しいジャンルが作成されました。劇的、視覚芸術の影響は、最大1930年代まで日本映画に持続的な影響を与え、日本映画の特徴的な「国家のスタイル」に大きな役割を果たしてきました。

In an interview with AMC Network’s blog, Vince Gilligan stated that he likes to think of Breaking Bad (Gilligan, 2008 – 2013) as a post-modern western. (Gilligan, 2008, blog post). Even though it can be seen as a gangster narrative as well, this study aims to expand Gilligan’s statement about his creation by investigating generic similarities between Breaking Bad and Western movies. This thesis intends to define what constitutes the inner and outer forms of Western genre films, by using Rick Altman’s Semantic / Syntactic Approach to Film Genre (Altman, 1984). By taking The Great Train Robbery as a generic prototype, the study makes a survey of repetitive semantic elements used in genre films, such as long shots of the desert landscape, outlaw heroes, train robberies, gunfighters and climatic shootouts with genre specified weapons. In order to analyze the syntax of the genre, the study investigates repetitive ways of structuring the Western, such as border, captivity and detective/outlaw narratives. Through looking at these stock narratives reliance on dual protagonists (or dualistic structures), the thesis aims to locate the previously defined binary oppositions of the genre such as wilderness / civilization and savagery / humanity. By analyzing border narratives as an outcome of the frontier myth, the thesis discusses the outlaw hero as a mediator between the two sides of the border. This study aims to search these previously defined semantic and syntactic elements in Breaking Bad, in order to locate the meaning attributed by the Western generic strain.

Here is another essay that I completed for my MA several years ago now. Having read back through it, I see a fair few things I'd have written slightly differently, and recognise where I have made efficiency savings on the word count, where there really should be a bit more to back up some claims and bold statements.

But I do think it still makes a clear enough argument about Meek's Cutoff's (Kelly Reichardt) position as anti-genre, not simply subverting conventions of the Western, but using its recognisable semantic genre elements in order to demystify its syntax, and reject binary oppositions prevalent within it.

Despite the many announcements of its death, the western has recently reappeared in American cinema and literature, reinvigorating a tradition that spans from James Fenimore Cooper’s Hawkeye to the Lone Ranger and John Wayne. Among the many recent productions, this volume considers American films, literature, and music, produced between 1985 and 2011: movies such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Roberto Ford, The Ballad of Little Jo, Brokeback Mountain, 3:10 to Yuma, Don’t Come Knocking, the TV series Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman, the novels Blood Meridian, God’s Country, and hick-hop music. Matching western, men’s, literary, and film studies, Bordin reads the western as a gendered cultural product, which comments on pivotal contemporary themes such as issues of fatherhood, homosexuality, gaze, and race and gender appropriations. Building upon Judith Butler’s notion of the performative nature of gender, Bordin analyzes how the western interacts with models of American masculinity, confirming the genre’s crucial role in the American cultural and ideological landscape at the turn of the new millennium.

I commence my thesis by introducing the Western genre and American Western cinema  before the early 1960s, and carry on with Italo-Westerns, also called „Spaghetti” Westerns,  produced in Italy. Here I mention the beginnings of the new style, its differences from Hollywood predecessors, and its main characteristics. Among the most influential movies of the genre I review the unique life achievement of Sergio Leone in Westerns, analysing his summarizing works, Once Upon a Time in the West  (1968) and My Name is Nobody (1973). After mentioning the effect of Italo-Western on the genre’s American continuity, by using the concepts of metacinema and Meta-Western, through contemporary popular cinema I research how the Italo-Western survives. The attitude of George Lucas, Gore Verbinski, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino may vary towards auteurism, self-reflexivity, and postmodernism, however, they are conscious directors of metacinema. They disguise the characteristics of the Western (and Italo-Western in particular) in popular entertainment through their work, thus canonising it. In the conclusion I overview this process, and how the Classical Western is transforming and seeking its way in the 21st century.

This is a compiled study material for the Undergraduate English Honours Students of The Burdwan University (Skill Enhancement Course-II). 
Link of this material in the college website: http://www.krishnachandracollege.in/uploads/cf090a41dfcae63ee15c333a7a17d28eSEM4FILMSTUDIES

Öz
Sinemanın en önde gelen türlerinden biri olarak nitelendirilen western sineması, aynı zamanda Amerikan kültürünün en güçlü taşıyıcılarından da biri olarak kabul edilmektedir. Kendi yarattığı kült karakterler, benzer konu ya da temalarla Amerikan yaşam tarzını bir tür mite dönüştüren bu janr, yarattığı etki dolayısıyla kendine farklı alt türlerle İspanya, İtalya hatta Türkiye’de de yer bulmuştur. Bu sayede western film kültürü, yerel motiflerin de etkisiyle daha lokal bir film türüne dönüşmüştür. Bu dönüşüm, toplumsal cinsiyet rolleri başta olmak üzere birçok sosyo-kültürel kodu şekillendirmiştir. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın temel amacı, özellikle 1970’li yılların başlarında Yeşilçam’da büyük bir furya yaratan ve “Anadolu Western” olarak da bilinen Türk yapımı spagetti western sinemasındaki kadın kimliğinin bileşenlerini analiz etmektir. Bu noktada ötekileştirilen ve cinsel birer obje haline dönüştürülen kadınların eril bir bakış açısıyla bu film türünde ne şekilde erotize edildiğini göstermek amacıyla, 1969-1971 yılları arasında çekilmiş üç farklı yapıma ait film posteri, feminist bir bakış açısıyla ve göstergebilim aracılığıyla analiz edilmiştir. Bu analizler sonucunda, Türk spagetti western yapımların ataerkil kodları pekiştiren, fallosentrik bir anlayışa sahip olduğu ortaya konulmuş ve bu yapımların kadını ikincil konuma iten, erkek egemen bir sistemin uzantısı olduğu gözlemlenmiştir.
Anahtar kelimeler: Western sineması, Spagetti western, Anadolu western, Kadın kimliği, Eril bakış.

So much has been written about the classical phase of the Western. Genre fans and for the most part, critics alike have accepted with open arms the idea of a temporally delimited phase in the genre's evolution wherein its "classical" roots had then been established and set. Questions of the actual validity of this common-held notion are often few and far between and its convenience as a critical descriptor and ideological counterbalance appears to justify its existence. The issue is not the lack of clear signifiers appearing in earlier Westerns across an expanse of films that can readily be understood as of a type of classicism, rather it is the idea of a linear evolution that the genre followed from its earliest origins in literature and the screen to the contemporary era. Even more problematic perhaps is the conception of a circumscribed classical phase birthed in the literature of James Fenimore Cooper and Owen Wister, then carried over to the cinema into the early silent Westerns of John Ford and others before meeting its demise when the genre became increasingly self-conscious and non-traditional in the post-World War II era. Tag Gallagher's aim at demystifying this conception appeared in his "Shoot-Out at the Genre Corral: Problems in the 'Evolution' of the Western" where he deconstructs the problematic view of a chronological and equally orderly evolution of the Western. Gallagher points out the flawed theory of generic evolution posed by highly-influential scholars and critics such as Andre Bazin,

This response to a roundtable discussion of "Django Unchained" considers it in light of Quentin Tarantino’s comments about the relationship between films on slavery and national “healing.” The essay draws upon the roundtable discussion on Django Unchained, to address the contemporary relevance of Tarantino’s historical retelling.

This article examines the aesthetic and affective significance of color in Altman's revisionist western. Drawing on the concept of Stimmung (" mood " or " attunement "), I focus on the film's interplay between cool and warm color tones, wherein different shades of orange contend with blues and grays. The essay considers the ways in which this chromatic scheme describes the inner lives of the two central characters; it also shows how this use of color opens onto a politicized critique of the mortal violence, greed, and inequality that put an end to their partnership.

This essay was written for a special journal issue in which each contributor was assigned a particular color to study in relation to a single film. Hence my focus on orange.

New Hollywood, color, Robert Altman, mood, affect, emotion, cinematography, lyricism, Western, genre, anticapitalism, antiviolence

Was haben ein Western-Film und ein Science-Fiction-Film gemein? Auf den ersten Blick scheinbar nichts. Beide operieren mit komplett unterschiedlichen Topoi: Der Western mit Cow- boys, Pferden und dem Wilden Westen, Science-Fiction hingegen mit Astronaut*innen, Raum- schiffen und dem Weltraum. Und doch bestehen mehr Gemeinsamkeiten, als der Schein trügt. Ikonographisch wie auch erzählerisch evozieren US-amerikanische Science-Fiction-Filme wie THE MARTIAN (Ridley Scott, US 2015) und INTERSTELLAR (Christopher Nolan, US 2014) das ursprünglich dem Western intrinsische Frontier-Narrativ. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher, zu untersuchen, in welchem Ausmass der Frontier-Mythos auch in Science-Fiction implementiert wird. Wie wird in THE MARTIAN und INTERSTELLAR die an den Western-Mythos angelehnte Weltraumeroberung narrativ als auch ästhetisch dargestellt und welches Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Kosmos wird dadurch etabliert?

The concept of transnational post-Westerns stems from Neil Campbell’s definition of post-Westerns as films “coming after and going beyond the traditional Western [genre] while engaging with and commenting on its deeply haunting assumptions and values.” Although Westerns started out as a national genre, it is well known that they soon became a transnational phenomenon, which was received and interpreted differently in a variety of national contexts. Once Westerns nearly disappeared from mainstream cinema, post-Westerns exploiting their heritage appeared throughout the world, applying their assumptions and values to specific national environments. These films are transnational post-Westerns, and they share, among others, the following features: clear references to the Western genre, the choice of a specific area away from the American West, the use of that new landscape with a political intention, and the analysis of the difficulties of integration of racial, ethnic or social minorities, the “contemporary Others” equivalent to Native Americans in Westerns.
This article centers on a specific feature of transnational post-Westerns, their focus on the national identity and foundational myths and contemporary contradictions of the country where these films are set and produced. Following the example of Doris Sommer’s “Foundational Fictions,” this paper analyzes transnational post-Westerns from three different European countries (Into the West from Ireland; Curro Jiménez, 800 balas, and No habrá paz para los malvados from Spain; Les Cowboys and Adieu Gary from France) that use references from American Westerns to deconstruct and problematize the different features of their own national foundational myths.

So unterschiedlich in der Zeit des Kalten Krieges das jeweilige Verhältnis zur Kultur und deren freier Entfaltung war, so verschieden präsentierte sich auf beiden Seiten des Eisernen Vorhangs der Umgang mit gesellschaftskritischer Kunst. In der DDR gab es in der Zeit nach dem XX. Parteitag der KPdSU einige Zeit Anzeichen und demzufolge berechtigte Hoffnung der Filmleute, daß in Zukunft ein offenerer Umgang mit gesell-schaftlichen Problemen möglich sein würde. Mit dem Verbot der sogenannten " Kanin-chenfilme " 2 1965, dem fast ein gesamter Jahrgang an DEFA-Kinoproduktionen zum Opfer fiel, zerschlugen sich diese Hoffnungen jedoch endgültig. Zur gleichen Zeit ent-wickelte sich in Westeuropa ein Film-Genre, das in einigen Ausprägungen offen Kritik am Vietnamkrieg oder den gesellschaftlichen Zuständen im Allgemeinen übte: Der Italo-Western. Dieser Beitrag möchte besonders auf die politischen Facetten dieses Gen-res und damit auf die Möglichkeiten gesellschaftskritischer Filme im Wild-West-Ko-stüm verweisen. Dabei finden auch die Versuche der DEFA Berücksichtigung, mit ihrer eigenen Westernproduktion amerikanische Geschichte zu interpretieren. Im Laufe der 60er Jahre des letzten Jahrhunderts näherte sich die Epoche, in der der klassische amerikanische Western " das wichtigste massenkulturelle Genre " 3 in den USA war, langsam ihrem Ende. Den Machern fiel es zusehends schwerer, sich weiter-zuentwickeln. Es hatte zu viele große Western gegeben, mit zu vielen großen Stars und zu vielen großen Geschichten. Große Epen zu erzählen, gelang den Drehbuchautoren und Regisseuren immer seltener. Der US-amerikanische Western konnte sich aufgrund seiner eigenen Konventionen kaum noch weiter entwickeln und begann zunehmend und bis heute anhaltend an Einfluß und Bedeutung zu verlieren.

Liberal (özgürlükçü) ekonominin hakim olduğu Amerika'da sinema sektörünün dünya ölçeğinde ticari olarak elinde tutan Hollywood tarafından yine bu ticari faaliyetler kapsamında rekabetçilikte ön planda olmak üzere sinemada tür kavramı ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu türler arasında yer alan western tür sineması da Hollywood film sektörü tarafından bir tür olarak kendine has özellikleri ile üretilmiş, ortaya çıkarılmıştır. Bu açıklamalar ışığında 1992 tarihli Unforgiven 'Affedilmeyen' filminin bir tür filmi olan western film türü özellikleri gösterip göstermediğinin değerlendirmesi yapılacaktır. Unforgiven 'Affedilmeyen' filmi western film yapısını; genel manada kendi geleneksel kültürel örgüsü, gerek çekim tarz, zaman ve mekânı, gerek müzik, gerek giyim tarzları ve gerekse filmin genel yapısı ön plana çıkmak üzere hissettirmektedir.