WESTERN GENRE
Settings:
The Western genre is a fiction genre that specifically tells stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century, usually set in the scenery of the American West, some specific examples includes isolated forts, ranches and homesteads, Native American villages, or the small frontier town with a saloon, general store, stable, and jailhouse. The saloon is usually used to emphasize the “Wild West”, as it is the place to go for music, girls, gambling, drinking, drawling, or shooting.
Themes:
Westerns depict a society organized around codes of honour and personal justice, the popular perception of a Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic cowboy bounty hunter, or gunslinger, travelling from place to place fighting villains in the name of his own personal code of honour, and at the same time, rescuing damsels in distress. Western’s often stresses the harshness of the wilderness, portray how primitive and outdated ways of life confronted modern technology and social changes. Usually, by using these themes, the Western tells a tale of morality.
History:
Western films were popular in the silent film era, but slowly began to die off after sound came into play around 1927-1928. Major Hollywood studios abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and producers. The popularity of Western Genre movies picked up after John Ford’s Stagecoach was released in 1939. The Golden Age of the Western was an era of movies between 1930 to 1950, but in recent years the Western genre has gone into decline.
Subgenres:
Shoot Em’ Up: The shoot 'em up Western is a genre of the Western movie. Usually they were low-budget and high-violence, stereotypically where “The cowboy never ran out of bullets.” These movies are usually romantic and very violent with a lot of shooting and fighting.
Epic: The Epic genre tends to be long and complex, often with the protagonist shifting alliances. The characters themselves are more complex and deep than the “Shoot Em’ Up” genre. A common technique is the portrayal of someone who never wants to resort to violence, but is forced to do so anyways. Some Examples are Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, and Leone’s The good, The bad, and the Ugly.
Contemporary: Films that are based in contemporary American settings, with advanced technology. Although these films take place in the present, they still take place in the American West, and reveal the Old West mentality. This subgenre often depicts Old Western type characters who struggles in the “Civilized” world that rejects their outdated brand of justice. Examples include Tommy Lee Jones’ Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Ang Lee’s Broke Back Mountain, and the Coen brother’s Academy Award winning No Country For Old Men.
Important films and actors:
The first western movie, The Great Train Robbery, directed by Edwin S Porter, starring Broncho Billy Anderson, who later went on to making several hundred Western Movies.
Director Howard Hanks and John Ford who epitomized the Golden Age of Western films.
Codes:
: The Hero usually wears a White hat, while the Villain wears a Black hat.
: When more than one cowboy faces the other with no one in between them, there will be a shootout.
: Ranchers and Mountain men don’t talk to people and live alone.
: The Lone Hero will do things which will contribute towards the common good, but in order to achieve this he will us unorthodox methods - i.e. he will work against the law in order to ultimately work with them.