Even though the output of these classical Western themed movies such as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, have significantly declined since the early 1970's it is still important to note that Western had a significant part in establishing America's Identity. Because of United States' unique history, a colony that separated from their home country to establish themselves hoping for a better life, the Western genre depicts the problems that came with the creation of a new country in a foreign land.
The Western is "uniquely central to US History, US culture and US Identity. This mythology is grounded in the notion (itself as imaginative as it is real) that there existed a moving western frontier in the US between the 17th and the late 19th centuries." It depicts several problems that the Americans had to face, (between the natives and the settlers, the natives and the Calvary, the natives and the ranchers) even though all of these films were not historically accurate it helped establish Western as America's own genre.
On the other hand, it is also important to note that Western helped establish a sense of what a 'genre' is... If we point out several commonalities between most of the early Western movies we can see that 1. The hero wears a white cowboy hat, 2. it is usually one against several 3. there will be a shootout when the hero is caught in the middle of the bad guys, 4. there is a clear difference between the "villagers (family centered mindset) and the mountain men or the ranchers live alone and do not talk to other people"... etc. What was concluded from this was that in order to be a Western film, it does not have to be set in America's west rather it had to have most of these characteristics. Another conclusion made is that movies set in the West may not necessarily belong in the Western genre.
Shanghai Noon is an example of a movie that is set in the west but is not considered Western but rather Adventure/ Action Comedy.
Sukiyaki Western Django has many of the characteristics of the Western genre and is therefore categorized in the Western genre.
-Ryan
(I tried, I rambled, I have no idea if i did this right =])
sources
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_%28genre%29
2.http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/tag/the_western/
You stated that the Western is unique to the United States, and I agree with this statement, because I can't think of any other country that had a rapid expansion to basically colonize a seemingly endless amount of land, and coupled with the dangers of the environment and the Indians, etc to create this volatile life on the outskirts of civilization.
ReplyDeleteI have one question though, if The western is a US thing then what is a spaghetti western? Is it simply Italians making Western films?
Kinda off topic, but after watching these our two western films, it really makes me want to play that new video game Red Dead Redemption and be a gun toting ambiguous gray hatted cowboy =)
oh, is that the game where you have to skin wolves and trade the furs? weird...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Gene, that the major theme of civilizing/colonizing a seemingly endless space is unique to the US and the american idea of "manifest destiny," but this heroic tale of man against nature is also easy to relocate to other cultural contexts because it's so generic. So, something that started off as a "local" and culturally specific idea has become an easily transposable structure.
The Italian Westerns were very much B-grade, discount Westerns (dubbed into English). So, the purpose and context of the spaghetti westerns was different from the East Asian westerns, which contain more of a deliberate commentary on genre itself.
good work on the post, Ryan :)
I agree with the statements of major themes of westerns of trying to colonize a seemingly endless space or manifest destiny, but I don't think its was always in a positive light. Although, in most westerns they do put an emphasis on the landscape by having beautiful wide and panning shots of the land, I think towns in the wild west are protrayed as desolate, uncivil, and crimeridden places. However, there are glimmers of hope are the good cowboy holding down the law and the good, honest, and most of the time Christian settlers moving west for a better life...
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I would have to say Western films are one of my least favorite genres. I am referring to the typical cowboy, John Wayne, type movies that aggravatingly so had to watch when I was a little kid ( my older brother was obsessed). That being said the newer movies such as The Good, The Bad, and The Weird or Sukiyaki Western Django was a lot more entertaining but still really not a style I would pick out at the movie rental place.
ReplyDeleteI don't really have much experience with Western films but they all really seem to deal with man vs. wild and using human ingenuity and technology to conquer the world in a sense. There is always an "us" vs. "them" mentality I feel.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping these newer Western especially the East Asian Westerns come back and give this genre some new spice and life.