Tag: Western

February 18, 2016

6 Guns and the Wild West by Paige C Gross

I watched the western “6 Guns” about a woman who seeks revenge on the gang of cowboys that killed her husband and two sons with the aid of a bounty hunter. Set in 1930s, after their murders, the women, Selina falls into a downward spiral of drinking until she meets Frank who promises to teach her how to gunfight. After weeks of training, they track down the gang and kill them one-by-one, herself killing the man who killed her husband. In the final scene, she says goodbye to Frank, and she rides off into the sunset, now a bounty hunter herself.

Before I started watching, I consulted some sites to tell me what I should expect, what exactly, made a western movie, western? I found that they are usually set between the ending of the civil war and the early 1900s, the West’s aversion to modernism and change, a conflict usually surrounding the “good guy” and outlaws of some sort and surrounds some sort of stoic hero. Visually the movie was exactly what I would expect a western to be: dusty, old-fashioned and filled with some of the iconic images the class drew– deserts, horses and cowboys, saloons and guns. Another major point to westerns is to let the setting “play as another character” in the storytelling.

The language and acting was just as poor as I was expecting to be but fit many of the themes in an idea western- the main character, although a women, was isolated after her family was killed and sought to get revenge in their honor against the “outlaws.” Many of the more cinematic moments in the film, like when Selina meets Frank for the first time and the shootout scene fit the iconography of what westerns are made out to be. We discussed the idea of the cowboy as an icon of western culture, but I think western films could also be added to the list of American icons after researching the fandom and culture around it.

This film, and I’m sure all westerns, are American because of their link to the “Old West” an idea that is exclusively American. The idea of expanding west and the “manifest destiny” has become part of the American ideology and that is really exemplified through western films.

http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/western#

http://thegreatwesternmovies.com/2013/07/20/what-makes-a-western-great

February 18, 2016

Fighting Change: Butch and the Kid Defining the American West by Samantha Smyth

The Western has long captivated audiences in theatres. A quick search on Netflix will pull up 30-some-odd films, of which, half are made within the past 10 years. What does this mean? It means the Western and the West itself is still marketable and still intrigues people.

So, what is it about the West that continues to enthrall? As stories are passed down from generation to generation the myth of the west is perpetuated in national consciousness and has become the United States of America’s embodiment of the “Conquest and Transformation of the Unknown” familiar story (Stoeltje 240). To perpetuate these storylines, three distinct themes can be utilized and mixed for desired effect as folklorist Beverly Stoeltje points out: the Rational, Romantic, and Reactionary.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a cornerstone piece in the world of Westerns. Released in 1969, the film would go onto be ranked 49^th on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list (IMDB). Based on the real life exploits of two bandits, the story covers a wide range of themes, images, and icons. Let’s break a few down here:

The Frontier: Red hills, sparse vegetation, horses and cattle: the area inspires, it awes, and it overwhelms. The movie switches between gorgeous shots of vistas and gorges to small towns with dust fluffing around. American’s great outdoors is something well-known, especially as one of the largest countries in the world. Its range of environments is almost unparalleled due to its unique situation on the planet. The wide-open plains portrayed in the film evoke a sense of freedom and possibility, both typically associated with the United States of America to some. By producing this film in 1969, the film studios are employing the ‘Romantic’ modern myth theme: nostalgia for another time (Stoetlje 242).

The future: The first glimpse of the future is when a travelling salesman attempts to make a sale of the ‘way of the future’ bicycle. Butch decides to partake in this future, but ultimate decides to dispose of it before running to Bolivia. The ‘future’ also pops up in the form of the various trains used throughout the film. In this sense, Butch and the filmmakers are portraying the Reactionary approach to the film (Stoeltje 243). Butch is concerned with the status quo and remaining the same. When the boys meet Sheriff Bledsoe and he confirms this sentiment: “It’s over, don’t you get that? Your time is over and you’re gonna die bloody, and all you can do is choose where.” The way of the bandit and outlaw is coming to an end in the late 1890s, and Butch and Sundance are on the outs.

The ‘new’ Frontier: Just as Stoeltje asserts that American’s applied their Frontier Myth to the space-program, Butch and Sundance apply the Frontier Myth to Bolivia (240). They believe Bolivia to be the next big step, and once they’ve had their fill in South America, the film ends with the boys saying Australia could be next (though in reality, the boys died in Bolivia, the movie carefully omits that part). By believing in the future (even though that future may be similar to their present) Butch and Sundance are fulfilling the Rationalist approach to mythbuilding.

The ‘second’-citizens: Ah yes, in typical old American fashion, the film chooses to provide some stereotypical representations of the underrepresented. The use of a prodigious Indian tracker named Lord Baltimore, the blundering and seemingly slow Spanish-Bolivians, and the fawning female. Sure Etta joins the boys on their quest to Bolivia, but not before she agrees to sew their socks and cook their food!

The West will continue to inspire and intrigue people through cinema and television. So, what is the West really? The West is the embodiment of the American Myth of possibility: the idea of grasping more, of conquering the elements and the system. Through employing various modern myth themes, the filmmakers are able to transport the viewer into their idealized version of the West.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/

http://www.netflix.com/search/butch?jbv=26308213&jbp=0&jbr=0

Stoeltje, Beverly J. “Make the Frontier Myth: Folklore Process in a Modern Nation”. Western Folklore 46.4 (October 1987) JSTOR

Photos: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid

February 18, 2016

Paul Newman is Hombre: A Classic Western Explained by Maxine Elizabeth Whitney

In many ways, Hombre is a classic Western film. It begins with a cowboy versus Indian interaction, when an Apache raised white man is confronted by a cowboy with the news that his father has died and he is now the owner of his property. The main character, Russell, embodies the all too familiar mysterious, cocky protagonist that you want to hate even though he is the good guy. At first, Russell is insistent on staying with and protecting his calm, voiceless Apache companions, however he eventually agrees to the cowboy’s wishes and faces his heritage by journeying into the white township. Upon arrival into this run down, almost ghostly town he is greeted by two aggressive, gun wielding, intoxicated cowboys who are just itching to pick a fight with him. This kind of character is present throughout the whole movie, as well as in most stories of the wild west. This becomes even more evident when Russell’s ride to a nearby town is hijacked by bandits, leaving him to bring all the passengers to safety. The antagonist, Russell’s male travel companions, and all the other male characters introduced, aside from the Indians, are the dirty, true grit cowboys the United States has come to iconize. The same goes for the setting. The very first altercation is in a saloon, the majority of the movie takes place in a barren cactus filled wasteland, and all transportation is either by horse or by buggy with only hints of railroads here and there.

These consistencies open up a larger conversation about what truly is the west. This movie describes what I am going to call the “U.S West”. This is what American’s think the west was like just based on the amount of stories, movies, and books that have created a narrative identical to this. Cowboys and Indians are enemies, no issue between two men can be solved without the involvement of a cowboy hat or a gun, and whatever journey was undertaken always involved either perilous roads or equally perilous bandits.

However, a reality of the west that is mentioned minimally in the movie but a lot in Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s work titled Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is that the wild west was truly as much of a part of Mexican history as is was the U.S. Most of the time, Mexicans are left completely out of this narrative in U.S depictions, focusing mainly on the cowboys and Indians. In Hombre, one of the main characters that accompanies Russell on his journey of revenge is Mexican, and talks openly about it through dialogue about race and through selling popular Mexican alcohol Mescal. In her book, Anzaldúa discusses the fact that Mexico owned a majority of what is considered the west up until the mid 1800s, and the people who lived there had equal contact to the native Indians as white people. In many ways, the Mexican people were treated very similarly to the Indians. After the battle of the Alamo, many who had settled in what was now U.S property were forced to flee their homes through fear of Anglo violence (Anzaldúa, 6-7). In my experience with both pop culture and educational depictions of the west, the violent past with Mexico and the “Wild West” were kept very seperate, except maybe when talking about the infamous Mexican bandits. That is why it was interesting and very unfamiliar to see a Mexican character living and traveling amoung white people as he does in this movie. While this movie does not incorporate most the important part of Mexican- American history into the story line, the inclusion of a Mexican character who breaks the U.S mold of the white male cowboy or white female love interest gives Hombre a new theme that is, in fact, very American.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. Print.

1^st Hombre Poster is from The Movie Poster Shop website: http://www.moviepostershop.com/hombre-movie-poster-1966

2^nd Hombre image is a photo from a scene presented by a website called Go Giles Go

http://www.gogilesgo.com/eleven/hombre/