Genre ResearchWestern

Cowboys

Background•There are many different types of westerns including traditional, singing, outlaw, serial westerns and many more.

•They were based on what America was actually like in the past years.

•We now associate old western with the outlaw cowboy image it is perceived as.

Facts on westerns•They have been around for decades

•They were some of the very first films to be made

•The cowboy/outlaw image we think today was developed from them

•There have been countless classic games and movies created from this period of time

The first filmsThe Western Genre of films has been around for a long time and many have been made over the past 100+ years. The first time anybody had ever made a film was in the late 1800’s and the cowboy/western scene in America was being established around the early 1800’s, the reason for there being no western films made around this time being that the technology of film making had not been discovered yet. Until the 1870’s where a film called ‘The Horse in motion’ by Eadweard Muybridge and as the name of the title says, it is just a horse galloping continuously. Although this film has not got a cowboy in it is highly related to western films as it kicked the film making off and thousands more have now been made.

The Great Train RobberyThe Great Train Robbery, made in 1903. The 12 minute long silent movie consists of outlaws robbing a train with explosives, robbing passengers and escaping on horseback while pursued by a posse of lawmen, eventually a gunfight formed and the good guys won (of course), the film is trying to send out a message that crime does not pay. This film was paving the way for other movies in the long continuous genre of the “Old West”. This film was a very unique film as it was the first to have an actual storyline, with a plot and character development. When the film was released by Edison Film Co. the public loved it and were obsessed with the lawmen and bandits involved. You can see from the trailer just how far films have come on. Near the end it mentions extreme violence and only a gunshot is fired.

The 1910’sThere were lots of different western films within the 1910’s mostly directed by D.W Griffith starring Blanche Sweet. There were films such as ‘The Cowboy and the Lady’ ‘Was He a coward?’ ‘The last drop of water’. Although these films were still not making much of an impact on the world as they were all fairly similar and most of them still silent movies, except the films now had switching scenes included in them. The whole cowboy image still had not kicked off yet as the outlaws and lawmen were not the main stars of the film.

Griffith & Sweet

3 Bad Men1920’s• Was an American Outlaw Western directed by John Ford

in which three young men turn to outlaws and attempt to rob, misbehave etc. in the public towns/areas.

• It was a silent film with slides with words on screen for the dialogue.

There wasn’t much movement in terms of storyline with this film as the technology wasn’t available and nobody had thought of doing something different until the 1930’s

The Texas Rangers1930’sThe western films in the 30’s still consisted of the classic cowboy image but had the same plots and storylines (the story lines were plain interpretations of robberies, gunfights etc. as the cost of these productions were too high for special effects and real effects.

One of the main films of this time was ‘The Texas Rangers’ In this film it displays an Outlaw and a Lawman coming together as friends, and the public loved this film as it was a twist on the classic story. And with colour and sound it made this film a big hit as it was nominated for best sound at the 1936 Oscar awards

Billy The Kid1940’sNow that most of the world had adapted to their surroundings with new technology the western genre sky rocketed in popularity and hundreds were queuing at cinemas/theatres to see the latest film. But still the similar storylines were being told.

In this film ‘Billy the Kid’ it is a remake of the 1930’s film featuring Robert Taylor as ‘Billy the Kid’. Director David Miller decided to make this film as it was based on the book. The Film had not been as well received as the 1930’s version but it turned out to only be an ‘widescreen experimental test’

Vera Cruz1950’sThe 1950’s similar to the 1940’s had no massive hits just average similar storylines other than the one film ‘Vera Cruz’ which displayed the characters violent, rough and simply unacceptable behavior. It even included a scene where child hostages were threatened. To the public these scenes for regarded as shocking and was one of the first films to introduce moderately bad language in films .

1960’sThe decade of the sixties saw a massive increase in ‘spaghetti westerns’ which is where Italian film makers decided to make a series of classic American westerns.

This film was rated as an ‘epic’ film and gave us the classic cowboy/outlaw theme tune we all associate with western.

As you can see in the picture below and the clip next the Clint Eastwood’s character has huge resemblance to a video game character from Red Dead Redemption released in 2010 (John Marston).

The White Buffalo 1970’sIn this film we are introduced to see the first of the fantasy westerns in which…•The white buffalo is an abnormal sized monster•The characters Charles Bronson, Kim Novak, Jack Warden and Slim Pickens take on a long adventure to find out if there really is a ‘beast’•They come across Crazy Horses that tell them it killed the horses’ daughter•Until they eventually track down the white beast and kill it.

Pale Rider1980’sIn the 1980’s western films were starting to die down as not many people were interested in them much anymore, therefore only around 15 were made compared to the hundreds made in previous decades.

The film Pale Rider is an American Western produced and starring Clint Eastwood. The films plot contains poor families searching for gold in the hills until thugs turn up and start killing, a 15 year old girl Megan Wheeler’s dog is shot and she prays to god for help.Eventually Clint Eastwood’s character turns out to be a God send to help the poor families and community gettingthe nickname of ‘The Preacher’ Clint Eastwood eventuallyhelps everyone in the community and rides off into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Back to the Future1990’sAs we can see now the western genre is now expanding becoming more varied in terms of storyline. In this film it is more based on a Sci-Fi genre but is slightly western too as in the film the characters time travel back to the times of the Old West.This film is all about time traveling as in the previous two films these two Characters Marty (Michael J. Fox) & Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) go forwards to the future but end up needing to come back because of a wrong decision.

Brokeback Mountain 2000’sBrokeback mountain is an adaptation of the 1997 book about two homosexual western American men from 1963 to 1983. These two characters Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) first meet over the summer of 1963 herding sheep for a farmer until they fall in love. They then part ways after the summer for years and go to marry their fiancés and start families. After the years they eventually meet up and fall in love again, Jack asks Ennis whether he wants to create a small life together on a ranch but Ennis refuses after seeing gay men tortured when he was younger.

This film won the Golden Lion award honored with best picture, Director. Also nominated for 8 academy awards winning three; Best score, best Director and best adapted screen play. Ranking the 11th most grossing romance of all time

Cowboys and Aliens 2010’s

Cowboys vs. Aliens is a fantasy/sci-fi western Directed by Jon Favreau starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde. In this film the characters are all completely different personalities. For example there is a cattleman (Ford), an outlaw (Craig) and a mysterious traveler (Wilde) who need to find out why and how the local townsmen are being captured.

On its release this film gained bad reviews and critics said ‘it didn’t feel right mixing sci-fi with western’