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  • Essay / The Western as a Film Genre - 1434

    The Western as a Genre Stagecoach by John Ford (United Artists) has been hailed as the official classic of the western. Released in 1939 after the lull in Western production caused by the advent of sound and the Great Depression in the mid-1930s, it is considered one of the key films that helped revive the A-Western in the 1940s, before World War II. Stagecoach has the classic Western recipe. The staple of this recipe in Stagecoach was cowboys and townspeople dressed authentically, with attire determining who or what they were; transportation in the form of horses, wagons or stagecoaches; an authentic place, Monument Valley for example; and various clashes, some between Indians and settlers and others between individuals and communities... This recipe had been used several times during the filming of Stagecoach in 1939. The development of the Western genre originally began in the Pioneer biographies and novels written about the western frontier in the late 1800s, based on myth and manifest destiny. When the film industry decided to turn its attention to the cowboy in 1903 with The Great Train Robbery, there was a plethora of literature on the subject, both non-fiction and fiction. The western also found its roots in the "Wild West" stage productions and rodeos of the era. In the early realms of American literature and stage productions, the legend and fear that the West was a wild and untamed wilderness was ingrained in the minds of the American people. Productions and rodeos added action and frivolity to the Western film genre. The American film industry's early attempts at the narrative Western were limited, and in the early years they were produced primarily in the East. In this early era of the film industry, the... middle of paper ...... it moves from a classic plot to the inclusion of aliens, but the basic recipe is the same. A lone cowboy on the fringes of society, placed in a difficult situation that forces him to resort to violence which he has the capacity to use, but does not like to use to take himself or others out of this difficult situation. Works Cited Sturges, J. (Director) (1960). The Magnificent Seven [Theatre]. Ford, J. (Director) (1939). Stagecoach [Theatre].Porter, E. (Director) (1903). The Great Train Robbery [Theatre].Hughes, H. (Director) (1943). The Outlaw [Theater]. Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., and Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: WW Norton & Company. Lewis, J. (2008). American cinema, a history. New York, London: WW Norton & Company. Buscombe, E. (1988). The bfi companion to the western. New York: Athenaeum.