What are the codes and conventions of the Western?

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What are the codes and conventions of the Western?

In this essay I shall examine the various codes and conventions which are present in the Western film. I shall examine three films. These are The Searchers, a film which includes as its hero John Wayne playing the part of Ethan, A Fistfull of Dollars, in which Clint Eastwood plays the part of the hero with no name, and Stagecoach, in which John Wayne is also present, acting the part of The Ringo Kidd. I shall examine the first sections of all three films, as to perform a detailed analysis of all of the three films is a task beyond the scope of this essay. Beforehand, however, I shall describe some common aspects of cinematography. . .

A high camera angle is used to make the audience appreciate the significance of a character in the Western. This camera angle is used to make the person look ordinary or common, inferior to another character, or small in relation to another character in the script.

A low camera angle is used to stress the importance of the dominant character. The person's status within the film is very easily measured by how large they appear to be to the viewer at one particular time.

If the camera follows one character in a film for example, this could provide a link between scenes in the mind(s) of the viewer. If the camera stays in a static position, and the person walks away for example, this could signify the end of a scene.

Deep focus and wide angle shots of the desert are often used in the opening credits of the Western film, as they ensure that the viewer appreciates the full glory and magnitude of the desert enviroment.

The set around the actors in a Western can be used to communicate different ideas to the viewer. A person in a bar will give the audience very different mental picture to the same person in a desert, just as a person wearing a poncho in a film will give the audience a very different impression when compared to a person who is wearing Western style clothes.

The props are the objects which are put to use by the characters in a film, and which put emphasis on the plot (in a Western an example would be a six-shooter). Also, if different characters carry different props, this can put emphasis on characterisation too. An integral part of the use of props is the effective use of iconographic representations of objects commonly found in the Western culture. Various props can also symbolise survival, masculinity, manhood - e.g. the "macho" man in a Western will always carry some form of gun, whether it be a Winchester rifle of a Colt 6-shot pistol. Different props in the hands of different characters can mean different things, as the rifle in the hands of the Mexican mercenary will have a different meaning to the viewer compared to the pistol in the belt of the lone hero and the tiny pocket pistol in the handbag of the lady.

The positioning of the characters, the props, and the set within a frame can all drastically alter the viewer's perception of that scene. An example of this is that a person in the foreground of a scene is considered more significant than a person in the rear of a scene. The positioning of objects within a frame is always very well thought out by the film's director and camera crew.

Below are the main themes which are present in any Western film. Analysis will show that most of all of these are present in the three films which I have chosen.

Desert Vs. Civilisation

Anarchy Vs. Law and Order

Freedom Vs. Responsibility

A spiritual or physical journey

Revenge

There are many rituals in the Western, which include the gun/fist fight, the departure and return of the lone hero, and Western and Indian burials. The contrast between Western and Indian burials is discussed later in the essay.

In a Western there is always somebody who symbolises Law and Order. This is usually the Sheriff, but can also be the cavalry etc. The so called "bad guys" in a Western are often from ethnic minorities, and are nearly always dirty, have bad habits which include spitting etc. They may also use expletives. The filmmakers make it very obvious to the viewer who the bad-guys really are, and the easiest way for them to achieve this is to use at that time unpopular groups of people, and use them almost as scapegoats.

At the end of the "Searchers" film, the cavalry burn and kill the Indians, including their chief, Scar, and the Indian settlements. The two groups just cannot live together in the same country, and are always trying to kill each other. This is an integral part of most Western films, the intense hatred present between the two groups.

The doll which Debbie (the little girl in the "Searchers" film) is holding at the start is to prove to be very significant. White people who are brought up as Indian women still clutch their dolls. They are their last link with civilisation, even if they themselves are no longer to be considered civilised.

The grime of the desert contrasts very strongly with the cleanliness of the homestead in Searchers. This is to show what a hostile and forbidding environment the desert is when compared to the cleanly and welcoming environment of the homestead.

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Education is a very important theme in any Western - the more responsibilities the individual has to bear, the better educated they normally are. Hence Ethan from Searchers is better educated than Marty in the ways of the desert, and important and essential information regarding many items and things to do with the desert environment. Marty however is much more familiar with his own environment, which consists of the homestead, and civilisation generally. Ethan's feelings towards his brother's wife are very apparent at the start of the film - this is most probably why he stays away from the house ...

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The conclusion is OK, if a little cursory - it fits within the rather limited parametres defined by the essay's title question. The written English is a bit clunky, but the list of themes is fairly accurate and comprehensive. It would be better if the conclusion also contained some closing reflection on why all Westerns contain these themes, and how it fits into the culture where those films are made and consumed. I award 2 stars, 1 for research and 1 for chutzpah. I've marked the essay on its own terms, as though it were an undergraduate essay, because I do applaud the research that's been done to amass so much detailed information on these films, and also because there is a lot of work here that is clearly your own thought, and which I found interesting. However, viewed as a university level essay, the structure is appalling and the level of analysis is very superficial. This isn't really a logically coherent discourse that explores deeply the codes and conventions of westerns, and then makes some statement about what the genre as a whole means; it's more just a list of loosely connected observations about westerns, with no particular insight into what this tells us about Westerns as a whole. Moreover, there is no recognition that westerns have changed over the 40 year time period between when the first one was made (Stagecoach, 1939) and the last (Fistful, 1964), so there's no insight into why this might be the case. What has changed in the world, that made the western evolve until it was almost a pastiche of itself, and then finally all but disappear? There is much one can learn from analysing the lifecycle of a genre! I sincerely hope that you will apply your intelligence to attending university and squiring there the rudiments of the narrative genre known as "the essay" - it is a powerful form of communication that too few people master, and when it is done well it can literally change the way that people think and feel forever.