In what way is 'The Quick and the Dead' both a typical and untypical film from the Western Genre?

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In what way is ‘The Quick and the Dead’ both a typical and untypical film from the Western Genre?

In this essay I will be looking at the main points of the film to show how it is both typical and untypical of the Western Genre.

        The film ‘The Quick and the Dead’ is a Western film that is mainly situated around 1 central character and their motive to get revenge. Ellen, ‘a Cowgirl’ rides into town to take part in a gun-fighting contest that is held every year. At first when asked she claims that she is simply taking part for the $123,000 prize money, however we later discover that she is taking part to avenge her feathers death. Her father was hung while Ellen was at a very young age, she was made to watch this happen and although given the chance by her fathers killers to save him, she couldn’t.  The main person responsible for her fathers death was a man called Herod, he is the ‘Outlaw’ of the town where the gun-fighting contest is being held, the people of the town re extremely afraid of him and Herod knows this and takes advantage of them. For example a young boy told Ellen that Herod takes 50c of every $1 in the town.

        As a young child whilst witnessing her father being hung, Ellen was given a chance to save her father. Herod gave Ellen a gun and told her she could have three shots to shoot through the rope that her father was hanging from. Ellen was extremely scared and was adamant that she would not be able to do it, but her father told her that she would be able to, she took the shot but with that she missed the rope and shot her father dead. It is apparent that she has since that day blamed herself for her fathers death, and when in the bar once again witnessed Herod hanging someone but as the chair was removed from the underneath of the person Ellen shot the rope saving their life, and at the same time silenced people from their laughing at the thought of a woman firing a gun straight.

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        The person Herod was hanging, The Preacher was made to enter the contest even though he refused to fire the gun. Various other characters also signed up for the contest including the Kid (Herod’s son), Ace and the Swedish champion.

The Genre of a film defines what type of film it is; for example a film containing lots of explosions, car chases, fighting scenes and killing. It would have to be given an Action Genre, such as Lethal Weapon or Die Hard. An example of a film with the Genre of Sci-Fi would be Star Trek or Terminator; ...

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