genre films

1. Genre: The Western

2. Genre
A category of film, such as the western, the
horror film, the costume drama, the
melodrama, and so on, with recognizable
conventions and character types.

3. Semantic Approach
Focus on similarities
Fixed meanings, what
remains constant
Building blocks of the
genre
Syntactic Approach
Focus on change and
development over
time
Variable relationships
between structured
elements

4. Semantic Approach
The Western is a film
whose action,
situated in the
American West, is
consistent with the
atmosphere , the
values, and the
conditions of
existence in the Far
West between 1840
and 1900.
Syntactic Approach
The Western is a
genre that results
from several
overlapping thematic
clashes: the West as
desert vs. the West as
garden; nature vs.
culture; the individual
vs. community.

5. Semantic Approach
= broad applicability.
Syntactic Approach
= explanatory power.

6. Semantic Approach
The Western hero is
typically a nomadic
male loner who
comes to town,
purges it of its savage
or criminal elements,
and leaves. He is
often motivated by
revenge and/or a
sense of justice.
Syntactic Approach
How do variations in
the Western hero
represent changing
images of masculinity
and changing attitudes
toward the history of
Western settlement?

7. Conventions
(Semantic Elements)
o Settings
o Character Types
o Costumes and Props
o Plots/Situations
o Conflicts
o Cinematic elements:
cinematography, mise-en-
scene

8. Overlapping Thematic Clashes
(Syntactic Relationships)
The West as
as garden
Culture
Community
The West as
as desert
Nature
Individual
vs.

9. The Western as Myth
“ . . . in The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956)
there is a direct confrontation with the fact that
the origin of the territorial U.S. rested on a
virulent racism and genocidal war against
aboriginal peoples, a war that would not have
been possible and perhaps would not have been
won without the racist hatred of characters like
the John Wayne character.”
- Robert B. Pippin, “What Is a Western? Politics and Self-Knowledge in
John Ford’s The Searchers,” Critical Inquiry 35.2 (2009)

10. Repeated Images
in The Searchers

21. Marriages on the Border
Debbie and Scar
Marty and Look
Marty and Laurie