Film History Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Film History - Movie Review Example In a profound research on screen history, one cannot ignore the importance of the genre called the Western and it is a fiction genre which has grown to represent the culture of western society. The westerns were the most common genre in Hollywood one time and between the 1930s and the mid-1960s it was the most dominant Hollywood film or an archetypical genre. "To say a film is a western is immediately to say that it shares some indefinable 'X' with other films we call westerns. In addition, it provides us with a body of films to which our film can be usefully compared..." (Grant 2003. P. 3). Arguably, it was the most significant American story form of the twentieth century, though the case is greatly changed today and it has become unlikely to find a western now. Thus, the influence, themes, and myths central to the classic Hollywood western, along with these movies, have disappeared, though the imprints of the genre can still be seen in the modern box-office success stories. Therefo re, an analysis of the western genre has great significance today. "Western themes and myths are still alive and well, but they have migrated to other genres, most notably, science fiction and action movies A look at the western today is not a revisiting of a dying genre, but an examination of a type of film whose shadow still falls across the theatre screens of North America." (The History of Film). This paper focuses on a comparative analysis of two modern western genre films in order to comprehend the significant elements and the history of the genre. The Western Genre: Film texts The popularity of the western genre in the twentieth century may be understood as the result of their specific characteristics which are reflected in the modern blockbuster successes. The western, which was once a Hollywood staple, has fallen on hard times. "Its complex and rich intertwining of a frontier setting, male action and themes of national identity and history no more sustains a viable genre, and the framework for analysing it through the oppositions of civilization and wilderness, the garden and the desert, has been challenged." (Geraghty 2007. P. 136). Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903), which is the first western genre film, illustrates the essential elements of the genre and by 1929s the western became a generic clip. The Searchers (1956) by John Ford is an illustrious example of the genre type and the hero's status as a pathological outsider