2. •There are many different types of westerns including
traditional, singing, outlaw, serial westerns and many more.
•They were based on what America was actually like in the past years.
•We now associate old western with the outlaw cowboy image it is perceived
as.
3. •They have been around for decades
•They were some of the very first films to be made
•The cowboy/outlaw image we think today was developed from them
•There have been countless classic games and movies created from this
period of time
4. The Western Genre of films has been around for a long time and many have
been made over the past 100+ years. The first time anybody had ever made a
film was in the late 1800‟s and the cowboy/western scene in America was
being established around the early 1800‟s, the reason for there being no
western films made around this time being that the technology of film making
had not been discovered yet. Until the 1870‟s where a film called „The Horse in
motion‟ by Eadweard Muybridge and as the name of the title says, it is just a
horse galloping continuously. Although this film has not got a cowboy in it is
highly related to western films as it kicked the film making off and thousands
more have now been made.
5. The Great Train Robbery, made in 1903. The 12 minute long silent movie
consists of outlaws robbing a train with explosives, robbing passengers and
escaping on horseback while pursued by a posse of lawmen, eventually a
gunfight formed and the good guys won (of course), the film is trying to send
out a message that crime does not pay. This film was paving the way for
other movies in the long continuous genre of the “Old West”. This film was a
very unique film as it was the first to have an actual storyline, with a plot and
character development. When the film was released by Edison Film Co. the
public loved it and were obsessed with the lawmen and bandits involved.
You can see from the trailer just how far films have come on. Near the end it
mentions extreme violence and only a gunshot is fired.
6. There were lots of different western films within the 1910‟s mostly directed by
D.W Griffith starring Blanche Sweet. There were films such as „The Cowboy and
the Lady‟ „Was He a coward?‟ „The last drop of water‟. Although these films
were still not making much of an impact on the world as they were all fairly
similar and most of them still silent movies, except the films now had switching
scenes included in them. The whole cowboy image still had not kicked off yet as
the outlaws and lawmen were not the main stars of the film.
Griffith & Sweet
7. • Was an American Outlaw Western directed by John Ford in
which three young men turn to outlaws and attempt to
rob, misbehave etc. in the public towns/areas.
• It was a silent film with slides with words on screen for the
dialogue.
There wasn‟t much movement in terms of storyline with this film as
the technology wasn‟t available and nobody had thought of doing
something different until the 1930‟s
8. The western films in the 30‟s still consisted of the classic cowboy image but
had the same plots and storylines (the story lines were plain interpretations of
robberies, gunfights etc. as the cost of these productions were too high for
special effects and real effects.
One of the main films of this time was „The Texas Rangers‟
In this film it displays an Outlaw and a Lawman coming
together as friends, and the public loved this film as it was
a twist on the classic story. And with colour and sound it
made this film a big hit as it was nominated for best sound
at the 1936 Oscar awards
9. Now that most of the world had adapted to their surroundings with new
technology the western genre sky rocketed in popularity and hundreds were
queuing at cinemas/theatres to see the latest film. But still the similar
storylines were being told.
In this film „Billy the Kid‟ it is a remake of the 1930‟s film featuring Robert
Taylor as „Billy the Kid‟. Director David Miller decided to make this film as it
was based on the book. The Film had not been as well received as the 1930‟s
version but it turned out to only be an „widescreen experimental test‟
10. The 1950‟s similar to the 1940‟s had no massive hits just average similar
storylines other than the one film „Vera Cruz‟ which displayed the characters
violent, rough and simply unacceptable behavior. It even included a scene
where child hostages were threatened. To the public these scenes for
regarded as shocking and was one of the first films to introduce moderately
bad language in films .
11. The decade of the sixties saw a massive increase in „spaghetti westerns‟
which is where Italian film makers decided to make a series of classic
American westerns.
This film was rated as an „epic‟ film and gave us the classic cowboy/outlaw
theme tune we all associate with western.
As you can see in the picture below and the clip next the Clint Eastwood‟s
character has huge resemblance to a video game character from Red Dead
Redemption released in 2010 (John Marston).
12. In this film we are introduced to see the first of the fantasy westerns in
which…
•The white buffalo is an abnormal sized monster
•The characters Charles Bronson, Kim Novak, Jack Warden and Slim
Pickens take on a long adventure to find out if there really is a „beast‟
•They come across Crazy Horses that tell them it killed the horses‟ daughter
•Until they eventually track down the white beast and kill it.
13. In the 1980‟s western films were starting to die down as not many people
were interested in them much anymore, therefore only around 15 were
made compared to the hundreds made in previous decades.
The film Pale Rider is an American Western produced and starring Clint
Eastwood. The films plot contains poor families searching for gold in the hills
until thugs turn up and start killing, a 15 year old girl Megan Wheeler‟s dog
is shot and she prays to god for help.
Eventually Clint Eastwood‟s character turns out to be a
God send to help the poor families and community getting
the nickname of „The Preacher‟ Clint Eastwood eventually
helps everyone in the community and rides off into the
Sierra Nevada Mountains.
14. As we can see now the western genre is now expanding becoming more
varied in terms of storyline. In this film it is more based on a Sci-Fi genre but
is slightly western too as in the film the characters time travel back to the
times of the Old West.
This film is all about time traveling as in the previous two films these two
Characters Marty (Michael J. Fox) & Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) go
forwards to the future but end up needing to come back because of a wrong
decision.
15. Brokeback mountain is an adaptation of the 1997
book about two homosexual western American men
from 1963 to 1983. These two characters Ennis
(Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) first meet
over the summer of 1963 herding sheep for a farmer
until they fall in love. They then part ways after the
summer for years and go to marry their fiancés and
start families. After the years they eventually meet up
and fall in love again, Jack asks Ennis whether he
wants to create a small life together on a ranch but
Ennis refuses after seeing gay men tortured when he
was younger.
This film won the Golden Lion award honored with
best picture, Director. Also nominated for 8 academy
awards winning three; Best score, best Director and
best adapted screen play. Ranking the 11th most
grossing romance of all time
16. Cowboys vs. Aliens is a fantasy/sci-fi western Directed
by Jon Favreau starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford
and Olivia Wilde. In this film the characters are all
completely different personalities. For example there is
a cattleman (Ford), an outlaw (Craig) and a mysterious
traveler (Wilde) who need to find out why and how the
local townsmen are being captured.
On its release this film gained bad reviews and critics
said „it didn‟t feel right mixing sci-fi with western‟
