We have heard that the cinema reflects society. In film studies, many theorists connect movie genres to cultural believes and ideologies. This is the Genre Theory.
Genre Theory
In the early history of film, genre studies was condemned and associated with commercial and low art films. Genres were only regarded as a restrictive formula to replicate financially successful films.
Around the 50s, film theorists started to study genre films in a different way that will change the perception of genre movies.
Among these theorists were Andre Bazin, and Andrew Sarris under the influence of the Cahiers du cinema. They made a relation between genres and cultural ideologies.
They said that popular movie genres reflect culture.
By that, we can consider genre films as high art and acquire an aesthetic value that is worthy of critical analysis.
Genre theory first started with the French film theorist and critic Andre Bazin. He studied the American westerns and their relation to the American culture.
We will try to summarize the relation between western movies and the American ideologies by talking about 3 western films:
Classical film: Stagecoach (directed by Jon Ford in 1939)
Modern film: Little Big Man (Directed by Arthur Penn in 1970)
Postmodern film: No Country for Old Men (Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen in 2007)
First, what is a Western?
What is the Western movie genre?
The basic theme of western films revolves around conflicts between the civilized whites and the savage Native Americans (the others).
The plot is basically about establishing and maintaining the order on the frontier.
The western hero is a courageous, masculine, moral, and self-sufficient man that faces the villain in a good v/s bad scenario in order to re-establish the order of law.
The typical setting of a western is the American west.
These films usually include elements such as galloping horses, fights, strong and brave cowboy characters.
Western Movies and Western Culture
Bazin pointed out that those ingredients of the western formula can be recognized as signs and symbols of western reality.
In that sense, an important function of the movie genre is to shed light on contemporary problems or ideologies.
For example, the cowboys with guns represent the fascination with violence.
The western hero encompasses the idea of the last gentleman.
Following the lead of Bazin, the western movie genre can be linked to the contemporary climate and it would be logical to assume that the American western film come as a response for the chaos and violence in the country where the westerner character takes upon himself to re-enforce the law in order to neutralize the chaos of America.
Stagecoach
Stagecoach is a western directed by Jon Ford in 1939. The movie portrays the trip of a group of characters on a stagecoach across the frontier.
This movie entails the values of the American nation and the history of pre-World War II. The movie resonated with a problematic of racial representation and the fear of the other.
Analyzing the film symbolically, the Native Americans symbolize the enemy or the other. The group of people from various social backgrounds represent American society.
Little Big Man
Little Big Man is western that responds to the modern age. It was directed by Arthur Penn in 1970.
The movie tells the story of Jack Crabb (played by Dustin Hoffman), who was adopted by the Native Americans.
Little Big Man came after the Vietnam War, and it could be argued that it was a response to this historical event.
For example, the cowboys fighting the Indians represent the American and Vietnamese soldiers.
The director broke the rules of the classical western in his anti-western film.
The Hollywood standards of the genre were reversed. In Little Big Man, the Native Americans or the “others” were portrayed as the good guys.
This was by showing them as peaceful and civilized people who are facing systematic extermination by representatives of the US government.
Thus, Little Big Man is a metaphor of imperialism and echoed the value crisis in western countries.
No Country for Old Men
No Country for Old Men is Directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen in 2007).
The movie is about Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who finds a case of money in the desert and decided to keep it.
A killer named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) locates Moss and his money and tries to hunt Moss down.
Whilst all this is going, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is overseeing the investigation and begins to see the country in a different light than it once was.
Although the movie still possesses main aspects of the western film such as the setting, and its association of savagery with the racially other, and having the American white male as the protagonist, it diverges from the traditional conventions of the genre by tampering with the expected ending of the western formula.
The hero does not win in the end and the villain gets away!
These deviations from the western formula can be read to be echoing dominant contemporary ideologies such as the war on terror, and the struggle and defeat of the civilized in the face of the uncivilized other.
Conclusion
Genre theory tells us that genres can tell many things about the culture and society of the country that they originated in.
By studying western movies, and analyzing them (Okay.. maybe over-analyzing), we can understand how these movies might be critiquing the society or echoing its concerns.
So, The western genre, in general, is a representation of the chaos and violence in our culture, and the ideology of saving the uncivilized other by that restoring the order of law.
Western movies can be studied in this sense:
Stagecoach represents American society on a stagecoach.
Little Big Man represents the Vietnam war and challenges the concept of racism.
No Country for Old Men represents the struggle and the war on terror.
