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Dune isn't a western because it really lacks the ideological trappings that allow Japanese and Korean films set in Manchuria to be considered Westerns, and that allow jidaigeki films to be easily reinterpreted and remade as westerns. You have a lot of pieces, but they never come together in the same way that, say, Star Wars does. Like, you have the breakdown of order, but not in the sense of Arrakis being a place free from order (whether to be civilized or to have drama play out upon its canvas) but as a consequence of the actions of the characters. It's almost the opposite of what westerns have been about, especially since Arrakis is understood as a place of rational laws, though not ones that Paul initially understands. There are similarities, but not many- the emphasis is on the Fremen as a purer society than the decadent Empire, but not a fundamentally different one.
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Sep 15, 2015 03:47
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It's more like Lawrence of Arabia than a western.
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Sep 15, 2015 14:43
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What about Space Westerns? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw3fN3OPk3A (See You, Space Cowboy)
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Sep 15, 2015 17:41
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what makes the searchers something other than a mediocre movie with like tiny bits of (probably unintentional) meta commentary in it also starring john wayne ( this actor starred in other famous old westerns but those had more tension and were more engaging to watch)? anyways my vote is gbu(lol). its just over the top entertainment the whole runtime. Slaapaav fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 20:19
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I have to say I'm tied between Unforgiven and The Good the Bad and the Ugly as best. I find the older films a bit hard to watch, I feel they don't stand up well. However Pale Rider is excellent and is a solid 2nd place.
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Sep 15, 2015 20:42
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I made a poo poo decision yesterday when I was at Best Buy. There was a two-pack of Unforgiven and Outlaw Josey Wales on blu ray for $6 and I didn't buy it. I have a hard time buying these combination movie packs, it just feels wrong for some reason.
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Sep 15, 2015 20:44
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Slaapaav posted:what makes the searchers something other than a mediocre movie with like tiny bits of (probably unintentional) meta commentary in it also starring john wayne ( this actor starred in other famous old westerns but those had more tension and were more engaging to watch)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_imB5kmc_pk
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Sep 16, 2015 05:25
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Drifter posted:Mad Max Fury Road is a good western. It's certainly got the horsepower. DolphinCop posted:the best western film is Drive Grendels Dad posted:I would like to throw out Ravenous as a good movie about people with hats like people in western movies wear them. Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:The Road Warrior is a pretty good western. effectual posted:What about Blade Runner? precision posted:Would Dune be considered a Western? I kinda think it is. MonsieurChoc posted:What about Space Westerns? What the gently caress is it with this thread and people constantly trying to avoid talking about actual westerns? Honestly, it's kind of interesting to see so many people trying to throw any thing with deserts and loners at the wall to see what sticks rather than watching and discussing actual true examples of the genre. We have to shove whatever we like already in to the framework of the "western." Is the Road Warrior a western, sure arguably. But Blade Runner? Blade Runner is a loving noir through and through. Dune is not a western. Drive is not a western. They may take themes and ideas and influence, but they're not true westerns. And when we look at the western as a dead genre, seeing everybody try to morph other films to fit that mold, rather than talk about Mann or Ford or Hawks, is so odd.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:08
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The Searchers is absolutely meant to be commentary on the western genre its treatment of Native Americans. All of the changes from the original novel to the film support this. There was quite a good academic article written several years ago that goes into detail about this: http://www.historyteacher.net/HistoryThroughFilm/FilmReadings/DarkeningEthan--JohnFordTheSearchers.pdf.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:16
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Hey guys I just watched Centuri-TrixRabbi posted:What the gently caress is it with this thread and people constantly trying to avoid talking about actual westerns? Oh.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:20
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Raxivace posted:The Searchers is absolutely meant to be commentary on the western genre its treatment of Native Americans. All of the changes from the original novel to the film support this. I don't understand how a modern audience can watch that movie and see anything else. It's so blatant in Ethan being a broken, hate-filled man and how it destroys him. I remember I took a college course on Film, Gender, and Race and one of the homework assignments was the poorly-thought out "Watch a John Wayne movie" and I wish I had seen The Searchers at that point (I don't think I watched it for another year after that class) because the people who talked about it talked about how racist it was. And it's confirmation bias is what it is.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:35
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TrixRabbi posted:I don't understand how a modern audience can watch that movie and see anything else. It's so blatant in Ethan being a broken, hate-filled man and how it destroys him. I remember I took a college course on Film, Gender, and Race and one of the homework assignments was the poorly-thought out "Watch a John Wayne movie" and I wish I had seen The Searchers at that point (I don't think I watched it for another year after that class) because the people who talked about it talked about how racist it was. And it's confirmation bias is what it is. I imagine that these people confuse depicting a racist character with the film necessarily endorsing that character's actions. I remember a talking head in that documentary These Amazing Shadows more or less did that. Now that being said I will say that The Searchers still is a film made in the 1950's by an old white director so it's not like it still doesn't fall victim to certain negative stereotypes, but that only makes the film more complex, not less. I've heard it often described as a movie that's constantly at war with itself. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 14:45
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Raxivace posted:I imagine that these people confuse depicting a racist character with the film necessarily endorsing that character's actions. I remember a talking head in that documentary These Amazing Shadows more or less did that. It has it's issues, but it's so consistent in its indictment of Ethan. Take Look for example. There's that horrible scene where she gets kicked down the hill and Ethan laughs hysterically. And this is playing to a 1950s audience where I'm sure a good number of them were laughing with him. But then you see her corpse and it's not so funny any more. In that brief moment when Martin finds her its heartbreaking, because both he and you realize her humanity. One thing it does too is that it recognizes that people are complex, and that just because Ethan is a bigot consumed by hate, doesn't mean there isn't also good in him, which is what we see in the end. There's a very seek and destroy approach to racist media these days (not necessarily a bad thing), and so having the film end on a sympathetic note for Ethan could also be part of why people look at it as endorsing him.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:55
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TrixRabbi posted:I don't understand how a modern audience can watch that movie and see anything else. It's so blatant in Ethan being a broken, hate-filled man and how it destroys him. I remember I took a college course on Film, Gender, and Race and one of the homework assignments was the poorly-thought out "Watch a John Wayne movie" and I wish I had seen The Searchers at that point (I don't think I watched it for another year after that class) because the people who talked about it talked about how racist it was. And it's confirmation bias is what it is. Yea I mean its right there from the very first scene. Ethan comes home and everyone is sitting down to dinner when Martin gets there(riding side-saddle like a Native American). First thing out of Ethan's mouth is something like "You look like you could be a half-breed", and there's an awkward silence like everyone knows Uncle Ethan is an rear end in a top hat when it comes to race(probably more accurate to say the family is used to most people being assholes about race). Anyway, Slow West is good right? I just bought an Amazon subscription and its on Prime. I've heard good things.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:55
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Basebf555 posted:Yea I mean its right there from the very first scene. Ethan comes home and everyone is sitting down to dinner when Martin gets there(riding side-saddle like a Native American). First thing out of Ethan's mouth is something like "You look like you could be a half-breed", and there's an awkward silence like everyone knows Uncle Ethan is an rear end in a top hat when it comes to race(probably more accurate to say the family is used to most people being assholes about race). Slow West was aight. Worth a watch, pretty charming.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:59
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TrixRabbi posted:Slow West was aight. Worth a watch, pretty charming. Good looking sets/costumes/scenery? That's the #1 factor that determines a Western's quality for me.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:03
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TrixRabbi posted:It has it's issues, but it's so consistent in its indictment of Ethan. Take Look for example. There's that horrible scene where she gets kicked down the hill and Ethan laughs hysterically. And this is playing to a 1950s audience where I'm sure a good number of them were laughing with him. Oh I agree that the film is indicting Ethan, but there are so many examples of people vastly misreading films that are much less subtle than this one that I don't find it too surprising that they, well, misread it. And yeah I agree about the Look guilt trip thing (Isn't Martin laughing alongside Ethan in that scene too?). It actually took me a while to understand that in the ending of the film it is not just Ethan realizing he doesn't have a place in the civilized world (Much like the Wayne character in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), but that the Edwards family more-or-less is actively rejecting Ethan as well. It is kind of sad. Raxivace fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 15:05
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TrixRabbi posted:I don't understand how a modern audience can watch that movie and see anything else. It's so blatant in Ethan being a broken, hate-filled man and how it destroys him. I remember I took a college course on Film, Gender, and Race and one of the homework assignments was the poorly-thought out "Watch a John Wayne movie" and I wish I had seen The Searchers at that point (I don't think I watched it for another year after that class) because the people who talked about it talked about how racist it was. And it's confirmation bias is what it is. The ending is pretty clear on that point. All of the characters who are representative of the audience go inside and into the darkened theater while Ethan is left outside, unable to enter. It's one of my favorite bits of John Wayne acting there, as he looks sad and vulnerable but knowing he can't be part of that world before he wanders off.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:11
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Raxivace posted:It actually took me a while to understand that in the ending of the film it is not just Ethan realizing he doesn't have a place in the civilized world (Much like the Wayne character in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), but that the Edwards family more-or-less is actively rejecting Ethan as well. It is kind of sad. There's a subtle bit towards the beginning when Ethan first shows up where his brother asks him "So how long you plan on staying for?", and its implied they really aren't very happy to see him. It could have something to do with the fact that Ethan is very clearly in love with is brother's wife and they probably all know it.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:25
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Yeah. Some people go as far as saying that Debbie might actually be Ethan's child with Martha!
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Sep 16, 2015 15:28
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TrixRabbi posted:What the gently caress is it with this thread and people constantly trying to avoid talking about actual westerns? I think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is my favorite western. I mean they ride horses and everything.
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Sep 16, 2015 16:50
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The Western is so tied into the identity and imagery of the USA that you could argue that as a genre apart from particular media, the Western is always revisionist because it's always reflecting or attempting to reflect some part of American identity. So The Searchers, written and made in the atmosphere of Brown v. Board, Emmet Till, and the Montgomery bus boycott, reflects the rapidly shifting attitudes on race, and this sense that the cowboy can't exist in the approaching world free from segregation. Of course, then you have various revisionist Westerns that argue for the rehabilitation of the cowboy, most famously and directly Blazing Saddles. But even back in the early days of John Ford's career, Stagecoach can be considered a revisionist approach to the earlier Westerns of the dime novels, which often endorsed Social Darwinism. Interestingly, the conventional Western long outlasted the generation that saw the frontier close. Whether this marks a sea change in American self-identity (does Road House's bouncer with a Ph.D. represent an attempt to spot-weld violence with intellect in an age where the two are fairly well separated?) or is simply a consequence of other genres loading up on the Western's trappings is difficult to answer.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:58
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Jeremy_X posted:How restrictive are we being with the definition of the Western? Are we confining it to movies taking place on the US western frontier? I was thinking about what makes a Western the other day. Like, for example, despite being about people in cowboy hats who shoot at each other, Django Unchained really isn't a Western. But then I started wondering if you could have a western divorced from the traditional "cowboy" setting. Is it really about the backdrop of the genre, or is it more in the structure? Everyone knows some classic westerns were directly adapted from Kurosawa's samurai films. Is Seven Samurai a western? Is the tenuous grasp of the law the key ingredient? I don't really have an answer, not least because I haven't watched an enormous amount of westerns, but it's interesting to think about, because so few genres seem so directly tied to their period and setting as westerns.
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Sep 16, 2015 23:27
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Lurdiak posted:I was thinking about what makes a Western the other day. Like, for example, despite being about people in cowboy hats who shoot at each other, Django Unchained really isn't a Western. But then I started wondering if you could have a western divorced from the traditional "cowboy" setting. Is it really about the backdrop of the genre, or is it more in the structure? Everyone knows some classic westerns were directly adapted from Kurosawa's samurai films. Is Seven Samurai a western? Is the tenuous grasp of the law the key ingredient? Why isn't Django Unchained a Western?
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Sep 16, 2015 23:41
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Effectronica posted:Why isn't Django Unchained a Western? Because to me it's more of a grindhouse/exploitation revenge movie (with long Tarantino style awkward conversations). The only scene in it that really feels anything like a western is when the Sheriff calls out Schultz from the Saloon. But for the most part it seems to use the backdrop of the era as an excuse to tell a specific kind of story, rather than be a story about that setting. It's kinda like how I'd never call Inglorious Basterds a war film, yanno? It's totally fine if you disagree, since like I said, it's difficult for me to pin down in my mind what makes a western.
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Sep 16, 2015 23:48
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Basebf555 posted:Good looking sets/costumes/scenery? That's the #1 factor that determines a Western's quality for me. yes yes and yes
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Sep 16, 2015 23:51
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Lurdiak posted:Because to me it's more of a grindhouse/exploitation revenge movie (with long Tarantino style awkward conversations). The only scene in it that really feels anything like a western is when the Sheriff calls out Schultz from the Saloon. But for the most part it seems to use the backdrop of the era as an excuse to tell a specific kind of story, rather than be a story about that setting. It's kinda like how I'd never call Inglorious Basterds a war film, yanno? Well, I don't understand what the bolded means. Can you clarify?
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Sep 16, 2015 23:53
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Effectronica posted:Well, I don't understand what the bolded means. Can you clarify? I'm saying that Tarantino set out to make a movie about revenge first and set it in the frontier era second, or at least that's how the film comes across.
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Sep 16, 2015 23:59
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Lurdiak posted:I'm saying that Tarantino set out to make a movie about revenge first and set it in the frontier era second, or at least that's how the film comes across. This seems incoherent as a way to classify genres though, on at least two levels (divining intent and relegating genre as the province of shallow films).
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Sep 17, 2015 00:04
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Effectronica posted:relegating genre as the province of shallow films). Whut?
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Sep 17, 2015 00:07
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Lurdiak posted:I'm saying that Tarantino set out to make a movie about revenge first and set it in the frontier era second, or at least that's how the film comes across. So what's your take on High Plains Drifter then?
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Sep 17, 2015 00:07
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Lurdiak posted:Whut? If genre pictures are ones that are focused on the trappings and ones that put the trappings as secondary to something else aren't of that genre, then, by definition, a genre film can't emphasize anything other than conforming to the genre trappings. Thus making it shallow.
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Sep 17, 2015 00:10
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Effectronica posted:If genre pictures are ones that are focused on the trappings and ones that put the trappings as secondary to something else aren't of that genre, then, by definition, a genre film can't emphasize anything other than conforming to the genre trappings. Thus making it shallow. Oh yeah. I guess my logic is flawed on that one.
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Sep 17, 2015 00:18
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I kind of hate to use a term as vague and nebulous as "fun", but For a Few Dollars More is a ridiculously fun movie, and I love it dearly.
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Sep 17, 2015 01:37
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Reset Smith posted:I kind of hate to use a term as vague and nebulous as "fun", but For a Few Dollars More is a ridiculously fun movie, and I love it dearly. It would be the best Leone movie if not for the other ones. El Indio is definitely a loving great villain. And Lee Van Cliff as a good guy!
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Sep 17, 2015 06:20
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I've never actually seen A Few Dollars More which is sad because I've seen at least most of the other two and I own that blu-ray trilogy pack they released a while back. (the other sad thing is owning that blu-ray trilogy pack because the quality is not good).
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Sep 17, 2015 14:23
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computer parts posted:(the other sad thing is owning that blu-ray trilogy pack because the quality is not good). I have all three movies but I bought the individual blu rays, is that a different transfer than the trilogy pack? Apparently I'm terrible at discerning quality of blu rays, I guess I waited so long to make the conversion that all blu rays still look great to me.
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Sep 17, 2015 14:55
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Reset Smith posted:I kind of hate to use a term as vague and nebulous as "fun" This is the most CineD thing anyone has ever said. (Nothing personal, it made me laugh)
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Sep 17, 2015 17:22
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Has anybody seen Leone's Duck, You Sucker? I think it's the only Western of his I haven't seen and I never see it mentioned.
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Sep 18, 2015 15:37
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david_a posted:Has anybody seen Leone's Duck, You Sucker? I think it's the only Western of his I haven't seen and I never see it mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd3JrFXLrA0 It's good. Not his best, but still quite good.
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Sep 18, 2015 15:40
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