¶ … Western films, "Shane," made in 1953 and directed by George Stevens, and "Unforgiven," made in 1992 and directed by Clint Eastwood. Specifically, it will analyze the two films, and discuss their importance in the genre of Western films. Today, the classic Western is a film gone out of style, but these two films live on as classics, generally because they deviate from the classic Western model, by showing the characters three dimensionally, and the violence as real and devastating.
TWO WESTERN FILMS
"Shane" does not rely on elaborate sets and costuming to get its message across to viewers. One reviewer called the sets "spartan" and the language of the film "laconic." The characters of this Western make the film the classic that it has become. Shane is a man of few words, but much action, and he firmly stands behind his beliefs. From the opening scene, when he rides down into a valley with a huge chain of mountains behind him, the viewer understands that his character is larger than life, and it is right that he came down from the "mountaintops" to save the struggling family in the valley. He is larger than life to the small son (Brandon de Wilde), and he is larger than life to the settlers he is trying to protect. This makes him the ultimate hero, and the ultimate "good guy" of the Western.
The plot of the film is straight good vs. evil. The settlers are battling the evil ranchers, who want to run them off the land so they can graze their cattle. Shane helps the settlers stand up to the ranchers, and hold on to their land, the only thing they have of any value. Director Stevens later said he hoped to show the extreme violence in the film for what it was, and hoped people would stop glorifying it. "And it was a time, I remember, when kids had gone very...
There were Western chaps and hats and cap
guns everywhere . . . . We wanted to put the six-gun in its
place, visually, in a period, as a dangerous weapon. And we did" (Sitton). The ending scene is heartbreaking, with Shane leaving the family he has come to love, and has come to
love him, because of the violence he has brought with him.
Joey: Why, Shane?
Shane: A man has to be what he is, Joey. You can't break the mold. I tried it and it didn't work for me.
Joey: We want you, Shane.
Shane: Joey, there's no living with, with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand, a
brand that sticks. There's no going back. Now you run on home to your
mother and tell her, tell her everything's alright, and there aren't any more guns in the valley (Shane).
"Unforgiven" is another classic Western film, made at a time when Westerns were not the most popular genre for the film going
public. With Clint Eastwood as star and director however, viewers knew they would get a violence-packed view of the West, and they were not disappointed. Eastwood chose to make his film dark and brooding, just like the character he
plays, Munny, a gunfighter who settled down and turned soft.
The film was commercially successful at the time of its release and its
acting was universally praised - it helped to revive the reputation of Westerns, becoming only the third Western ever to win the Best Picture Academy Award - two years earlier, another Western…
