John Ford's Film: The Western Genre

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The Western genre started off in the early 20th century to reminisce about the frontier life and the films entailed fighting off bad Indians, shootouts against cowboys, and tumbleweed. The classic example of this is portrayed in John Ford’s Stagecoach where the western hero essentially faces no setbacks in his journey for vengeance. As the genre progressed, people sought something more realistic and a story that represented a better truth for the violence that occurred out west. Around the 1990’s, Clint Eastwood decided to make a western that wasn’t celebrating its violence but instead showed the realism and tragedy of it all. In his film, Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood critiques violence from the western genre to reject the idealized notion of …show more content…
Little Bill serves as the main authority figure within the town of Big Whiskey and in many aspects, could be considered a good person, yet fails in the way he delivers justice. The way Little Bill Daggett delivers justice related to the way in which he constructs his home from wood: with no straight angles and therefore many flaws. It all starts by the sheriff’s use of English Bob as an example to the rest of the bounty seeking cowboys for the future. Before giving him a fighting chance or performing a civil arrest, Bill Daggett is kicking the life out of English Bob because of his gun smuggling. In an attempt to protect the town, Little Bill fails in creating peace. The outstanding bounty put on the cowboys by the women of the night was too great of a reward for desperate people to come and collect and as a result, the killings got pretty messy. The intolerance for cowards as Little Bill calls them, is none which begs the question of …show more content…
Will, Ned, and the Schofield Kid start their job by shooting at Davey both breaking his leg and then shooting him in the stomach. Throughout the rest of this scene Davey is crying out for his friends in agony as Ned and Will continue to shoot at him while the Schofield kid is asking enthusiastically “is he killed yet.” Not realizing the sad fate of the other characters, the Schofield Kid is still stuck in the romantic idea of being involved in a shootout. Eastwood portrays this seen with important details through the camera work of Davey’s face and the sadness in his voice. Even by just giving him a name, Eastwood humanizes the character which gives the film a reality of death compared to where the Ringo kid was just shooting off random indians in Stagecoach and they would have a split second of screen time. However as time passes, the Schofield kid encounters his first kill in Quick Mike and has an essential change. After the fact during Will and Schofield Kid’s conversation under the tree, the Kid reveals that it was his first kill and proceeds to cry due to the realization of what he just did. He finds out that there is nothing cool about killing, vowing to never do so again because he wasn’t like Will. However, Eastwood shows now that
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