SCRN20011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Classical Hollywood Cinema, Motion Picture Production Code
8 Jun 2018
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Lecture 1: post-classical hollywood
Ethan as an ambiguous hero
• Character as a product of:
o Industrial changes (post studio era, post-classical filmmaking
o Cultural changes (civil rights movements)
o Genre changes (revisionist western)
• Hates beyond the grave -> takes out the eyes of the indian so that he's a wanderer
Genre in classical hollywood
• Iconography so recognizable bc its repeated so much
• Hays code - pressure from conservatives
Revisionist western
• Self aware of the genre traditions but alters it
• Response to greater audience awareness and even boredom with genre conventions
• Also a response to changing cultural ideas about values depicted within a genre
The western: a binary 'mythology'
• A clash of binaries:
o Good/bad
o Order/chaos
o Progressive/traditions
o Civilizations/savagery
o Future/past
• Reinforces ideas of american mythology through which the west is remembered
• Western hero ambiguous figure
o Self-contained (stranger, loner etc)
o Uses violence to est order and western civilization but too violent to live there
o Strong moral code - respected
o A mediator - already an ambiguous liminal figure, between worlds
• In the searchers
o Self-aware re-visionist version of western hero
o Ethan's moral code as extremist and racist
o Determination as obsession
o Parallels betw scar and ethan
o Collapse of the western genre binaries
o The western myth starts to sour
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ethan as an ambiguous hero: character as a product of: Industrial changes (post studio era, post-classical filmmaking: cultural changes (civil rights movements, genre changes (revisionist western, hates beyond the grave -> takes out the eyes of the indian so that he"s a wanderer. Iconography so recognizable bc its repeated so much: hays code - pressure from conservatives. Self aware of the genre traditions but alters it: response to greater audience awareness and even boredom with genre conventions, also a response to changing cultural ideas about values depicted within a genre.
