The Western has captivated audience since the advent of narrative film in the Unites States following the introduction of The Great Train Robbery, one of the earlier narrative films in the world, into the US.   The Genre was popular for at least half a century, but has since nearly disappeared.  Despite the relative absence of Western films in recent years, many media savvy people could confidently list the elements of a Classical Western film noting the most central myth of a hero, a wandering cowboy, who saves the day from either horribly stereotyped Native Americans or an evil murderous man or group of men.  The plot archetype is adhered to by most, if not all Westerns, following or varied from 1930 up to 1955.   Since 1955, one could argue that Western has all but disappeared as a genre morphing into several forms before leaving the screen roughly altogether.  Some of those later forms are Spaghetti Westerns such as The Good the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966), Revisionist films like Dances with Wolves (Costner, 1990), and the later films engendered by Western characteristics such as Star Wars: Episode IV (Lucas, 1977) and Kill Bill Volume I (Tarantino, 2003).  By analyzing the Western-like aesthetics of these films in sequential order of the films release date, one can characteristically trace the evolution of the Classical Western genre, through the Spaghetti Western and the Revisionist Western only to be absorbed into and combined with other genres in the most recent films containing Western iconography, aesthetics and myth.

To begin with, one can most definitely see the split from the Classical plot archetype and cinematography with Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in 1966.  This film portrays three men fervently searching for a treasure and none of them fit with the traditional Hollywood type hero found in many of the classical Hollywood films, such as Shane (Stevens, 1953) or Dodge City (Curtis, 1939) where the new stranger saves the town from corrupt self-serving men.   Leone’s characters are all completely self-serving with the slight exception of Joe (the Good) who gives his coat and cigar to the dying soldier and then eventually spares Tuco (the Ugly) his life near the end of the film.

The choice of portraying these unconventional characters also strays from the classical Hollywood style standard with Westerns.  The more realistic and grueling costuming, make-up and action of the film breaks from the glamour and clean cut production design of traditional Hollywood films.  For example, the setting is obviously outside of a studio and on location in the deserts of Spain, which is meant to be the southwest United States.   This technique is not uncommon in Westerns, however, the lack of studio sets lends to the films more “realistic,” less glamorous look.  The realistic, “outdoor” lighting adds to the low budget, natural look of the film.  One can assume that not much strong lighting is used on the outdoor shots as the sun functions as the main source of lighting.  Thus, the sunlight is used dramatically as high key lighting casting shadows on Joe’s eyes by way of his hat to intensify the seriousness of Joe’s attitude.  An example of this is the scene in the prison camp is where Tuco is being beaten and the Confederate band is performing on command.  The shadow over Joe’s eyes emphasizes his dark mood of his experience.  For the inside shots, the lightings seems to be fairly high-key and there is not much use of back lights and the lighting is not very dramatic. This use of lighting does not fall too far out of line with traditional Westerns.

Leone’s choice to make all color reflective could potentially be attribute to the low-budget style of the film as it is a Spaghetti Western, although the film was one of the most expensive Spaghetti Westerns of the time.

In terms of other aesthetics, the make-up of Joe (the Good), after he has been traveling through the desert, portrays him as sunburned with bubbling skin and graphic burns.  Many other times, scars and wounds are kept on characters in a very realistic way.  Such gruesome realism is not typical of the earlier Hollywood films that utilized heavy make-up studio lighting and polished costumes, where the hero usually fits a picture perfect archetype.  Additionally, the costumes of the three main characters of Leone’s film are all weathered and tarnished proving to be quite the opposite of the traditional Hollywood, clean and new clothing.

The cinematography complies to an extent with the traditional shots in Westerns, but breaks away with other shots establishing the films own style.  For instance, there are many wide angle pans and landscape shots that establish that the film takes place in a wide open space, a shot that most would agree is a standard Western shot.  However, the use of close-ups on hands and faces, especially eyes give Leone’s film a unique perspective as compared to older films that don’t have the characteristic contrast between panoramic encompassing shots and extreme close-ups.  Another aspect that sets, this film apart from films made before the era of Spaghetti Westerns, is the swift panning following the character Tuco (the Ugly) as he runs through the graveyard.  This final scene incorporates the distinctive approach of the film with all the aforementioned aspects such as wide shots and extreme close-ups, especially on hands and eyes.  Quentin Tarantino along with other filmmakers emulates this style in the future as will be investigated later in this discussion.  Overall, one can see that this Western utilizes a unique style that challenges audiences accustomed to typical John Wayne type films.  By “John Wayne” type films, I am referring to the classical Hollywood style of static camera movement; clean-cut highly fabricated productions design, and clearly defined morality of characters.

Once the conventions were successfully challenged, it seems that Westerns began to challenge and even reverse conventions in Western Genre filmmaking especially in plot.  This Revisionist approach is especially evident in Dances with Wolves in 1990 where the Native Americans are idealized and the US military are villainized.  The main character Lieutenant Dunbar is a “wandering stranger,” a relocated Civil War lieutenant, who comes to “town,” the Sioux village, and ends up “saving” them from the “evil villains,” the US military.  As, one can see this reversal of roles portrays the frontier much more accurately than traditional Westerns and is revisionist in this approach.

In terms of accuracy of portrayal, the costuming and make-up seem to be carefully crafted to be accurate of the times.  As is unavoidable in most mainstream films, one cannot be exactly accurate of the past, especially in period pieces while trying to cater to a large audience conditioned to seeing very stylized and fabricated images.  Thus, the high production value is definitely evident in the detailed costuming and make-up.  However, compared to the Classical Westerns, Costner’s attention to the accuracy of costuming, especially involving Native Americans, supports the Revisionist characterizing of this film.

Conforming to the Hollywood of the early nineties, Costner chooses to film with a much more traditional style of filming.  The film medium is standard slow film that has very small grain and high definition.  The camera movements are slow and deliberate with lots of pans and not too many jump cuts.  Overall, the means of production are concealed or transparent categorizing the film as reasonably mainstream in technique.  The pans and wide shots definitely revisit the Classical methods of earlier Westerns before the style innovations of directors like Leone.  Dances with Wolves utilizes contemporary technology and techniques, lending the film credibility in terms of the mainstream Hollywood expectations in the early nineties, which were to have very transparent means of production and stories that fulfill the status quo of happy endings and clear villains and heroes.

Therefore, with the combination of the traditional myth (although with reversed roles for archetypal characters) and traditional filmic aspects, Dances with Wolves serves as one of the last moderately “traditional” Westerns of the century before the genre begins basically ebb altogether.

Two, of many, films have been released, Kill Bill Volume I by Quentin Tarantino and Star Wars: Episode IV by George Lucas embodying the most current fate of the Western genre as having been absorbed into and combined with other genres.  Aesthetically, Tarantino’s film portrays much more of the later plot elements and aesthetics that categorize The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly than does Star Wars: Episode IV.  Meanwhile, both films mix genres and play around with traditional myth and roles of characters.

A very popular film, Star Wars: Episode IV directed by George Lucas, is most notably a science fiction film borrows from both the Action: martial arts/samurai genre and the Western genre.

First of all, the plot consists of an epic journey and Western-like shootouts just as many Westerns have, including The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  Along the same lines as Leone’s film, Lucas creates a movie with heroes who own favorite weapons and build them themselves; just as Tuco builds his own pistol in Leone’s film, the Jedi build their own light saber in Lucas’s film.  The traditional Western “town” becomes the galaxy, which is threatened by the traditional gang of evil men, the Empire.  One can easily argue that plot elements are inspired by previous Western stories.

Additionally, there is Western flare in the cinematography of the beginning of the movie as well as all of the fight scenes.  The beginning of the film is on the planet Tatooine, a desert planet, which is actually a desert in Tunisia, providing for beautiful panoramic and panning landscape shots.   These wide-open shots of the dry, open desert would easily fit in many Westerns that have similar shots in similar landscapes.  There are many close up shots on people who are looking out over wide-open spaces, whether that be the literal Space or the deserts of Tatooine.  The Jedi fights scenes follow Western-like format, where the close-up of guns in or near hands are analogous to hands using the “force” to attract objects or throw objects that also are revealed through close-ups.  Such series of shots are very similar to the itchy trigger finger of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The color scheme of the scenes shot in Tunisia is that of muddled earth tones.  All the costumes, buildings and key props do not stand out from this scheme with the exception of C-3PO and the light saber.  Similarly, I would suggest that Leone’s film does not stray much from this scheme either representing further parallel between the two films.  The costumes of Chewbacca and Hans Solo resemble that of the classic gunslingers of Western films.  Hans Solo wears a gun in a holster around his waste while Chewbacca wears a type of gun/ammo strap over his shoulder.  Thus, Lucas could have drawn from Western genre influence in creating the color scheme and costuming of Tatooine scenes.

The bar setting resembles the saloon of the old Western movies, where the shady characters accumulate, get drunk and cause trouble.  Sure enough, in the bar there is an iconic fight and someone gets an arm chopped off by a light saber to spice the old archetype with science fiction.  The elaborate outlandish drinks and creatures at the bar further remove the scene from its Western roots, but not by much.  The rough, outlandish look is a typical aesthetic for people in Western saloons and perhaps this is the morphing of the Western as it is absorb by the Science Fiction Genre beginning in 1977 only to be revisited by Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino’s deliberate mixing of the Action: martial arts/samurai genre, Anime and the Western genre create a very aesthetically diverse film.  Arguably, the Western Genre already borrowed aesthetics and myth from the Samurai filmic tradition as is evident with the film, The Magnificent Seven, a Western remake of The Seven Samurai, a Japanese film.  Therefore, Tarantino is merely reversing the methods of his predecessors, John Sturges, maker of the Magnificent Seven and George Lucas (much of Lucas’s Jedi culture was borrowed from the samurai film tradition)  by crossing the cultural divide borrowing from the martial arts traditions.  Tarantino does this by literally involving Samurai swords as the weapon of choice instead of guns and setting a significant portion of the film in Japan.

The production design makes use of both Martial arts/samurai aspects and the contemporary Western Genre as the film occurs in both West Texas and Japan.  The scenes in Texas are reminiscent of the more classical Western aesthetic found in earlier films.  There are panoramic shots when establishing the location, iconic cowboy hats, and the two detectives are related as father and son.  The relation between the father and son, suggest a small town, which has been affected by the massacre that took place in the church.  Therefore, the original plot archetype has been transformed from stranger becoming small town hero to stranger becoming small town victim, because the Bride (Uma Thurman) is obviously the main character and is nearly murdered by her attackers, the evil “bandits” that one could find in early Westerns.  She goes on to exact her revenge on several of her attackers, more or less cleaning up the problem that occurred the small town.  Although the comparison is not strong, the plot elements are there if one considers Japan and the US to be the town that Uma Thurman is cleaning up by killing her enemies.

The use of extreme close-ups on hands, eyes and weapons suggest Spaghetti Western influence on the film.  Throughout the fight scenes tension is built by jumping from close-ups of eyes, faces, hands and weapons, especially of the swords in front of the faces.  One could easily assume that Tarantino is drawing from the intense scene at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when creating the fight scene at the Japanese restaurant.  Lucy Liu and Uma Thurman staring one another down with drawn swords bears striking resemblance to the close up shots of Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef with steely stares and hands itching to pull the trigger.  Another aspect of the fight scene is the stoic nature of the setting when Uma and Lucy move outside into the snow.  There is a small water fountain that rhythmically bounces up and down creating a large amount of tension by contrasting the tense action with a peaceful ambiance.  The same would be true of Leone’s film when Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef are all about to face off and they are surrounded by blue sky and natural splendor (minus the eeriness of a cemetery), all very peaceful and in contrast to the tense moment in the story.

One can compare the parallel scores of Tarantino and Leone’s films.  Kill Bill Volume I includes some of the same intensity and sharpness in the score as in Leone’s film.  The whistling motif in Tarantino’s film is similar to the twang motif in the Western.  Both represent renewed conflict in the story, with each time we hear the whistling song in Kill Bill Vol. I, Uma is about to engage in combat or enter a dangerous situation.  With similar meaning, each time we hear the signature scoring for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly the main characters are facing off or getting ready to do so.

The color of the two films is similar at one point suggesting even more connection.  In the opening credits of Leone’s film, there are very colorful and very abstract images of cowboys on horses etc.  The same colors come up with Tarantino’s film both transmissively and reflectively.  For instance, every time Uma sees an old enemy, a very red, superimposed image of her past flashes on the screen transmissively.  Also, Uma wears very bright colors throughout the film, especially during the fight scene with Lucy Liu, which really captures the abstract aesthetic of the opening credits in Leone’s film with Uma’s bright yellow costume streaked with dark red blood.  Considering that Tarantino purposely embellished the film with color and many other aspects, there is a strong possibility that he was inspired by such artistic representations as the opening credits for Leone’s film.

Finally, the triumph of Uma in the end of the film is due to her superior skill with the sword, her wit and determination.  One should not have much difficulty in seeing the similarity between Uma’s triumph and that of Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Overall, one can definitely see how Kill Bill Volume I absorbs and uses the Western Genre especially the Spaghetti Western.  Furthermore, this development proves that the Spaghetti Western, represented by Leone’s film, an evolution of Genre in itself, had become iconic and representative of Westerns altogether for Tarantino.  With this in mind, one can further infer that the future of Westerns is to be incorporated with other genres just as Lucas and Tarantino have accomplished.

Finally, the Western Genre has obviously fluctuated and changed in the past decade only to disappear as an individual Genre.  By analyzing the aesthetics, plot elements, and iconography of the four films in order of the year of their release The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Leone, 1966); Dances with Wolves (Costner, 1990); Star Wars: Episode IV (Lucas, 1977); and Kill Bill Volume I (Tarantino, 2003); one can observe an evolving genre that is eventually absorbed by other genres and more or less disappears from the silver screen.  The first film; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; is representative of the early Italian-made Westerns categorized as Spaghetti Westerns and provides a Western that plays with traditional plot myths and aesthetics.  The second film, Dances with Wolves, falls within the traditional aesthetics of a Hollywood period film, but portrays revisionist themes by reversing the traditional and politically incorrect stereotypes of Native Americans and US military in Classical Westerns.  The last two films, Star Wars and Kill Bill Volume I, both exemplify Western aspects, mostly Spaghetti Western, by combining several genres to create unique worlds illustrating that the Western currently has a sustained and vibrant influence on filmmaking today.