A former Texas Ranger pursues a ruthless outlaw, Empty Heart, during the 1850s California Gold Rush. STORY COMMENTS BLOODSTONE is a proposed one-hour TV Pilot dramatic western. It takes place during the dynamic time of the California Gold Rush during the 1850’s. The Old West comes to life authentically easily transporting the audience back in time. The pilot centers on the idea of a gritty and gusty Texas Ranger’s pursuit of a chilling killer known as “Empty Heart.” While the idea of the law going after an outlaw isn’t new to the industry, the characters in this pilot feel refreshing and compelling, especially Empty Heart. He’s a Native American killer who is chilling and spellbinding. There’s no doubt he can be the next unforgettable TV predator. The formula of the series is clearly conveyed in the pilot. His name is without a doubt chilling and scary. He’s described as soulless. His backstory reveals a lot about how Empty Heart comes to be the warrior he is. The audience feels both repulsed and mesmerized by this character. The only concern about act one is that it ends on very mild tension. Consider ending act one on a stronger note. It’s pivotal, especially if the show has commercials, as the idea is to entice the audience to stay on task with the show versus turning the channel. Thus, one easy solution is to begin the attack at the very end of act one - an arrow, or something to hook the audience. Act two features the major attack by Empty Heart on Ray and his men. This sequence provides solid tension and excitement. It’s a stand out sequence that provides for the chills and show how ruthless, heartless, and soulless, Empty Heart can be. He’s a formidable foe. The flashback revealing a part of Empty Heart’s backstory works well to spellbind the audience. Act two ends on nice emotional tension when Tom’s mother realizes he’s dead and lashes out at
Unknown, author. "The California Gold Rush." North Carolina Digital History. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Web. 2 Mar 2014. .
...uggles between the savagery and civility, he and Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), are men threatening, as well as standing, in the way of the progress and later the stability of the soon to be established “recognized territory.” There are two very different characteristics of these men though, Tom is full aware what is happing to in the New West and eventually succumbs. Meanwhile Liberty knows this is happing too, but he will do, as he must to keep the frontier open, for purely selfish reasons. This is the swan song of the boots, the gun belt and the spurs, the inevitable end of freedom that was once known since its inception at the establishment of the United States of America, but the Western was and still is today, a vast frontier of compelling stories, classic American narratives and themes that will continue to capture the imagination of all freedom loving people.
The enduring cultural expressions of the frontier were adapted into unique narrative traditions known as the “Western”. The Western genre portrays a story of conquest, competing visions of the land, and the quintessential American frontier hero who is usually a gunfighter or a cowboy. These Western archetypes can be observed in, The Outlaw Josey Wales, a film that employs revenge motifs that lead into and extended chase across the West and touches on the social and cultural issues of the American frontier.
preparing us for the tragedy. I will be focusing on Act 3 Scene 1 and
...he years from a classic plot to including aliens, but the basic recipe is the same. A lone cowboy on the edge of society, placed in some predicament that causes him to have to use the violence he has the capability to use, but doesn’t like using to get himself or others out of the predicament.
As Ethan rides towards his brother’s homestead, he is greeted by awestruck stares. He rides with the brutal desert behind him, sun glaring at his eyes while his brother’s family is framed in shadow of their own home. A hopeful tune plays in the background as he approaches. In this opening scene of The Searchers John Ford establishes Ethan—played by none other than John Wayne—as the rugged individualist, the one who tames the wilderness. This cowboy is integral to the “Myth of the United States,” he is the one who tames the savage wilderness its residents (Durham). However as the film unfolds, Ford explores Ethan’s tortured psyche, his motivations, his neuroticism, even the Indians and their motivations in order to deconstruct deconstructing the myth in order to show that the cowboy is a relic of the Old West.
Most film scholars believe the first Western to be ‘Cripple Creek Bar Room’ (W. Dickson’s 1898 tableau). To understand the origin of the Western, one must realise that the genre did not spring to life in full maturity. Its growth stemmed from various roots including Arthurian legends, oral tradition shared through generations, and frontier tales that essentially developed into folk-lore. The dime novels of the 1860s and onwards, pre-dated the advent of movies by one generation.
However, in the work of Bret Harte this genre clearly illustrates how American material becomes the predominant literary theme. The writer directs the genre in order to most fully reflect the local, provincial morals, to identify the dominant feature not only in character, but also emphasize the uniqueness of the natural environment and local customs. It should be noted that the images of the heroes of Bret Harte - mostly young people. In the mid-nineteenth century in California, the young and strong population of the country moved without distinction of social status, people with university education and semi-literate farmers, small thieves and prominent lawyers, burned-out rogues and callow "babies". They were having a long and dangerous journey through the wild, uninhabited terrain. This required physical endurance, considerable courage and an adventurous vein in
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.
Thunderheart is a movie inspired by the sad realities of various Native American reservations in the 1970’s. This is the story of a Sioux tribe, conquered in their own land, on a reservation in South Dakota. Thunderheart is partly an investigation of the murder of Leo Fast Elk and also, the heroic journey of Ray Levoi. Ray is an F.B.I. agent with a Sioux background, sent by his superior Frank Coutelle to this reservation to diffuse tension and chaos amongst the locals and solve the murder mystery. At the reservation, Ray embarks on his heroic journey to redeem this ‘wasteland’ and at the same time, discovers his own identity and his place in the greater society. Certain scenes of the movie mark the significant stages of Ray’s heroic journey. His journey to the wasteland, the shooting of Maggie Eagle Bear’s son, Ray’s spiritual vision, and his recognition as the reincarnation of “Thunderheart,” signify his progression as a hero and allow him to acculturate his native spirituality and cultural identity as a Sioux.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
Because of the outlaw hero’s definitive elements, society more so identifies with this myth. Ray said, “…the scarcity of mature heroes in American...
most evil characters and he is a character who stands out among all of the
The theme of deception runs very strong in Act One. Almost all the characters seem to either be deceiving someone, or being deceived themselves.
The year was 1848. James Marshall and his work crew were camped along the bank of the American River at Coloma, California near Sacramento. The area was located in the Sacramento Valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains (History Staff). Marshall was head of a crew constructing a sawmill for a Sacramento agriculturist by the name of John Sutter. On January twenty-fourth, Marshall stumbled across some small pieces of gold near the fork of the American and Sacramento Rivers. He did not expect it. A nearby worker for Marshall, James Brown, notices Marshall exclaim and hurries over to see. He arrives to find Marshall holding his hat containing ten to twelve nuggets of gold. The two men are exhilarated. They are, at the time, unaware of it, but they have just triggered the biggest western migration America has ever seen (“Gold Discovered in California”).