Criticism of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman

430 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Portrayal of women in movies

Criticism of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman

Jim Jarmusch’s Deadman is a complex interweaving of the rough and tough world of cowboys mixed with blatant criticism of the Western genre as well as the American lifestyle during those times in history. The separate scenes in the movie seem be collected and stringed together allowing the director to bounce between making fun of the whole Western idea to completely embracing the genre.

The movie focused on William Blake (an accountant from Cleveland) and his transformation from being an ordinary man to an outlaw. Most Western movies focus on cowboy outlaws, who live by their own rules and follow their own beliefs on justice, while this film focuses on the transformation rather than the man. Jonny Depp’s character stepped into the role of being an outlaw accidentally. The use of violence is prevalent in the film, which fits the Western genre, yet at the same time, the use of guns and violence is always awkward. It’s as though it’s a foreign concept instead of a display of machismo and pride as in most Westerns.

The film also has minimal displays of women and their contribution of adding a dynamic of lust and love in the testosterone driven Western genre. This film does not focus on William Blake having any attachments to family or a fiancé. A brief explanation is offered for the lack of femininity in the film, yet it leaves the audience wondering why the director did not deem it necessary to include this attachment in the film. Instead the few times that women are shown in the film, they are there to pleasure the males sexually. In the Western genre, women aren’t regarded as vital elements, yet at the same time their contribution is usually to play damsels in distress and show the humane side of the manly hero. In the Western genre women blatantly display the differences between Eastern and Western cultures.

The social commentary in the film is overwhelming, sometimes seeming to drive the slow-paced plot. The director gives the film a dark undertone, to show the violent lifestyle of the people in the West.

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Remember The Titans: Interpersonal Relations

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film starts with an uprising after a white storeowner kills a black teenager. This incident Highlights Prejudices. The teenager was labeled a thief because of the color of his skin and the unjustifiable murder causes racial tensions that exist as a result of the integration of the high schools.

    Read More

  • Rio Bravo Sparknotes

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    I believe that the film does indeed conform to a certain type of narrative structure expected by other films of this style. This film, through and through, is a Western, even starring one of biggest names in Hollywood Westerns, John Wayne. We’re thrown into a world of sturdy, rugged men riding around on horses, decked out in cowboy hats and belt buckles. Wayne portrays the archetypal man, honorable, reliable and

    Read More

  • Sociological Analysis Of Kinsey

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first thing about this film that caught my eye from a sociological perspective is that the society in the film is not depicted as a “perfect society” as most films do, instead it shows the real conflicts that society had back then with certain subjects. The film shows us the prejudices, and misconceptions that people had about things like sex, and homosexuality at the time.

    Read More

  • The Gunslinger Hero

    2224 Words  | 5 Pages

    Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.

    Read More

  • Finding Dawn Analysis

    525 Words  | 2 Pages

    The seriousness is enough to make you lose faith in humanity for a second, but catch your attention and evoke deep and reflection thought into the truth that goes on in the part of society that is unknowingly ignored by the population because it gets constantly overshadowed by media and the government. More importantly, the film reminds us that progress will move forward only when those at the top of authority realize they need to relate with and answer to the people who want change, answer to the voices of people those broken, traumatized, who truly need

    Read More

  • The Western as a Film Genre

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    The development of the Western genre originally had its beginnings in biographies of frontiersmen and novels written about the western frontier in the late 1800’s based on myth and Manifest Destiny. When the film industry decided to turn its lenses onto the cowboy in 1903 with The Great Train Robbery there was a plethora of literature on the subject both in non-fiction and fiction. The Western also found roots in the ‘Wild West’ stage productions and rodeos of the time. Within the early areas of American literature and stage productions the legend and fear of the west being a savage untamed wilderness was set in the minds of the American people. The productions and rodeos added action and frivolity to the Western film genre.

    Read More

  • Touch Of Evil

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    The film stays in line with classic noir in many ways. The usage of dark sets and high contrast lighting, which creates heavy shadows on the actors faces, makes the movie feel like it all happens at night and in dark alley ways. The story focuses on the inhumane parts of human nature. Each of the main characters experiences some kind of tragedy. For Vargas his tragedy was in dealing with Quinlin who has set out to frame him and his wife. For Quinlin his entire life represented a man consumed with darkness who lives his life with a “Touch of Evil.” Menzies was a hopeful man who looked up to Quinlin but was let down. For the viewer, film noir represents truth, even if it is not a truth that all people would like to hear.

    Read More

  • Aim Higher College: A Case Study

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Aim Higher College’s system administrators and network engineers have described seeing some strange behaviors such as high levels of traffic from many hosts that are causing system outages. The web servers of the college have been shutting down frequently by this traffic, it must be from a hacker group trying to attack the school with malicious software. I will review the network traffic from the college’s intrusion detection system and use an intrusion prevention system to block off these threats from the hackers.

    Read More

  • Reasons Being Homeschooled

    3014 Words  | 7 Pages

    Zeise, A. (1998). A to Z’s Home’s Cool Homeschooling. Retrieved April 6, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/083198.htm

    Read More

  • The Practice of Religion in Public Schools

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    The “establishment” or “religion” clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (Education Week, 2003, para. 2). It is from this clause that the idea of separation of church and state comes. It is also the basis for much of the debate regarding the practice of religion in public schools (Education Week, 2003). One of the big questions regarding the religion issue is where to draw the line between separation of church and state and religious freedom. The practice of religion in public schools can balance these two ends by allowing students to individually exercise their religious freedom, so long as they do not interfere with that of other students.

    Read More

  • The Thematic Paradigm by Robert Ray

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Religion in Public Education

    1751 Words  | 4 Pages

    Religion in school can be defined as the practice of any personal religious belief or act in a place of education. To say that religion is a big topic of interest to a lot of people in the United States today is a bit of an understatement. The debate over the separation of church and state has been going on without end for years. With many different perspectives on the matter and even more opinions on how it should be handled. Since the beginning many people have challenged the role that religion has played in education. Should schools teach religion? If so, can they do it evenhandedly? Will they misinterpret the religion wrong? How many people would be offended? Would we be better off without it so that it doesn’t cause controversy? The problem is can we truly answer any of these arguments without the opposite side disagreeing? Many of these questions are rooted from the same controversy that is happening in schools today. Aside from the separation of church and states comes one of the vastly debatable topics of education allowing religion which is prayer in school. While a few believe that prayer in school is constructive to the development of a child and their faith, others may conclude that it could completely denounce the faith of a child. Because this is an ongoing controversy further research on whether religion should or should not be allowed in public education is usually boils down to two major points the First Amendment and is religion good for our children? Could we potentially have a compromise or could the two opposing sides meet somewhere in the middle?

    Read More

  • Movie Analysis: American History X

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the more prevalent themes of this movie is racism, and how prejudicial mindsets ultimately lead to one’s own demise. The movie outlines how racism, among other things, can adversely affect someone’s judgment. After the father died, we see how the family gradually deteriorates financially as well as emotionally after Derek (the older brother played by Edward Norton) turns to a neo Nazi gang for an outlet, which eventually influences his younger brother Danny (played by Edward Furlong) to follow down ...

    Read More

  • The Film "O brother, where art thou?"

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    This film captures this class distinction without subduing the atmosphere through the use of a variety of cinematic devices. “A good film is not a bag of cinematic devices but the embodiment, through devices, of a vision, an underlying theme” (Barnett, 274). The audience can see this theme of the realities of the oppression, poverty and despair of this time period through the use of the things mentioned, but also through the character development that is driven by the character’s hopelessness. Each of the characters associated with the lower class is motivated by the conditions, which are viewed through the cinematic devices mentioned above: color, spherical lenses, long shots, and high angle shots. Sources Cited:.

    Read More

  • Homeschooling: Academics, Socialization and College Admissions Prospects

    1981 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to Mary Griffith, author of the book The Homeschooling Handbook, the concept of homeschooling is nothing new to society. It is only in the past 150 years that public school system as we know it came into effect (Griffith, 1999). Prior to that, “…the family was the basis for social life…the home was where children learned what was necessary to function in their community” (1999). By the mid-1970s, there were barely any people practicing homeschooling (Ray, 2004). However, over the past twenty years there has been a resurgence in people choosing homeschooling (2004). There has been a 500 percent increase in homeschooling from the 1990-1991 school year to the 2002-2003 school year (2004). The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates “that between 1.7 and 2.1 million students were being homeschooled in the U.S., in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade…Indications are that the growth rate is between 7 percent and 15 percent per year ” (2004).

    Read More

More about Criticism of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Film Deadman

Open Document