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Essay / Characteristics of a Typical Western - 506
A typical western is usually set in the late 19th century, in the Midwest of America, in an isolated town. The town is generally small, lonely and unwelcoming. Typically, a Western setting appears to be in the middle of a desert with sand, cacti, and tumbleweed, giving a desert look. There are usually never any lakes or rivers around these features, which makes the place look really hot and deserted. The buildings are usually wooden plank houses with hinged doors and outside the buildings are places to keep their horses, there is also always a general store and saloon. Horses, carriages and cattle are used to give a western atmosphere. Cowboys are usually dressed in western style clothing, for example they wear simple shirts and jeans. They can also wear ponchos, vests, hats, boots with spurs, guns and a belt to hold the gun and bullets. Heroes tend to wear lighter clothing and villains tend to wear darker clothing. The storyline is normally about a hero who comes to a town to bring peace and chase away the bad guys. A hero is generally considered a vigilante because he is not told to help, but does so anyway. The hero often appears as a quiet, secretive, mysterious person who can make the audience admire him one minute and hate him the next. He is also very intelligent, cunning, and adaptable, which are all good values in a hero. The villain is usually fixated on one idea, he thinks he is a smart and cunning person, but in the end he is always defeated. Many scenes take place around the Saloon (bar) and very often there is a romance involving the hero and a local girl, with the villainess vying for his affection! There are two different types of villains in typical westerns, Native Americans and white (cowboy) bad guys. Westerns are divided into subgenres, for example classic westerns like "The Great Train Robbery", but there are also other western genres like revisionist westerns. Revisionist westerns emerged after the early 1960s, American filmmakers began to modify many traditional elements of westerns. A major change was the increasingly positive portrayal of Native Americans who had been treated as "savages" in previous films. Another example is spaghetti westerns. Spaghetti Westerns first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. The changes were a new, larger-than-life European visual style, a harsher, more violent depiction of frontier life, choreographed shootouts, and big guns. shots on the big screen..