moive assignment

Movie assignment

Movie Name： 1. Stagecoach (Ford, 1939, 97, Amazon)

Readings: Robert Warshow, “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner”; Nick Browne, “The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoach”; André Bazin, “The Western, or the American Film par excellence” in What is Cinema?, Vol.II

Notes/Lecture: Late Classical Hollywood notes

Link: 1. https://www.amazon.com/Stagecoach-Claire-Trevor/dp/B00AGYXM3M

Question: John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) critiques the conventional morality of the Western by subverting its typical stereotypes. The beginning of the film briefly establishes these stereotypes as we meet the characters in town, but when they start their stagecoach journey, picking up Ringo (John Wayne) on the way, many of the characters develop counter to their types. The stagecoach, far from the confines of the town, develops into its own moral community that reveals the hypocrisies of some of the characters. With reference to at least two cinematic techniques, analyze one scene to discuss how Stagecoach subverts the character stereotypes and moral conventions of the Western.

· Write at least 400 words