In what ways does Unforgiven endorse violence
FINAL EXAM STUDY SHEET
English 300: The Western
Spring 2003
Professor Susan White
Teaching Assistant Sean Cobb
Website:
Review Sessions: Friday May 9, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. in ML411;
Monday May 12, 5-7 p.m. in ML350
FINAL EXAM: Tuesday May 13, 2 p.m.- 4 p.m. ML 350
The final will test you on all course materials covered since we returned from Spring Break (March 25). The only “cumulative” elements on the exam will be the terminology from Film Art and from class (see the Working Notes section of the course website). You will be expected to be able to answer general questions dealing with the evolution of the Western, but we will not test you specifically on films and literary works covered before Spring Break. Below you will find questions to help guide your studying for the final. STUDY YOUR QUIZZES. It’s possible we will ask some of the same questions posed in the quizzes. Here is the list of works covered on the final:
Films:
1. Anthony Mann, Man of the West (1958) with Gary Cooper (Link Jones)
2. John Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with James Stewart (Ransom Stoddard), Vera Miles (Hallie), John Wayne (Tom Doniphon) and Lee Marvin (Liberty Valance)
3. Sergio Leone, For a Few Dollars More (1965) with Clint Eastwood (the Man With No Name/Monco), Lee Van Cleef (Colonel Douglas Mortimer) and Gian Maria Volonté (El Indio)
4. Sam Peckinpah, The Wild Bunch (1969) (opening 15 minutes only) with William Holden (Pike Bishop) and Robert Ryan (Deke Thornton)
5. Robert Altman, McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) with Warren Beatty (John McCabe) and Julie Christie (Constance Miller)
6. Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven 1992 with Clint Eastwood (William Munny), Gene Hackman (Bill Daggett), Morgan Freeman (Ned Logan), Richard Harris (English Bob) and Frances Fisher (Strawberry Alice)
7. Chris Eyre, Smoke Signals 1998 with Adam Beach (Victor Joseph), Evan Adams (Thomas Builds-the-Fire), Gary Farmer (Arnold Joseph), Tantoo Cardinal (Arlene Joseph), Irene Bedard (Suzy Song)
8. Victor Masayesva, Imagining Indians 1992 with Patty Runs After Swallow and Ed Jones (as themselves)
Literary Works (we may ask you to “close read” a passage from one or both of these works):
1. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian 1985
Some good ideas about Blood Meridian here: and here
2. Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven 1993
“One way to see Alexie’s Lone Ranger is as a large tapestry with different characters caught in motion but waiting for something to happen. The motions themselves are cynical and repetitive. The tapestry is viewed by the ancestors who laugh at both Indians and whites. Another way to perceive the book is that it is about survival and resilience, about ‘beautiful dissonance and
implied survival’---like the Bartok music the major recurring character, Victor, plays on the piano at an outdoor party, causing all the Indians to weep. Basketball is part of that---it ‘should be our new religion,’ its sound that of the drumbeat, an all-star jacket like the shirts the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee wore. "Survival = Anger x Imagination" and imagination is the only
weapon on the reservation. Imagination and laughter lead to forgiveness. And all of this is revealed through storytelling---stories within stories, until the reader loses track of who is speaking. Telling stories, finding a voice and an audience, even in the language of the invader, is redemptive.” Dennis Walsh,
1. In 1939 (the same year Stagecoach was released), cowboy star Gene Autry wrote what he termed "The Ten Commandments of the Cowboy”:
1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage.
2. A cowboy never betrays a trust.
3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
4. A cowboy is kind to small children, to old folks, and to animals.
5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious prejudice.
6. A cowboy is helpful and when anyone's in trouble he lends a hand.
7. A cowboy is a good worker.
8. A cowboy is clean about his person and in thought, word, and deed.
9. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents, and the laws of his country.
10. A cowboy is a patriot.
Consider the materials covered in the second half of this course from the perspective created by Autry’s cowboy commandments. In what ways do the characters from these films and literary works conform to, twist, or demolish these commandments? How does the style of each of these works contribute to the depiction of character?
2. Another way of thinking about question 1: Douglas Pye describes the post-war Western as “films with more problematic heroes and more critical attitudes to American civilization than had been common” (“The Collapse of Fantasy,” p. 168). In what ways do post-war Westerns seem to have more ambiguous heroes and more “critical” attitudes to American society than do pre-WWII Westerns?
3. Pye (“The Collapse of Fantasy,” p. 168) cites John Cawelti as describing the post-WWII Western as “shifting the genre from the myth of foundation to a concern with social transition, the passing of the Old West into modern society and the Western hero’s increasingly complex and ambiguous relationship to that process.” In what sense is Man of the West a “psychological” Western? How is the psychological state of the former outlaw conveyed visually and through dialogue in the film? How, specifically, does this film show us that Link continues to be bound by his past?
4. How are the problems of social transition and modernization represented in the Westerns we have studied during the second half of this semester? What is the impact of these changes on the “hero” and on other Western characters?
5. How is McCabe and Mrs. Miller both a “classic” Western and a Western that undermines typical expectations for the genre? Think especially of the opening scene, contrasting it to (for example) the opening of Shane. (See Schatz, p. 62).
6. Compare and contrast the figure of the “initiate hero” in Shane, Blood Meridian, McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Unforgiven.
7. Discuss the role of women as “commodities” and as individuals who are trying to control their own destinies in High Noon, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Unforgiven.
8. Pye, 169, states, “In terms of masculinity, the implicit debate is clear: can a man be a man and settled?” What are the ramifications of this statement with respect to The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance and Unforgiven? How do these and other films further complicate the notion of the “redeemer-hero,” as described by Schatz (p. 54)?
9. How is the Spaghetti Western a “celebration of both violent masculinity and ‘medieval’ codes of honor” (White, “The Demise and Rebirth of the Western”)? How is “justice” defined and achieved in For a Few Dollars More? How does the Spaghetti Western parody the classic Western (as it does in the first scene of For a Few Dollars More)?
10. Discuss the figure of the bounty hunter in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, For a Few Dollars More and Unforgiven. Is the bounty hunter a “positive,” “negative,” or “ambiguous” character in these films? Cite specific scenes that attest to the moral and psychological status of the bounty hunter.
11. How is the “hat shooting” scene in For a Few Dollars More a parody of the other “masculine contests” in the film? Describe at least three of these other “contests” in detail.
12. How are Ranse, Tom, and Liberty both “doubles” and “opposites” in TMWSLV? How are these similarities and oppositions spelled out by the mise en scène of the film? (The scene of the cactus rose; Tom’s “imitation” of Liberty after the latter’s death; the role of the gun and the lawbook, etc.). Why is it “necessary” to divide the Western hero into three separate figures at this point in history?
14. What other oppositions are set up (and perhaps undermined) in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? (See Schatz and remember the definition of structuralism!)
15. Schatz describes the “professional” Western (p. 59), such as The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc., as “undercutting the classic Westerner’s moral code.” Why were these depictions of “outlaw collectives” popular during the 1960s and 1970s?
16. Here is one possible interpretation of Unforgiven: Even as it “condemns” the kind of violence (be able to describe specifically how this is accomplished in the film) Eastwood was seen to carry out in his earlier films, Unforgiven depicts a kind of “gap” in the justice system that seems to rationalize the actions of the violent “redeemer” at the end of the film.” What is this “gap” in the system of justice? How is the punishment of Little Bill and his cohorts depicted as both a lapse into terrorizing violence and a necessary intervention in the social realm? (Think of Munny’s parting words to the townspeople, for example)?
17. Schatz describes (p. 78) Ford’s concern with the process of mythmaking in TMWSLV. How is this concern expressed in the film? How is this process depicted—to very different ends—in Unforgiven?
18. How is capitalism critiqued in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Unforgiven, and elsewhere in the modern Western?
18. How are Smoke Signals, Unforgiven and other Westerns from this half of the semester “self-reflexive”? How do they reflect on the process of filmmaking and of creating certain kinds of characters and stereotypes? How does Smoke Signals bring a specifically Native American perspective to this problematic?
19. How does Alexie use the metaphor of “weather” to convey human problems in “Every Little Hurricane”?
20. Jhon Warren Gilroy describes Smoke Signals thusly: “Instead of the ‘usual’ tragic, two-dimensional, drunk and vanishing Indian, the narrative depicts fully developed characters living out a unique aspect of contemporary American existence: life on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation” (p. 26). Using this statement as a guide, discuss in detail how the Native Americans in Alexie’s stories are caught between “tradition” and modern life in the U.S. Look for specific passages that juxtapose tradition and modernity and note how Alexie uses humor, irony and pathos to describe what it’s like to be a modern day Native American. (You might recall the clips from Broken Arrow, Little Big Man and Dances with Wolves shown in class as further examples of cinematic depictions of the “noble,” “vanishing” Native American.)
21. Alexie expresses ambivalence towards traditional representations of the Native American such as the “shaman” and the “warrior.” Where do these figures appear in Alexie’s stories and how are they depicted?
22. How are basketball, alcohol, and other aspects of reservation life shown to define and challenge Native American concepts of masculinity in “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore.” What does that title mean to you, by the way?
22. Discuss the similarities and differences between Smoke Signals and Alexie’s stories, “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian to See Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock,” “Crazy Horse Dreams,” and “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.”
23. Keeping in mind Gilroy’s (pp. 24-6) description of this film as a male-oriented “road movie,” discuss the role of women in Smoke Signals.
24. Discuss Masayesva’s depiction of the film industry’s use of the Native American as extra, actor and icon. What are the “politics” of photographing/depicting the Native American (Rony)?
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