Western Films

Over the past few weeks while watching "My Darling Clementine" and "Once Upon A Time In The West", I now see why westerns were popular then and how they are still popular now. Of the two films, my favorite was "Once Upon A Time In The West" because of it's characters, acting, sound, and Leone's odd but effective way of telling the western. The use of sound in this film is the best I have ever seen. The score puts a different tune to each character that fits them perfectly. The use of diagetic sound in the first scene introduces the characters without them saying anything. Most movies would get really boring if a they had no dialogue, but this film keeps you interested because of its sound effects. Leone doesn't use alot dialogue in the whole film, but it doesn't take away from it in any way. The use of camera angles and shots tell the story better than through the use of words. Lastly, in this film the acting keeps you involved. These actors knew what they were doing and there wasn't anytime in the film where I thought they got out of character or too dull, like Mark Walhberg in Max Payne which I saw on opening night. Off topic, I still love Mark Walhberg because he created "Entourage", my favorite show. I hadn't seen many classic westerns before this unit, but now I like and understand them more.



I can't help but notice the similarities between the classic western and today's superhero movies. This random thought popped into my head while I was writing the in-class essay. I didn't feel that making this comment on the paper would be appropiate but I decided to state it on this post. In westerns there is a hero just like superheros, there are always bad guys that loose in the end, and women are in distress alot of the time. Westerns are the precurser to the super hero films of today like Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and Batman. This is just another example that shows us how popular westerns are because after a century of westerns we haven't lost the plot, we just integrated it into a new form.

Citizen Kane

Overall, I thought Citizen Kane was a good movie. It didn't grab my attention and keep it the whole time, but the well-done elements of film made up for some dull parts. I would have to watch this movie a few more times to absorb all it is made out to be. I can see how people say it is the best movie ever because the shots, angles, setting, acting, and other elements of film are well done. This film has amazing elements but it would never survive the box office today. It is a different time, and America's attention span is very short, so they need to be entertained every second. If they are not entertained they will tear the movie to shreads. Citizen Kane definatley earned it's spot in history for it's elements but doesn't have the appeal to survive in today's box offices.

Some of my favorite elements of Citizen Kane are lighting, camera shots, costumes, and acting. The lighting is geniously done through scenes with high and low-key lighting. A scene that shows the great camera shots are the opening and closing scenes with the track of Kane's mansion. A scene that shows great acting and costumes is the scene with Kane and his first wife. The costumes become more and more tight on the wife and the acting shows their eventually disliking of eachother. Welles did an incredible job on this movie.