and John Wayne and on up to Clint Eastwood, are
outsized but relatively subdued performers.
All of the tertiary character types found in West-
erns have a role to play in this overarching conflict
between the wild and settled West. Native Ameri-
cans are both ruthless savages and noble personifi-
cations of dignity and honor. Prostitutes are
products of lawlessness but often long for marriage
and family. Schoolmarms are educated and cul-
tured, yet are irresistibly drawn to the frontier and
the men who roam it. The greenhorn character
may be sophisticated back East, but he is an inex-
perienced bumbler (and, as such, a perfect surro-
gate for the viewer) when it comes to the ways of
the West. His transformation into a skilled cowboy/
gunfighter/lawman embodies the Western ideal of
renewal.
More than any genre, the American Western is
linked to place. But the West is not necessarily a
particular place. The genre may be set on the prairie,
in the mountains, or in the desert. But whatever
the setting, the landscape is a dominant visual and
thematic element that represents another Western
duality: it’s a deadly wilderness of stunning natural
beauty. Because setting is of such primary impor-
tance, Westerns are dominated by daylight exterior
shots and scenes. As a result, Westerns were
among the first films to be shot almost exclusively
on location. (When the Hollywood noir classic Sun-
set Boulevardneeds to get a film-industry character104 CHAPTER 3TYPES OF MOVIES
Character duality in the WesternWestern
protagonists often embody both sides of the genre’s
thematic conflict between wilderness and civilization. Clint
Eastwood’s Unforgiven(1992) stars Eastwood himself as Bill
Munny, a farmer and father enlisted as a hired gun on the
basis of his faded (and dubious) reputation as a former
gunslinger. Munny resists violent action until the murder
of his friend and partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman), reawakens
the ruthless desperado within him [1]. Johnny Depp’s
character in Jim Jarmusch’s allegorical Western Dead Man
(1995) begins his journey west as a hopelessly meek and
inept accountant, but is gradually transformed into a deadly
outlaw by both the figurative and literal wilderness [2].12