Journal 2

due asap

about the movies called Searchers and Stagecoach

Choose TWO of the following prompts to answer. Each one should be around 200 words, making the total word count around 400.

  1  In the “First and Final Frames” video, Jacob Swinney compares the opening and closing shots of movies. After watching that video (which includes the famous first and last shots of The Searchers) consider what this exercise shows us about The Searchersand Stagecoach (you can use the link from this week & last week to grab those frames for yourself). What do the first and last shots tell us about the differences between these two films? What can you say about closure (sense of a resolution) in each one?
 2   The Searchers offers remarkable examples of John Ford’s signature shot—called the “aperture shot” or “open door” shot. He uses this device in Stagecoach a number of times as well. Look back through both films and note the usage of this shot. How does it work in these two films, and why does it make sense to shot scenes in a western in this way?
 3   In my lecture, I argue that the western addresses the conflict in American ideology between our belief in the value of civilization (importance of institutions like the community, the family, the government, etc.) and our desire for the freedoms of the wilderness. Locate a scene in The Searchersor Stagecoachwhere you see this conflict being played out and discuss how the film tries to resolve it.
 4   In the reading selection, “Film Genres and Genre Films,” Schatz indicates that genre films don’t follow a linear narrative structure. Instead, they offer an “oppositional narrative.” Is this true of Stagecoach and The Searchers? Illustrate your argument using his discussion of establishment, animation, intensification and resolution of conflict (or, if you think that doesn’t work, argue against him).