COLLECTION NAME:
Graduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
What is a Western?
Creator:
Matthews, Joshua D.
Subject:
Thesis (M.F.A.) -- Film and Television
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Film and Television
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
This thesis focuses on the Western genre in film. The primary focus of this paper is to define what a Western is based on the syntactic and semantic elements generally associated with the genre. The aim of the thesis is to study these Westerns, and then compare and contrast them with
other films that may not generally be labeled as Westerns, either because of the location of the film, or because of other thematic elements. In doing this, I plan on showing that a true Western film is more then just the location, time period, or the wardrobe worn by the characters, but has
more to do with the thematic elements that work in conjunction with the more symbolic references associated with the Western. After defining the Western, I plan on showing how I used these synaptic and semantic elements in order to build, and execute, my film Dawn.
other films that may not generally be labeled as Westerns, either because of the location of the film, or because of other thematic elements. In doing this, I plan on showing that a true Western film is more then just the location, time period, or the wardrobe worn by the characters, but has
more to do with the thematic elements that work in conjunction with the more symbolic references associated with the Western. After defining the Western, I plan on showing how I used these synaptic and semantic elements in order to build, and execute, my film Dawn.
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia : Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2011-09
Format:
PDF : 21 p.; WMV