Description
This is, first and foremost, a paper about the genre. Your films are illustrative examples of the genre within a historical/cultural context that will help you understand how and why it has changed over time. They will also help limit your focus, as not every generic myth, convention, or icon will be relevant to your films and your thesis. You are not simply discussing your films’ similarities and differences. Your argument and analysis must demonstrate a historical understanding of the genre and how your films work within the genre. You should examine the generic myths, conventions, and iconography at work in the films, as well as the ways in which the style (or formal elements) influence how audiences understand and interpret these various generic elements. For example:
How is the convention of the lone gunslinger different in a classical versus a modernist Western?
How is this difference indicative of the broader changes in the genre between the two periods?
Choose one of the genres on the following page along with a pair of films on which to write a 6-8
page paper (~1800–2400 word), using both original analysis and outside research. As with Paper
Two, you will be expected to develop your own thesis and then argue that thesis with a coherent and organized discussion of the topic. Your thesis must make a claim about how and why your
genre has changed over time and engage with the class concepts on Genre and the Classical,
Postclassical, and Modernist periods (whichever applies to your films).