- How are their conclusions similar?
- How is setting important? Can you compare the use of interiors and exteriors in both films?
- Several of you wrote about gender roles in BUB. How are gender roles explored in Stagecoach? What is the role of romance in both films?
- The use of humor?
In addition, I think we should consider how interiors and exteriors are juxtaposed in Stagecoach. It was unusual to build roofs onto film sets, but director John Ford did for this film. Why do you think he did this? This was the first of many films to be filmed in Utah's Monument Valley. What role does the location play in this film?
What does this film say about race?
John Wayne was a relatively unknown B actor when this film was made. Director John Ford said the movie would make him a star and he was right. How is Wayne presented as a bigger-than-life hero in the movie?
Westerns are traditionally very moral universes (unlike many of the film noirs we'll be watching in a few weeks). How are good and evil addressed in the film? Do you have any problems with any of these presentations of good or evil?
1) Hw are these two similar? I guess it's because our protagonists manage to get away and find some kind of love despite their drastic financial and cultural backgrounds. Two sides of a spectrum that find a way to connect despite society and believability saying they shouldn't.
ReplyDelete2) BuB and SC, just like the opposites of their characters, each film has opposite settings as well. The wild west and a small town. The exterior of SC was always filled with danger, with the native americans hunting the caravan, breathing down their neck, arrows at the ready. While in BuB the dangers comes in two forms, the leopard and Susan Vance, both of whom are always close by and always a threat to the health (at least the mental health in one respect)
3) BuB and SC have oposite views of how women are portrayed. BuB has it's women as strong characters, with no sense of cowering behind men while stagecoach is that cliche and more, with the women acting as damsels as soon as they appear on screen. With BuB, Susan is the show, she is in the frontline, taking no part in the gender-norm.
In both films, Romance seems to drive Susan more than anything else in this film, her infatuation with David drags him to an adventure and through the terrors of eccentricity he eventually "falls" for the excitement... not Susan.... the excitement of new... of different. While in Stagecoach, it's the aspect of running away to be free that drives the romance.
4)In BuB, the humor comes from the physical slip-ups of the main cast as well as the screwball comedy of the strong female and the bumbling male. Stagecoach's "comedy" comes from stereotype comedy, exaggerated depictions of mexicans and native americans, and quips made from a drunk preacher being a voice of reason.outside