Short film:
The Gunfighter instantly seem's to fulfil all the conventions of the western with the silent cowboy from out of town and the setting of the saloon however it quickly diverts from this by having the narrator as the causer of the conflict. The narrator conventionally opens up the world for the protagonist and describes the surroundings and threats however in the Gunfighter's adaptation the narrator opens up he world even further by painting stories around all the characters and revealing their secrets when in a more typical film these characters would be typical and background characters who we would make presumptions on based on these stereotypes and whilst some are confined many are challenged.
For example, the female character Sally conforms to stereotypes, being a server of men and everything from her costume to the dialogue used to describe her and the dialogue towards her conforms to the depiction of women in the western genre. On the other side of this is the gunfighter himself who at first is of course a traditional character which he generally is however a joke is made about him being gay which is not a social group that is represented in the genre.
Another interesting point is that the narrator's voice is that of the person telling the story IE: the writer or filmmaker so The Gunfighter may be commenting on the lack of originality in film and TV as the narrator in The Gunfighter is purposeful trying to push the same outcome despite what the characters want or try to do and in the end a narrative always has to end and it's usually in the way an audience member expects.
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