How to write a western?

CookFX Productions

CookFX Productions

Well-known member
Now my real focus here, is the man with no name style western that stylized around clint and many others. There body's and cheap, and good camera work, and sometime depending (pekenpah) on the couple of movies were violent to the max. And at those point made up for lack of dialouge. I want to develope and script a character that speaks little thoughout the film, granted its going to be i home 7-10 mins at max. And have him be the sillent violent, pathos hero type. Is it the means of keeping the movie, because i have a feelin that the violence in the movie is going to give it a Pulp genre feeling as well, because it isnt your ususal shootem type ideas. So the real question How do you drive a movie were your main character is a man a little words and a man of lots of flying lead.

Brian Sinister
 
Is this movie easy to find?

From what I have so far my main character is a walking thunderstorm of revenge upon the world for being born, and has finally found his lucky charms. OH by the way Can someone explain to me what he mitus, or midus touch myth is?
 
I'm actually writing (or rewriting) a western to so maybe I can be of some service.

I think the critical thing for any independent genre film is to look at a subject matter from a different perspective. If you watch the Spaghetti Westerns that’s essentially what they did, took the tired western concept and looked at them under a different light.

That being said it seems like a mistake to attempt to remake the Spaghetti Westerns, it's been done, at this point nobody really cares what you do with something old unless you really up the ante.

I'm not saying the conventions of a western aren't valuable, the gunfight is what makes the western great but there are other ways to stage one besides the ways you've seen.
 
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There's an old scifi movie called 'They Live' -- give it a look. The main character doesn't say a whole lot. In fact, there's an interesting story about this movie -- or rather, about the short story it was based on. The argument was debated that scifi fans didn't care about characters and backstory, they only cared about action. So a short story was written in which absolutely nothing at all was revealed about the main character -- in fact, his name was 'Nada', which in Spanish means 'nothing'. The story was wildly successful, anthologized many many times, and eventually was the basis for the movie 'They Live'.

Strong, silent main character -- I like it.

But it's true that it's a good idea to take things in a different direction if you can. What about merging the Western with some other genre? How would people in the Old West deal with a ghost? Or a vampire? Or zombies? Or an alien invasion? Could be an interesting story in there.

Building on what A Messenger is saying about staging a gunfight in a different way -- what about the lone gunfighter with his six-shooter going up against the alien with his plasma blaster??? That could be fun. 'Pale Rider' meets 'Predator'!
 
Keep in mind that Leone didnt shoot audio when he filmed Fistful of Dollars.

I would highly suggest that you research the samurai influence in those movies. Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" is public domain now so you can actually watch the full movie from this user's list:

http://stage6.divx.com/The-Last-Stop

This is the inspiration for Fistful of Dollars, as Leone practically stole everything from Yojimbo. Kurosawa sued Leone over this movie. Clint Eastwood is quiet and stoic, almost mimicking Mifune's samurai line for line.

I still love Leone, of course.
 
CookFX Productions said:
OH by the way Can someone explain to me what he mitus, or midus touch myth is?
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King Midas had a power/curse where everything he touched turned to gold. Sounds cool at first, but then try eating, peeing, mast....nevermind, you get the idea.

When people say a person has "The Midas Touch", they mean it in good way.
 
Knoxworth said:
Keep in mind that Leone didnt shoot audio when he filmed Fistful of Dollars.

I would highly suggest that you research the samurai influence in those movies. Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" is public domain now so you can actually watch the full movie from this user's list:

http://stage6.divx.com/The-Last-Stop

This is the inspiration for Fistful of Dollars, as Leone practically stole everything from Yojimbo. Kurosawa sued Leone over this movie. Clint Eastwood is quiet and stoic, almost mimicking Mifune's samurai line for line.

I still love Leone, of course.
Click to expand...

Leone didn't shoot with sound (double system), because europeans didn't do it that way. They dubbed. That is why you have such great camera movement and shots in many of those films....sound was not an issue.

As for samurai stuff, I was going to suggest the same thing. Take a samurai film, put them on horses, give them guns, and there you go... The Maginificent Seven. Put them in space ships, give them blasters and light sabres...et voila, you're George Lucas.
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Eastwood claims that it was his idea for the man with no name to speak less, for some practical purpose, and it ended up working well and helped define his character.

If you want to know how not to remake Yojimbo/Per un pugno di dollari, just watch Last Man Standing....

But perhaps the best way to learn how to write a western is to study westerns.
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Watch / read every Western you can find, especially the ones that have influenced you. Then break down what works in each film, and what makes it work. Pick and choose techniques, experiment with new ones, and put them all together.
 
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