Research into a western genre opening scene

  

For this western genre film sequence, I looked at Toombstone, a 1993 American Western film directed by George P Cosmatos and written by Kevin Jarre. It stars Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, as well as narration by Robert Mictchum. Tombstone was distributed by Hollywood Pictures in the USA on December 25th 1993 gossing $56.5 million in domestic ticket sales. The film ranked 16 in the list of highest grossing films since 1979 and made its self a successful western genre film.  

The opening of this scene immediately indicates to us that it’s set in the desert and so is clear that it’s a western genre from the costumes and set design. The narrative shows us a dramatic opening as thunder of cowboys on horses emerging in the dessert, and then the title appears. We are shown the calm preparations of a wedding until the dramatic entry of the gang of which the tone of the film instantly tunes into action. The couple just walk out and a gang attack and kill everyone in the wedding. Guessing from this opening, based upon this, we as an audience assume that there is one man which survives this gang attack, from this he goes forward to gain revenge on the cowboy gang.

 

Based upon this type of genre, I can tell that the audience are going to be males over the age of 50 as a younger audience are most likely to watch more modern day, less violent films. 

Typical conventions of western include elements of good vs bad guys, a robbery or criminal act, a chase and a final showdown. The typical setting is normally in a natural location in western America. Specific settings of a western involve ranges, small towns, old railways and isolated military forts. 

In this opening scene, we are introduced to the leading gang member, and also the psychopath, based upon this opening scene. However it's likely that we haven’t been introduced to the protagonist as there is no saviour who rescues these innocent people from this gang invasion. We know that the gang member is important as the camera time is mostly focused on his face and his actions of him loading the gun and leading the gang behind him, this shows he is in charge and that the other members all obey his orders. The psychopath is shown hiding and smiling at the death of the innocent people. The fact he isn’t killed provokes that he is maybe apart of the gang. The camera focuses on his smile towards the killings which signifies the importance of his smile. 

One of the key moments in this opening sequence involves the arrival of the gang. The camera does a pan shot of the horses thundering on the sand, this long shot allows us to recognise that something bad is going to happen which builds climax and anticipation. This chaotic moment cuts to a peaceful long shot of the setting of the wedding, this suggests to the audience that the gang of men and horses are aiming for this tranquil wedding. The camera alternates between shots of wedding preparations and the thundering of horse shoes on the sand.  We see a close up shot of the guitar band at the wedding, this peaceful, happy scene contrasts eith the dramatic sound of the entrance of the gang. The soundtrack changes as we see a close up of the cowboy boots trudging  in the sand. We see short clips showing features of the gang leader portrayed to us. The close up shots sync to the dramatic music, we see medium length, close up shots of the guns being loaded. The effect of this indicated the tone of the opening sequence.