Johnny Guitar Quiz Content.docx

- *Johnny Guitar* (1954) - Crawford had been in Hollywood since the 1920s. Joan Crawford is about 50. Because of ageism, she's looking at the end of her career when she does this film. No studios are hiring her. - When the film was released in 1954 it was panned by cr...

- *Johnny Guitar* (1954) - Crawford had been in Hollywood since the 1920s. Joan Crawford is about 50. Because of ageism, she's looking at the end of her career when she does this film. No studios are hiring her. - When the film was released in 1954 it was panned by critics. - Why? - Probably because of "violations of Western genre." - What were those violations? - Couldn't we say this film is hyper aware of the genre conventions for a western, and it's openly trying to defy them? - Unlike films before its time, it's addressing issues like the hegemony of capitalism. - Nicholas Ray was subversive in many ways: - There's a homoerotic attraction between Emma and Vienna - These women are violating conventions for women in the 1950s. They both carry guns, a very phallic instrument. - The film is titled Johnny Guitar, but it's not really about Johnny. This was a ploy to get audiences to see the film because they thought it would be a traditional western. - Johnny shows deference to Vienna and looks to her for instruction. - Scenes where he's looking at Vienna, while she's looking at someone else. He buckles her belt while she talks to the Dancing Kid. - He begs her to say she still loves him...and she lacks emotion when she repeats it. - Bartender says, he's "never seen a woman who was more of a man\" than Vienna, and confesses it makes him \"feel like I\'m not\" a man. - Likewise, the men of the town look to Emma for instruction. - Finally, it's a response to the blacklist era in Hollywood. Naming names. We see that when they tell Turkey to name Vienna. Philip Yordan is credited as having written the screenplay, but he's known as serving as a front for the Hollywood Ten writers who were blacklisted for their alleged communist, leftist leanings. - Sterling Hayden, who plays Johnny Guitar, was forced to confess to his Communist past in front of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities (HUAC) a few years earlier, and as part of being allowed to continue working in Hollywood, he had to name names. - Catherine Russel describes it as operatic because "its archetypal figures, dramatic choreography, costume changes, and extraordinary use of color, and its romantic musical theme."