Samurai Gunslingers: The Western and
the Samurai/Martial Arts Film.
Please join the Film & History Journal for its annual conference in Kansas
City Missouri and consider giving a paper on the cross fertilization of
the Western and the Martial Arts film genres.
Consider the sword duel near the beginning of _Seven Samurai_. The aesthetic of the
quick-draw and precision shooting roughly correlate to iaido and kyudo, and as we see in
westerns and martial arts movies require the same dedication and practice to master.
Since many Westerns and martial arts films were made during the same period papers might also consider the ways in which the shootouts model and reflect sword duals in such films as:
· The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
· The Quick and the Dead,
· Once Upon a Time in the West,
· The Shootist,
· The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
· High Noon
or any other film which heightens the experience of the shoot-out as an end in itself.
Further paper possibilities might include but are not limited to
· the artistic impact on current film of the ways in which the two genres have come together
· the cowboy/samurai/warrior monk as embodiments of their cultures and/or a warrior archetype
· women warriors in either genre. The Quick and the Dead or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
might be interesting here.
· the supernatural as narrative element
Send 250 word proposals by 15 August, 2002 to:
Cher Holt-Fortin
[log in to unmask]
Film & History Conference on the American West in Film, TV, and History
Kansas City Marriott, Kansas City, MO
November, 2002
http://www.filmandhistory.org/
The 2002 meeting of the Film & History Society will be at the Kansas City Margot, Country
Club Plaza, next door to the Kansas City Arts Institute. Special events are planned for the
meeting. For details about the meeting, the site, and travel, see the web site at <http://www.filmandhistory.org/>
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu
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