Sorry that this is a bit dated, but I'm slowing cleaning up my email backlog:

Lang Thompson wonders:

"Is the first a Japanese film

inspired by or based on American Westerns?  Would it have existed

without that example?  Fistful of Dollars is the same plot/structure

but this time actually moved to the traditional Western time and place

so there would be little question that it actually is a Western.  Last

Man Standing is Western in setting but not time and has numerous

elements of the gangster film incorporated.  In fact, it would be easy

to imagine Last Man Standing actually set in New York City, so if the

plot can be easily converted, what is essentially Western about it?"

 

 

It seems that there are a number of aspects that define any given "genre"

(which is bad enough when defining something everyone would agree is

a genre, such as the Western, but even worse when there is disagreement

about its very status, as in "film noir"): the notion of "conventions"

seems prominent.  There are conventions of setting (time and place),

narrative (eg. good guy vs. bad guy), plot construction, and audience

affect, just to mention a few.  Any of these elements is transposable on

its own from one genre to another.

 

Thus certain plot motifs, as in Kurosawa or Leone or that Sean Connery film,

are recognizable as "western" even if the rest of the conventions have

been altered.

 

But "genre" has always seemed most potent as a film industry marketing tool--

just consider Hong Kong martial arts, Japanese anime, Hollywood "action

films" and so on.

 

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)

 

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