Ah... The Serenity, out in The Big Sky

Ah… the Serenity, out in The Big Sky

A Comparative Film Essay

The Western is an important genre in film as its setting is familiar to the audience and the nuances and themes of each film are easy recognized. In this comparative essay I have chosen to compare two Western films which were made 53 years apart, The Big Sky (Howard Hawks 1952) and Serenity (Joss Whedon 2005). Great choices of films! Ideal for this assignment Although very different, both these films are Westerns – The Big Sky as a classic Western and Serenity as a modern take on the Western – the "super-western" (Bazin, cited in Kitses 1969, p.19) – as it combines the Western and Science Fiction genres. But the similarities between the directors and the films are abundant.

The Western – The American West and the Last Frontiers

While Joss Whedon's Serenity is not set on the Old American West Frontier as most Westerns are, we can still observe many of the key westerns traits. Nice topic sentence! Sets your discussion up well The nature of a western is its place on the fringe of the civilized world, on the frontier a "place where advancing civilization met a declining savagery" (Cawelti 1974 p.57 good). While classically this occurs on the American frontier, Serenity takes place on the final frontier – Space. The civilized world is represented by the inner planets, but Serenity explores the outer planets where law and order are not dictated by the civilized world.

As the name suggest most of The Big Sky takes place in the great outdoors, but when it does venture indoors early in the film, it is into those "special kinds of indoors: saloons, jails … riverboats… all places frequented by those who live an outdoor… wandering kind of life" (Buscombe, 1986). This is a hallmark of the classic Western. The story takes place on a keelboat journeying up the Missouri River in 1830. The heroes enter the unknown, into dangerous Indian Territory, "where no white man has gone before," (The Big Sky 1952 Hawks). But with this danger and chaos comes the joy of freedom and male camaraderie under ‘the big sky'.

The characters of Serenity are familiar western archetypes. Mal the protagonist is a survivor of the ‘civil' war, a smuggler at odds with the law who has a strict moral code and is essentially the anti-hero in the same vein as Ben Wade's likeable villainous-hero in 3:10 to Yuma (Daves 1957). Good reference to a classic western to develop this pint! Mal is the self-proclaimed troublemaker telling his crew that "As sure as I know anything, I know this – I aim to misbehave" (Serenity 2005 Whedon). The rest of Serenity's crew is a recognizable mixed-bag of Western hallmarks – Shepard the preacher, Simon the city doctor, and Jayne the hired