Film Analysis Of Johnny Guitar

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In accordance with film theorist Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp,’” the best type of camp is the kind that fails at seriousness (Sontag). When a film tries to be ‘campy,’ it loses the enjoyment of what camp is—the exaggeration and ‘over the topness’ that is not meant to be for pleasure but is. Arguably, Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954) is a progressive and thought-provoking Western. And yet there are elements of the film that seem to lose their seriousness and delve more into what Sontag describes as camp. By Ray having two female leads, it creates a forward-thinking Western but it is this innovation juxtaposed with an out of place Russian Roulette wheel, over the top Foley sound, and poorly executed rear projection that ultimately heightens the segments of camp, and in return diminishes the thoughtful sequences.
The initial scene which the audience sees the two women characters for the first time is when Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) barges into Vienna’s (Joan Crawford) hotel, with her backup men, ready to take Vienna into custody, as Emma believes Vienna somehow aided in killing her brother. The sequence has a tense feeling, as a low camera angle points up to Vienna on the balcony, who is stating her innocence, while also pointing a gun down at the crowd below. Before the group enters, Vienna asks Eddie (Paul Fix) to keep the Russian Roulette wheel going. Eddie is wearing a striped button-down shirt, a tie, and a gun holster—which fits the aesthetic of the rest of the

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