"Johnny Guitar" directed by Nicholas Ray, is an adaptation of the book "Johnny Guitar". Johnny Guitar plays with the western genre in a way that keeps the audience engaged. When you think of western films, you mostly think of something having to do with cowboys and big shootouts and battles across town. Which is were this film catches the audience off guard. Instead of having a male lead character that is a cowboy and skilled with a gun, they instead introduce Vienna (Joan Crawford) as the main female character. This is interesting because the title is named after Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), who plays a secondary role compared to Vienna. After reading a couple articles about the film, I came upon a surprising discovery. According to TCM's article, "... Crawford demanded major changes to the screenplay - favoring her - and had them approved since she was the star of the film. The major revision was an issue over gender." The article goes on to talk about how the center focus was shifted from Johnny Guitar and Dancin' Kid (Scott Brady) to Vienna and Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge). This is interesting because it explains the reason why Vienna was the main character, but it also explains why, when they shifted focuses on the two females in the film, they kept the traditional masculine roles. This change in gender roles is hinted to many times in the film. In the beginning of the film, we hear a lot of the guys at the saloon talk about Vienna and how she is more of a man than they are. This is also shown in how she walks, talks and shakes hands with people. Vienna looks more like a general than a lady, and that is what makes this film interesting. There are many times in the film where we see Vienna give orders to her guys and they listen without any resistance. In the video above, we see the very masculine and dominating Vienna. She isn't afraid of the mob and talks with authority. While watching the clip, pay attend to what she is wearing too. One thing I noticed as I was watching this film, was the constant changing of clothes, sometimes Vienna would wear trousers like in this video and other times she would wear a dress. So noticing this, I decided to see if that had anything to do with the film and its gender roles. While reading Jonathan Rosenbaum's publication, I saw that he wrote about the same thing, saying, "... Vienna's shifting status as boss, lover, mother, desperado, or peacemaker has to be continually proven and reproven, sometimes with costume changes to match the various shifts." This can be seen in the video clip down below, which is the first time we see Vienna wearing a dress, as well as acting more like a woman than a man. This film continuous to point out the gender differences between men and women with Vienna's quote, "A man can lie, steal, and even kill, but as long as he hangs onto his pride, he's still a man .... All a women has to do is slip once and she's a tramp." This was an interesting line from Vienna and really made a point about women in this film. No matter how much Vienna tries and builds, she is always seen as a women and not respected for what she has. When Johnny and Vienna are talking in the saloon, in the beginning, we hear Vienna talk about how she has what she has, because she worked for it, and not because she was lucky. We also see Vienna and Emma act very masculine and in many cases even boss the men around. There's this sort of respect for these two that the men have, but they do also still see them as women.
Now lets take a look at Johnny 'Guitar' Logan. Even though hes not the main character in this film, he is still one of the most important. When he is first introduced, we learn his name is Johnny Guitar. During these scenes he plays the guitar and doesn't carry a gun. Once Turkey starts shooting his gun in the saloon, we see Johnny shoot the gun out of Turkey's hand, and almost shooting Turkey in the process. After this scene, it is revealed that Johnny Guitar is actually Johnny Logan, "the fastest draw in the West." Towards the middle we see Johnny give up on his guitar and while he still isn't carrying a gun, he doesn't carry his guitar either. Then towards the end when Dancin' Kid and the others learn of Johnny's real name, we see that Johnny Logan comes back and finally has a gun. As Catherine Russell says, "By the end of the movie, Johnny's guitar has long been abandoned, but he has gained the love of a woman..." This is interesting to think about because as Vienna becomes less of a man towards the end, Johnny becomes more of the man in return. Johnny's change in personality is something that is slowly expressed throughout the movie and we see a sort of internal battle between Guitar and Logan. Overall this film took the Western genre and turn it upside down. It changed the main characters to be females with masculine roles and features. It also hinted at different personalities, depending on what the person was wearing or using. For Vienna it was the changing from trousers to dresses, while for Johnny it was the change in names and tools. Going from a guitar to a gun in the end. The biggest shocker was how well the audience responded to the film, even after the cast had said that they were disappointed in the overall film. Guess this goes to show that sometimes the best film is one that changes up the expectations of the audience in a certain genre. Instead of getting a generic Western film about cowboys shooting up a town, we got a larger focus on the women and their masculinity.
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