Classical Western film genre has loads of different types of tropes and conventions which is suited for the own genre itself. First off, the most important convention is the props that are used. In most western films, there is always guns involved, this may be due to the political situations that were happening in that time or just for general entertainment. Also, the use of animals too, mainly horses as a form of travel. Another trope is where the films have been set, most typical western films are set far in the desert, in a small quiet town, a ranch or stables. The use of the characters, a hero, who intends to save the town and get it back to normal, and a villain, the person stopping the hero from achieving it. The use of gender is also an important convention in westerns as usually the male and a lead role and the female has a smaller role, like a housewife.
Dead Man (1995) is a very classical western and uses a variety of key tropes in the Classical Western like the long and fast pacing shots during the action to build tension. The film begins with an unsocial and awkward man called William Blake. one of the most important scenes in my opinion is when he meets a prostitute and sleeps with her, then her ex-boyfriend comes back and shoots her with his gun, which makes William end up shooting the ex-boyfriend. This shows a click in his personality as he becomes a new confident person. The use of horses in the film is a symbolic part of ‘death’, in every scene of someone dying there is horse that whines.
“The Revisionist Western or Anti-Western is a subgenre of the Western film that traces its roots to the mid-1960s and early-1970s.”
A typical revisionist western questions the mythical vision of the Old West, created in Hollywood which would use methods such as self-reflexivity, subversion etc. To remake the film, Dead Man directed by Jim Jarmusch, with a perspective as a revisionist, usually in classical westerns despite all of the killing and gore, there is no blood coming from the victims, however in revisionist westerns there would be a lot of it.