Imagine if someone came to your house and stole everything you worked for. Imagine that they kept coming back and there was nothing you could do to stop them. Would you be desperate for help? What if this was happening to someone you didn't know. Would you risk your very life to help them? The Magnificent Seven is just that story. A story about seven mercenary gunfighters who take that risk to help a village of poor farmers south of the border. .
The Magnificent Seven is a unique film because it differs from any western that came before it. The gunfighters are emotional people rather than just quick draw shooting machines. They realize that the life they led as nomads that kill for money has left them alone and on the fringe of society. We can sympathize with their loneliness and hope that they can achieve redemption through the resolution of the conflict between Calvera and the villagers. .
The film teaches us through the admiration and then ultimate rejection of the gunfighters by the initiate hero Chico, that there is now a new type of hero. The true heroes are the farmers not the gunfighters. The film argues that it is braver to risk farming the land and raising a family than to be a gunfighter. .
Define Genre.
"Western films are the major defining genre of the American film industry" (Dirks,online). They are one of the oldest most enduring genres in American film because it focuses on the frontier west, a piece of American history we can all relate to. .
Though the western is most commonly set on the rolling plains of late 19th century America, the genre has been known to expand as far south as Mexico and from early colonial times to the late 20th century. Since the conquest in the western is often nature or land, popular settings in this genre include: ranch house, saloon, small town main street ect. Of course, props common to the western are: guns, hats, boots, and horses.