As you will have already read in the course introduction, this is a content-based English language class which uses film as the content. Why use film to teach English? Part of the reason is that I believe students learn best when they are doing something they enjoy and students seem to genuinely enjoy learning about films. I might also add that teachers teach better when they are teaching something they enjoy and I certainly enjoy teaching film.

Directed by: John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall
Produced by: Bernard Smith
Written by: James R. Webb
Starring: Carroll Baker, Walter Brennan, Lee J. Cobb, Andy Devine, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, James Stewart, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Richard Widmark and Narrated by Spencer Tracy
Music by: Alfred Newman
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 164 minutes
Budget: $14,483,000
Box office: $50,000,000

For your homework you will read a bit about the time and place of the American West and have a chance to see it on maps.

The first film excerpt shows you what things were like at the beginning of exploration of the wild west, the film we will take a look at now begins just as the classic period of the wild west is ending. In fact the film Cimarron begins with the event that signals the closing of the western frontier; the 1889 Oklahoma land rush. This was the last great act of land theft by White America committed against the Indians. The Oklahoma territory was supposed to have been preserved for the use of the Indians who already lived there or who had been sent there. But In 1889 the President and Congress once again broke their treaties with the Indians and allowed white settlers to take the land. What you are about to see is a “land rush”. Thousands upon thousands of people waited for the signal to lay claim to “free land”. The total amount of land being given away for “free” (because it was being stolen from the Indians) was approximately equal to Chiba, and Saitama prefectures combined!

Directed by: Wesley Ruggles
Based on: The novel Cimarron by Edna Ferber
Starring: Ricard Dix, Irene Dunne
Music by: MaxSteiner
Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures
Running time: 124 minutes
Budget: $1,433,000
Box office: $1,383,000

In addition to depicting a real moment in the history of America quite accurately, the land rush scene in Cimarron was a great film achievement. The director, Wesley Ruggles, recreated the historical event by filming on an enormous California ranch and asking for thousands of volunteers to come wearing period costumes. The volunteers also brought their own horses and carriages (and a few other contraptions like the old-fashioned bicycle). Ruggles used more than a dozen cameras to capture the action from many different angles (including one that was placed in a pit over which horses and carriages rode). The result, as you saw, was remarkable. This very brief scene took weeks to organize and cost a great deal of money to film. But the effect is impressive. This is all long before CGI so what you saw was entirely real. Amazingly, no one was hurt or killed during the filming!

The “West” is both a time and a place in American history. The peak time of the “Wild West” as it was called, is usually said to be between the end of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the Oklahoma land Rush of 1889, which closed the so called “frontier”. We usually call the “West” the place bordered by Canada to the North, Mexico to the South and the Pacific Ocean to the West. The Eastern boundary began at the Mississippi river and constantly shifted westward from 1865 to 1890.

The “Frontier” was not an actual border but was the constantly shifting boundary between “civilization” and the “wild west”. In the map above you can see the “official” and “legal” acquisition of lands by the U.S.A. over time, but notice that the U.S.A. acquired these lands “legally” from the British, French, Spanish, Mexicans and Russians through either purchase or conquest. What you do not see on this map is the fact that ALL these lands were already occupied by millions of Native Americans (Indians). The U.S.A. would “legally” take the land from these native people by signing many treaties and agreements with the Indians. However, in every single case the U.S.A. would later violate the treaties and agreements.The map below shows who really lived on the land before the Americans conquered them.