Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Assignment Example

In the beginning of film Butch Cassidy is the friendly, smart, talkative leader of the criminals - Hole in the Wall Gang. Sundance Kid, his closest friend is terse. The two return to their den at Hole-in-the-Wall to learn that the rest of the team, displeased by Cassidy’s long absences; have chosen Logan as their new gang leader. Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gangs headship. Using deception Cassidy defeats him, however he agrees to Logan’s idea to rob train on both its eastward and westward trips, claiming that the westward raid would be unpredicted and likely reap more money than the eastward raid.

From the above, the beginning of movie occurs with a scene which is fundamentally familiar and traditional. It is the setting for countless gun fights. What many fails to see is that it is not a shoot outs. Butch talks to Kid out of a fierce fight. This is a clear departure from the western protagonist. First the protagonist becomes convinced not to fight by a person outside himself. Butch and Sundance are not the convectional protagonists in that they ought to depend on one another rather than be the loner that typifies the western protagonist.

Second, we see the protagonists walking away from a battle without having destroyed anything. This is just one instance in a style of moving from conflict rather than meeting it. This clearly opposes the protagonists seen in classical western, the examples of western masculine hero, who never ran from a fight, but ran towards it. The vital revelation that Butch Cassidy has never killed a man exposes the flaws in the western myth more than any other feature of the movie. The notion that these criminals had murdered scores of men was largely not true.

The director addresses the myth head on, by exposing its deceit in Butch. He humanizes the western myth, and