John Ford in Wikepedia

For interesting points on John Ford as an auteur skim for Ford's cinematic style and for references to Monument Valley, etc. It's a good read and helpful for FS6'Auteur and Genre unit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

"Do Easy" by Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant's early short is a mini masterpiece based on William Burroughs' short story "The Discipline of DE". It's a marvelous little film on doing the little things in life in the easiest and most efficient way possible. Van Sant ("Milk" 2008) also dedicated his film, "Good Will Hunting (1997 and ) to two writers who influenced him but has passed on: William Burroughs and the poet, Allen Ginsberg.

Henry Sheehan's interview with and essay on Clint Eastwood

An interview and an essay can be found her on Clint Eastwood as a director

http://www.henrysheehan.com/interviews.html

"Rethinking Authorship, Theories of Authorship"

by Barry Grant. A useful read for understanding auteurs as an issue in film world.

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC31folder/TheoAutCaughie.html#n

Charlie Rose's TV interview with Clint Eastwood

"An hour with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood"

Clint Eastwood
in Movies, TV & Theater
on Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Another interview worth watching to get the bigger picture on Eastwood as a director. Rose mostly focuses on "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" (2006)

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/82

Philip French's Interview with Clint Eastwood published February 27th 2007

"An Audience with Clint Eastwood" by Philip French, published on 27th of February 2007.

The discussion touches on "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and a number of Eastood's other film. French is an incisive critic and he gets Clint to reveal which directors and films he most admires and which also influenced him.

"Our conversation ranged widely, taking in the director's Iwo Jima companion pieces, his collaborations with Leone and Siegel and his masterpiece, The Outlaw Josey Wales. It even included a duet."

http://download.guardian.co.uk/sys-audio/Film/Film/2007/02/23/ClintEastwood.mp3

The Seven Basic Plots of Westerns

Frank Gruber, a veteran writer of pulp Westerns, argued that there are seven basic plots in Westerns:

Some of these plots are derived from time and place

1. Cavalry and indians

2. The Union Pacific or Pony Express story

3. The homesteaders or squatters theme

4. The cattle empire story

5. The lawman story

6. The revenge story

7. The outlaw story.

Other plots can be distinguished outside the genre, so the genre's durability can sometimes be explained by its ability to digest and shape any source material.

The frontier experience, civilisation/wilderness and east/west themes are omnipresent in most of the themes above.

"The Outlaw Josey Wales" form Shooting Down Pictures

This is an excellent website for detailed information on this key film.

http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/2008/05/914-55-the-outlaw-josey-wales-1976-clint-eastwood/

Here is brief commentary on Eastwood, his star image and his work as a director. There is also a list of interviews, articles and books for detailed research on the man and his work.

http://www.filmreference.com/Actors-and-Actresses-Da-Ea/Eastwood-Clint.html

A Video Essay on "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and Clint Eastwood by Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz makes several interesting points and reveals valuable insights in his video essay on Clint Eastwood's 1976 western, "The Outlaw Josey Wales".

"Stagecoach" and approaching the western either through genre or through Ford as an Auteur (Concept Map)

Click on the image to enlarge.
What's missing from this graphic is the big macro features on narrative. When analysing Western for its genre we will need to consider narrative structure and plots, etc. Studies would also benefit from nexamination of key scenes which will allow a fruitful discussion of Macro features of the genre as well as the auteurs' treatment of them and their view of America at a given point in time.

A brief essay on John Ford's "Stagecoach" from "30 Great Westerns" by Images Journal

A publicity photo from "Stagecoach" with George Bancroft, John Wayne and Claire Trevor.

Here's an insightful analysis of John Ford's "Stagecoach" from Images journal's "30 Great Westerns".

Once there click on the film's title near the top of the left column.

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/infocus/default.htm

Westerns - narratives and themes

//history.sandiego.edu/GEN/filmnotes/western-narrative.html

A detailed review of the DVD of "The Outlaw Josey Wales"

Click on the image to enlarge

This essay with helpful images should prove useful for a deeper understanding of this ground-breaking western from 1976; in particular how Eastwood created new conventions that were afterwards imitated by later westerns. The themes of revenge, masculinity and violence are also worth focussing on in this post. Clint Eastwood as an auteur is also present in the technical aspects of the film as well as in its vignettes, female and native indian characters. As with John Ford humor is also an important feature in Eastwood's films.

http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/2008/05/914-55-the-outlaw-josey-wales-1976-clint-eastwood/

The Western - three articles on theories on this genre

from generos cinematográficos ::del musical a la era espacial

"The Western Myth - Approaching genre theory from the western."

http://www.icesi.edu.co/blogs/generoscine/2009/02/18/the-western-myth-approaching-genre-theory-from-the-western/

"The Western & the Westerner"
http://www.icesi.edu.co/blogs/generoscine/2009/03/06/the-western-the-westerner/

"A Semantic/syntactic approach to film genre"

http://www.icesi.edu.co/blogs/generoscine/2009/03/05/a-semanticsyntactic-approach-to-film-genre/

Propaganda and American Values in "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" ( 1949 ) by John Ford

"Propaganda and American Values in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"
by Laurel Westbrook

Westbrook's insightful essay examines the message of "unity" in the film at the time the film was made (1949), when American leaders feared the further encroachments of communism around the world. China had its communist revolution and Russia had developed its own atomic bomb. Westbrook also examines why the American values of "independence", "manliness" and "intelligence" are present in Ford's film and why these attributes still persist in Hollywood films several decades afterwards.

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/duke1.html

Perhaps someone may write about the representation of women in this and other westerns by Ford at a later date?

"How did auteurs develop after the studio system? And how have they contributed to the cinema of today?"

An academic article on how a director might be known as "an auteur",  focusing on Stanley Kubrick as its main example.

http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Sixties/Film/auteur.htm