Nice piece.
Thanks.
I don't care much for comparisons, however. All the Ford films you mention are brilliant, imo. Personally, I find it difficult to draw a conclusion about any one of them because another one did something else entirely, or did the same thing differently. It comes down to a subjective judgement in any case.
Well, I was responding to Telegonus’ comments of May 31, and he was addressing the disparity between the looser style of
The Searchers and the tighter, “near flawless” storytelling acumen Ford exhibited just a few years previously with
My Darling Clementine and
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Thus, we (Tel and me) weren’t necessarily weighing the three films against each other, or in comparison to
Stagecoach, for that matter, but weighing them all as John Ford films, and therefore of a piece in that regard. Admittedly, we were passing judgment, and it was largely based on how effectively he achieved the goal of making, in each case, a popular work of art and mass entertainment that also illuminated his concerns about history and how it is lived—in the moment, before it’s history.
In other words, there are indeed many differences between these films, in their particulars as individual narratives, but they all have in common John Ford and his approach to a well known genre that had certain conventions and rules, many of which he developed. At some point, there are bound to be thematic intersections between them all, given that the same man is guiding their creation, such as (to name one example) Ford’s ongoing concern with the push-pull opposition of the Man of Violence vs. Civilization, something he addresses in every one of his Westerns, e.g., how do we deal with violence as a society, how much do we need the Man of Violence to help establish order, and how do we cope with him once his job is done and his peculiar talents aren’t needed any more. This theme is so much a part of John Ford’s cinema, it even works its way into non-Westerns such as
The Grapes of Wrath and
The Quiet Man.
The Searchers approaches being his definitive statement on the matter, and in the arc of his career, especially post-
Stagecoach and post WWII, it reveals a much darker vision of the uses and abuses of violence than he’d ever before shown to audiences (though it mostly went over their heads in 1956), especially through Ethan’s obsessive actions and his climactic fate, doomed “to wander forever between the winds,” never to be part of the society he has worked to heal, his own heart beyond repair.
Re Ethan vs. Brittles, the more "accessible" human being -- well, Ethan is the perfect transplant of the Greek hero in Greek tragedy. He isn't supposed to be accessible in any way, to anyone, including the audience (Scar is made of the same clay). Both of those men are truly tragic figures (both dead, at least spiritually, at the picture's end), not just elegiac like Brittles.
But...well...I disagree that Ethan is a perfect transplant of the protagonist of Greek tragedy. His literary counterpart,
Amos Edwards, in the novel of
The Searchers, comes closer to fitting the bill. Amos really does die in the final battle, along with Scar, murdered by Debbie’s Comanche doppelgänger after he spares her life. Ethan, the film version of Amos, stops short of evoking the chilly shudder of terror and pity that a full blown tragic figure, such as Oedipus, evokes in his inexorable march to self-destruction.
I also feel that the Ethan-Scar connection, while certainly there, is underdeveloped. It could be because Duke Wayne is such a towering figure, Henry Brandon is almost a cipher by comparison. Everyone manages to be overshadowed by Wayne, though Ward Bond certainly has his scene-stealing moments.
Unlike Ethan and Scar, they, Ethan and Brittles, are, thus, different characters/men in their proper dramatic spaces -- both well-played by Wayne.
This is in reference to my saying that Wayne gives as good a performance in the role of Brittles as he does in the role of Ethan. What is probably unspoken here, and perhaps the source of your uncertainty about why I’m comparing the two, is my own frustrations with film biographers and historians incessantly beating the drum that Ethan is Wayne’s finest hour. I don’t think it is, but then I’m more of a Wayne aficionado than most critics, and film historians, and I always have the suspicion that they like his performance in
The Searchers so much because Ethan’s rage and prejudice fit their conception of what Wayne was really like.
But it’s not what he was really like. That’s what makes it such a great performance. He was stepping out of his comfort zone—mostly—and giving us a glimpse of a frightful, compelling figure.
So: I’m often pointing to other fine performances by Wayne as being “just as good” as his Ethan. Nathan Brittles, for one instance, and Thomas Dunson in
Red River for another, and Tom Doniphon in
Liberty Valance and so on.
"Period" and "psychology". I'm very curious to know what you mean by "... there's no connective tissue, or rather, there's too much space between them"; "contradictory impulses from the Old Man"; "weird changes in tone that might be excused as genius"? You make some comparisons, but I'm still lost as to your meaning artistically as regardsThe Searchers specifically.
Well, let’s see if I can do this quickly and succinctly. I feel there are many great scenes in
The Searchers, as good as anything in Ford, where the cast is striking all the right notes and the power of the director’s shot choices are undeniable, well nigh perfect, and most importantly, the script is, from the standpoint of drama, as good as it gets. And then there are lapses where the narrative stalls for unaccountable reasons. That is, Ford is at the top of his craftsmanship one moment, and the next he’ll insert some ill-timed comic maneuver that falls flat, leaving no “connective tissue,” if you will, between one great section and another.
Example: the side excursion with Futterman’s attempted ambush of Ethan and Martin is marred by the odd change in tone beforehand, the comedy of Wayne throwing too much wood on the fire and tucking Marty in. It doesn’t ring true as a way that Ethan would behave, even seems to indicate he’s softening toward his traveling companion just by virtue of his joking around so much. And then it turns out he has deadly intentions, putting Marty at risk, which also seems out of character.
There are other, more famous examples, in particular the entire passage with Marty’s Comanche wife Look, which has some really tasteless slapstick alternating with the pathos. The framing story, relating the tale of Look through a letter Marty has written to Laurie, is a brilliant bit of narrative strategy, revealing extremely important things about manners and morals on the frontier, but the story within the story is just strange, shifting from making Look a figure of ridicule to a victim. At one point we’re supposed to, I guess, grieve over her death at the hands of the cavalry, and seconds later we’re given the cavalry crossing a winter stream to jaunty martial music. It simply doesn’t make sense, as if Ford was hopelessly conflicted between his love of the cavalry and the terrible thing they’ve done (destroying an encampment of Indians, mostly women and children, Look included).
Also, I'm inclined not to think Ford's alcoholism had much to do with the outcomes of any of the films you reference. (Sometimes, an alcoholic does his best work while under the influence.)
Ford’s alcoholism had everything to do with every facet of his life, just as it does with any alcoholic. It’s an affliction that warps judgment and destroys personal and professional relationships. Ford’s behavior on the set of
Mr. Roberts (missing work, punching a movie star), just a few months prior to getting
The Searchers before the cameras, would’ve ruined a lesser director, but he had Merian C. Cooper vouching for him and they were able to make the picture. It saved his career and gave him one of his biggest hits (from a purely box office standpoint). But the
Mr. Roberts debacle was one of the worst professional trials he’d ever been through, jeopardizing his standing in Hollywood and ruining his relationship with Henry Fonda, who never spoke to him again. He knew enough not to let it happen again. Ford was very much on shaky ground when he made
The Searchers, uncertain of himself and his future.
If an alcoholic does his best work under the influence, it’s in spite of being drunk, not because of, though he may claim differently. Ford was on the wagon during the filming of
The Searchers, as he had been on most of his films, generally waiting until his responsibilities were completed before disappearing on his deadly benders (deadly because each one is a threat to the health of the alcoholic). But alcohol damages an artist’s greatest asset: his brain, where memory and imagination live. It has everything to do with one’s ability to use that asset to its fullest.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post and Best
Same to you.
We didn't exactly believe your story...we believed your 200 dollars.
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buddyboy28
10 years ago
"It doesn't ring true as a way that Ethan would behave, even seems to indicate Ethan softening towards his travel companion"
He's supposed to be. That's what makes Ethan so interesting. He goes back and forth with Marty throughout the whole movie. He's not just a nasty a$$hole towards Marty throughout all those years of searching.
"And then it turns out he has deadly intentions, even putting Marty at risk, which seems out of character"
I never saw it like that. I just saw it as Ethan being super confident of Futterman being inept and that he would prevent Marty from being killed.
"At one point we're supposed to, I guess, grieve over her death at the hands of the cavalry, and seconds later we're given the cavalry crossing the winter stream to jaunty martial music"
That's what makes it so great. Ford turns all the traditional western myths on their head, without pandering or preaching to the audience. If he had thrown in dramatic music the sequence would lose it power IMO.
He shows what the cavalry have done and then that music plays, it's perfect contrast to what they've done and how they see themselves. In their own little world they've done no wrong. They're just going about their military duty. The Native Americans are the enemy and sometimes innocents die. There's no manipulation on how the audience are supposed to feel.
It's even more powerful because of the way Ford presented them in his cavalry trilogy. Here he presents them as immoral or stupid, as in Patrick Wayne's character.
He does the exact same thing with the fight between Marty and Charlie. They're acting like gentlemen and then they start fighting dirty, with the reverend standing by watching. It's a great piece of satire.
He does it with Ethan and Scar. Scar's supposed to be the villain and yet the worse thing Ford shows Scar do is trying to kill Ethan and Marty in an attack. Then he gives him a justification for his hatred of the white man.
Ethan on the other hand we see him he doesn't give him a back story for his justification of his hatred. His mother's been killed by them but he only let's the audience in on it by a very brief glimpse of the headstone and that's it. He doesn't seem interested in getting the audience to like him. He's an hateful person even before his family are killed. And unlike Scar, we actually see him being immoral.
Ford was destroying the traditions and myths of the western movie, which ironcially he helped create, and he blurs everything superbly and just presents the characters with flaws and a contradictory nature. There's no preaching or pretensions about it.
What the hell is a gigawatt?!
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