What makes John Ford a great director?

Cafe Society
1

Until I started working my way through Jonathan Rosenbaum’s alternative to the AFI’s 100 Best American movies (R’baum’s list can be found at chireader.com, under the “movies” link), I had little or no use for Westerns. Thanks to that list, however, I’ve discovered some new movies that have climbed right up to near the top of my lifelist: Wellman’s “Track of the Cat,” Mann’s “Naked Spur,” and of course John Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” The more I read about the Western, the more Ford’s name comes up. So over time I’ve managed to watch quite a few of his movies, most of which are westerns: “The Searchers,” “Fort Apache,” “My Darling Clementine,” “The Iron Horse,” etc. etc. etc.–along with quite a few non-westerns: “They Were Expendable,” “How Green Was My Valley,” “The Quiet Man,” etc. etc. etc.

But I still don’t understand what makes these great movies great. In Ford’s style of direction, the director’s hand is nearly invisible: there are no directorial flourishes; there are no self-referential surface textures; there is only story and characterization. He stays the hell out of the characters’ way and lets the story tell itself, seemingly without a storyteller as a middleman.

Still, after watching a couple dozen Ford films, I think I finally sense a theme. True, they’re all “guy” films: cowboys, soldiers, boxers, miners, etc.: men’s men who live manly lives doing manly things. These are not the kinds of images that normally speak to me–that’s why, until this educational experience, I’ve had little use for western films. But in Ford’s films, the common theme seems to be that, ultimately, a man’s manly manliness is not the most important thing in life: manly stoicism can get in the way of a man’s true nature. In Ford’s films, his characters come to learn that what they THINK is important–strength, stony stoicism, macho inflexibility–is not really that important at all. By the end of a Ford film, the protagonist learns that friendship, love–love for a friend or for (or from) a woman, honor, and self knowledge, are what makes a man a man. A Ford protagonist becomes a real man only when he learns that a strong heart is more important than a strong fist.

Still, Ford as artist is so entirely absent from the surface of his films that I can’t really understand how it is that he made such great films. Anyone have any thoughts on this, or anything else I’ve brought up?

2

Sure there are directorial flourishes — most obviously his use of wide shot landscapes to change scale and contrast the intimate with the epic. This is perfectly encapsulated in his trademark shot, used most obviously in The Searchers but also found in other works: an individual seen from behind, framed in a doorway and looking out onto the vast western landsape.

Ford’s shots seldom called attention to themselves quite as much as that one, but to see some bravura filmmaking at work, just watch the church social and corral gunfight sequences in My Darling Clementine with the sound off.

We tend to overlook Ford’s visual skills because of another strength. He was excellent in working with an ensemble of actors–though not, perhaps, in the modern sense of doing a lot of handholding of the actors and psychoanalysis of the characters. His real strength was putting together a somewhat unlikely combination of actors and giving them material that elevated them above your expectations. (Ford’s best movies have excellent scripts, something that fellow ensemble master Robert Altman has unfortuntely neglected.) This allowed him to coax fine performances not just out of talented actors like Victor McLaglen and the always undervalued Tim Holt, but stiff blocks of wood like Victor Mature and John Wayne as well.

3

This is likely due to several factors. One, he doesn’t let the story tell itself, he lets the characters tell the story. This is what distinguishes him from directors like Verhoeven, Hitchcock and Sirk. They use characters as props, whereas Ford uses characters basically as the narrative. Tom Joad, Huw Morgan, etc. Their stories are free of context; not in a literal sense, but in thematic sense. They are also the ones narrating, whether explicitly, as in How Green Was My Valley or implicitly, as in The Grapes Of Wrath. We are so used to directors wallowing in a ironic frame of self-reference (Billy Wilder was particularly susceptible to this, Sunset Boulevard was almost masturbatory in it’s self-reference).

To me, these are the ultimate qualities of what you have described as “chick flicks for guys.”

Women (from what I’ve seen) love Ford films; not to mention that How Green Was My Valley was as much about the women as Huw and his brothers. Ford’s films transcend preconceived notions of gender barriers in film. Re-read the above paragraph replacing the “man” in the sense of a male human with “man” in the sense of Homo sapiens, to include men and women and you can see why Ford has such broad (Haw Haw) appeal.

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I was lucky enough to meet John Ford, back in about 1967. The University of Chicago film society invited him out to speak, and I got to spend a day with him. It was a remarkable experience.

lissener:

Exactly. His artistry is EXACTLY the subtle, absence of obvious directorial flourish. He tells his stories simply. No swirling shots up staircases, no dramatic cross-cutting, no overly self-conscious obviousness. It’s a simple beauty. Instead, the camera sits and records the characters. Hitchcock cuts between what Jimmy Steward sees and his reaction, and says that Jimmy Stewart as an actor is almost irrelevant; but Ford allows Jimmy Stewart a very subtle reaction, all in one frame, and uses the actor’s skills.

For visual elegance, Ford is not lacking: Take the opening (and closing) shot of THE SEARCHERS – a black frame of a doorway, framing an incredible technicolor landscape. John Wayne, the character who is outside of society, is outside the doorway. An incredible encapsulation of what’s going on in the movie.

Ford tells stories with great themes. His westerns are never simple: the characters are people, with real depth and emotions. And there are usually very profound statements just under the surface. Common themes include man vs nature, progress/civilization vs barbarism, the flow of history (which leaves some characters behind.) Ford is concerned with the little person fighting powerful forces – Tom Joad in GRAPES OF WRATH, the Cheyennes in CHEYENNE AUTUMN. And with the individual who stands outside of society, often using John Wayne’s in THE SEARCHERS or THE QUIET MAN or STAGECOACH. He deals with themes like old age (SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON), truth vs legend (LIBERTY VALANCE), and racial persecution (SGT RUTLEDGE).

His leading women are always characters on their own, with strengths and weaknesses. His characters are never stereotypes (although sometimes they have later become stereotypes through others imitating Ford.)

Hitchcock is easier to talk about, because his directorial hand is more obvious. Ford is much more difficult to grasp or discuss, precisely because his directorial hand is almost invisible.

5

It is telling to note that in most of Ford’s films you’re not likely to even see a simple tracking shot. The man knew the importance of a static tripod and a good editor. As Kurosawa said, “I shoot film so that I have something to edit later on.”

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Um, Torgo, John Ford used LOTS of tracking shots. I think of him as the director who put the western on the move: his cameras ran along with the charging horses, among the stampeding cattle. His camera may have remained static during character moments–he didn’t tend to swirl the camera around a kissing couple–but if the action was moving, so was Ford’s camera.

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I think “chick flicks for guys” would be Howard Hawks, not Ford.

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Oh, I agree for the most part; but if ever there were a chick flick for guys, it’s How Green Was My Valley.

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No one mentioned James Wong Howe. Ford had the best cinematoghrapher of his time, on the majority of his films. Ford would tell Howe what he wanted and Howe would shoot it without any wasted motion. JWH understood that they are “moving” pictures. As pictures they are framed and composed classicly, adding an emotional depth to the story. Ford used the scenery as metaphor and allegory, and Howe captured that.

10

I did not know that, and James Wong Howe is one of my favorite cinematographers ever.

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Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I meant. Don’t um me.

12

Ah, so that’s why you said you were unlikely to see a tracking shot, that he knew the importance of a tripod? :D;)

13

Don’t smiley me either or I’ll go Liberty Valance on your ass.
:smiley:

14

That’ll be the day. :wink:

15

Well, then I’d be the man who shot Liberty Valance. :smiley:

16

I’ll have more to say on Ford later, but you must be thinking of another cinematographer (Winton Hoch, maybe, or William Clothier, Arthur Miller, or Gregg Toland), because JWH did not make a single movie with Ford.

17

That’s probably why I didn’t know that. :smiley:
I don’t really care for Arthur Miller. I find a lot of his work pedestrian.

18

Watched “The Long Gray Line” last night. “Chick flicks for guys” definitely applies to some of Ford’s films, though I originally coined that phrase in reference to Hawks’s “Rio Bravo.” I was bawlin’ at the end of TLGL, and the emotion seemed honest and earned, and not cheaply manipulated, a la Spielberg, et al.

Even though the acting was stagey nearly to the point of amateurish, and the themes of patriotic sacrifice and honor are NOT my usual cup of tea, I was an emotional wreck by the cliche closing. Still not sure how he does it, but Ford certainly does do it.

19

For some reason, I’ve never quite gotten the fuss over Ford, although I quite liked Valance, the story, if not the leads, in The Searchers, and bits of They Were Expendable, particularly the last 15 minutes or so.

Well, maybe if they aren’t artists. The female side of the crowd I ran with in Paris despised his pictures, and one who went with me to see The Searchers demanded that we leave the theatre about the time Jeffrey Hunter rolled his squaw wife down the hill. I think she missed the point just the tiniest bit, but whatever.

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I’ve picked up Stagecoach and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon for this week. I’ll report back later.

*El_Kabong, no they aren’t artists. Although a clue that your anecdote didn’t quite jell with what I was talking about should have come right about “the crowd I ran with in Paris.” :wink: