Realizing how insular and xenophobic that sounded, I suppose I should clarify that I was talking about the average American female moviegoer, and that the educated and critical film audience one would expect in Paris (more stereotypes, I know, but I’m thinking of Truffaut and Godard here) would probably be an exception to any generalization about the taste of the average American.
Well, the more I consider it, the less I like calling Ford’s films “chick flicks for guys.” They aren’t nearly as open to the traditionally “feminine” qualities of art and literature–friendship, romance, etc.–as Hawks’ westerns are. Ford’s films are about emotions, but they’re strictly male emotions: women get consistently short shrift. “The Quiet Man” is undeniably misogynistic, and it’s still difficult for me to watch that film without squirming.
It occurred to me last night, while watching “The Long Gray Line,” that Ford’s frequent theme of male bonding verges on the homoerotic: many scenes of “The Long Gray Line” are about such strong love between men that the same scenes wouldn’t be out of place in an explicitly homoerotic film.
I’m not suggesting that Ford was a closeted homosexual, although I’m not sure I’d argue to hard against it.
There’s a genre of gay erotic fiction that’s all blustery macho stereotypes: stories that glorify the manly aspect of male sexual relationships. These are stories of Greek warriors, military men, and, often, cowboys. The implication of these stories is that these men are not really homosexual; they’re so entirely, thoroughly masculine that they cannot connect with women on any level, even a sexual level, and that only another manly man will understand their ultramasculine sexuality. There’s a similar South American genre, usually Brazilian in my limited experience, wherein a sexual conquest of a women is one thing; a mundane thing. But sexual conquest of a man is even GREATER proof of one’s masculinity: you’re so masculine that other men are WOMEN compared to you; kind of a parallel to the notion that a man is judged by the strength of his enemies.
Anyway, in some of Ford’s films–notably, in my recent viewing experience, “They Were Expendable” and “The Long Gray Line,” there’s a whiff of that kind of hypermasculinity. At least to my interpretation.
That, coupled with Ford’s frequent worshipful misogyny–women are to be protected, and worshipped, but not really respected; and you can NEVER have the kind of bond with a woman that you’d share with a fellow soldier–gives me, at least, something to ponder; not sure of drawing any conclusions from it yet. But it’s certainly interesting that he can create these moments of hyper-emotionality with nothing but the imagery of hypermasculinity.
Which is why How Green Was MY Valley marks such an interesting departure from the rest of his oeuvre. The women are strong, when the men are weak. “If any harm befalls my husband, I will find the man and kill him with my bare hands!”
Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.
I depended upon my faulty memory instead of IMDb, (I swear I saw a documentary on Ford which featured Howe, [1968?])
I apologize for any confusion I caused, or false information to be passed on; Mea Culpa.
It was definately Winton Hoch as the cinematographer, who caught Ford’s metaphors visually.
Fighting Ignorance Indeed
I wasn’t really impressed by Stagecoach. It tried to be too many things at once unsuccessfully. The man framed against nature aspect was done better in The Big Sky, and some of the characters bore a striking resemblance to cardboard cutouts.
Well, I deny it. Maureen O’Hara was the strong, driving figure in that movie. John Wayne was essentially a passive figure, as was Victor McLaglen. The whole point of the movie was O’Hara/Mary Kate forcing Wayne/Sean to accept her on her own cultural terms. If he valued her, then he by God had better value her beliefs and that meant demanding payment of her dowry.
O’Hara/Mary Kate was not a perfect character, by any means. One could argue she stubbornly focused on things that shouldn’t be important in life (tradition and money). But I don’t think the viewpoint of the movie was to look down on her or mock her.
And I think it’s fair to say the movie favored Wayne/Sean, portraying him as a man of nearly infinite patience put upon by his stubborn wife. But I don’t think that makes it misogynistic.
Now, I will admit the scene of him walking/dragging Mary Kate back to her brother does make me squirm. But I just tell myself to see it in the context of Sean giving in and agreeing to play by her rules.
<< That, coupled with Ford’s frequent worshipful misogyny–women are to be protected, and worshipped, but not really respected >>
I think this is a gross oversimplification, and I disagree profoundly. You might try Ford’s last film, SEVEN WOMEN, about seven missionary women in China (?) who are beset by Mongol hordes. They are the heroes of the film, showing bravery and courage in the face of death and adversity. It’s a remarkable film.
Many of the Westerns do tend to have women in the role of home-maker rather than gun-tottin’ lawman, of course. Ford’s more mature films (THE SEARCHERS, LIBERTY VALANCE) uses the domestication/taming of the West as metaphor, and the transition from wilderness (man’s domain) to homesteading (women’s domain.) But I don’t see Vera Miles in LIBERTY VALANCE as fitting your stereotyping of women’s roles. Nor Maureen O’Hara in anything by Ford.
Ford’s pioneer women are strong, independent, and supportive. They usually know what’s going on when the men don’t.
Consider the females in STAGECOACH, the prostitute and the soldier’s wife, and tell me they’re stereotypical women’s roles. Bah. The soldier’s wife arguably starts out as the archetype-Woman you describe, but during the course of the movie, she learns and grows into a full-rounded character. And the whole point of the prostitute is that she is to be respected as a person.
Certainly, Ford was partly the product of his times. In those days, women were not police officers or soldiers. We can’t fault him for not being able to foresee what life would be like forty years later. I do, however, note that the woman in DONOVAN’S REEF (I forget the actress) is a corporate executive. So, Ford may have had his women in positions like home-makers, mothers, and wives rather than sherriffs, cattle barons, or bankers. But Ford’s women are all interesting characters, with depth and profundity. They are neither shallow nor worshipful.
In short, I disagree entirely with your characterization. You need to watch some OTHER movies from the same time, to see those stereotyped women’s roles. Not Ford.
<< Now, I will admit the scene of him walking/dragging Mary Kate back to her brother does make me squirm. But I just tell myself to see it in the context of Sean giving in and agreeing to play by her rules. >>
I agree. He’s tried to be respectful, he’s looking for a soul-mate, and he finally says, “OK, we’ll do it your way if that’s what it takes.” And note that both she and the townspeople approve of this.
Besides, I think the audience approves as well. After all the shit she’s put him through, dragging her along the ground on her arse seems not inappropriate.
I agree with you entirely, especially about Stagecoach. Anthony Mann later used the prostitute characterization in Winchester '73. I would add to your list of strong Ford females Ma Joad. At one point, Tom says something to the effect of “Pa was the man, but Ma wore the pants in that house.”
I believe that the problem is the need to separate the worshipful misogyny of the times the films portray from the personal views of the director.
I think, however, that it is entirely likely that lissener has viewed one or two other films from the period. 
Never said it was; in fact I said the opposite, even using the word “worship.”
I understand everything you and CKD-H are saying, but I still feel the same way about it.
Even in the context of the times, there were other films that acknowledged a woman’s full humanity–the films of Sirk occur to me; the original version of “Imitation of Life,” for that matter, with Claudette Colbert, was made in 1934. Most of Barbara Stanwyck’s movies, most of Bette Davis’s. Even when they were portrayed negatively, they were more respected as people than most of Ford’s women. I haven’t seen Seven Women, but I’ll get it and consider it.
But most of the arguments you guys offer make me think of Adrian Lyne’s defensive “But I LOVE women” when he’s been accused of misogyny. The two are not mutually exclusive. Or when Mark Fuhrman “proved” he wasn’t a racist because he’d dated black women.
Not to compare either of those with Ford; just making a point about the dark side of worship, if that makes any sense. “Black people are great athletes” may be a complimentary statement, but it’s still racist.
Maureen O’Hara in Quiet Man is, to my eye, a misogynist characterization; the culture that Ford worshipped was a misogynist culture. Women were usually strong in a strictly feminine context: as wives or mothers, not as individuals. They tend to find strength in relation to their husbands and sons; rarely in themselves, for themselves.
Both wives in The Long Gray Line were strong women, but were defined by the sacrifices they made: sending their husbands and sons to die in war.
Don’t get me wrong; there’s misogyny and misogyny. Some of Ford’s women make me squirm a bit, but Adrian Lyne’s make my flesh crawl.
I’m just–clumsily–trying to communicate a feeling I get from Ford’s films that, on some level, he almost seemed to think of men and women as two different species, one put on earth to DO, and one put on earth to facilitate the first’s accomplishments.
Should probably elaborate a little on MO’H’s character in TQM.
Watching that extended scene of JW dragging her back from the train is nearly as horrifying to me as the last act of “Audition.” I can’t help putting myself in her place. The dragging isn’t the worst of it, though it’s pretty horrifying. What’s worse, though, is that the whole world is against her: She’s being dragged, brutally, and the crowd around her is cheering on JW–even handing him sticks to beat her with! In her place I feel like my brain would fragment; I could not, personally, imagine a more terrifying situation.
But MO’H accepts it as her due, almost sheepishly, and finally comes to respect her husband through the experience. The context of the times or not, that’s just wrong. I can think of no other way to express it.
But that’s just an overt example. It’s the overall focus, of Ford’s women, toward their men rather toward themselves, while the men are heros for focussing outward, and forward, and not toward their women. Ford’s men provide content to his movies; his women mostly just provide context.
Are you sure, though, that you aren’t confusing the context of the art with the content of the artist? How much of this was Ford’s personal misogyny, as opposed to hack screenwriters writing life as they thought it was at the time?
How much of it is included as dutiful “historical accuracy” as opposed to a personal misogyny? Think of Esterhasz and Verhoeven. Esterhasz hates women, Verhoeven hates everyone equally, yet uses (or used) the former’s misogynistic scripts.
Esterhazs wrote misogynist scripts, and Verhoeven turned them feminist. Where Esterhazs wanted to drag a woman through the mud, Verhoeven transforms that into a trial by fire that cauterizes and “hero-izes,” to coin a word, the woman. But her newfound strength, which she draws from internal resources after a man’s failed attempt to destroy her, is for herself; she saves herself from the men’s mud–usually by getting down into the mud as deeply as the men, and beating them at their own dirty games. This, to me, is a kind of real-world feminism; a woman as her own hero–with men, or the male-centric culture, as the antagonist. As opposed to the strength gained in any Ford female (“heroine” is rarely, rarely applicable in Ford), which is secondary, and subservient, to the men’s strength.
Ford’s men engage with the world directly, supported by their women, who engage with it only through their men. The women’s universe revolves around the men; the men’s universe wouldn’t be altered much if the women were removed from it entirely.
And no, it’s not just a screenwriter thing, because it’s so universal in Ford’s work.
Wait, don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that this latent misogyny that I see in Ford is a reason to dismiss him as an artist. I was the one who called him GREAT in the OP!
It’s just an observation. None of my favorite directors–or artists, or people–are without flaws, and flaws are not in and of themselves evil: they provide texture and context.
I’m just psychoanalyzing an artist through his art, which is a large part of art criticism, I think.
Yes, I see your point much better now. Contrasting Claire Trevor in Stagecoach with Shelley Winters in Winchester '73, it becomes obvious that Trevor exists through, or at the whim of the men, whereas Winters is a great deal more independent, in life and of men.
After having a miniature Ford film festival, I’m not as enthusiastic about his work. His middle and later work tended towards self caricature in many ways. I haven’t seen The Searchers or Liberty Valance, so I’ll reserve judgement there.
However, Ford made melodrama. After the death of melodrama with Citizen Kane and Ford’s last true melodrama How Green Was My Valley, his films turned to near parody of a “Ford” film. Take The Quiet Man. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and gradually degrades to a farce.
After the darkly sadistic and misogynistic “dragging Maureen O’Hara through sheep shit” scene, the entire film degrades into a farcical, Keystone Kops-esque brawl. I was immensely puzzled over that scene; for a moment it seemed almost like some sort of bizarre McCarthyism commentary, though that makes little sense in context. But after his genre died, it seems that he became jaded about his filmmaking. His early work demonstrates a purity of intent and purpose, Stagecoach for example is nearly a perfect representation of Ford’s vision. His later films, though have an ironically self-deprecatory self-reference that seems to indicate that he knew his medium had changed and that he was producing these films in spite of that. His early films are still brilliant, though.
Oh, piffle. It’s too late for me to be posting. Just pretend that that post is properly edited.
Ilsa-The Quiet Man is based on a short story, which ends with the big fight scene. I suspect since Ford had two big bruisers in Wayne and McLaglen, he wanted something really incredible and over the top. We had to have the big fight scene, of course, but something needed to lighten the tone for the happy ending.
<< Take The Quiet Man. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and gradually degrades to a farce. >>
Hang on, hang on, what’s wrong with making a comedy? How many great comedies “take themselves seriously”? I think QUIET MAN includes farce, certainly, although I’m not sure that the greatest cross-country barroom brawl in cinema would be called “degenerating” into farce. But it also includes wonderful characterizations – Barry Sullivan, for instance, and Mildred Natwick. I mean, what do you want of a comedy? MR AND MRS SMITH is Hitchcock’s comedy, it takes itself seriously, and it’s not very funny.
I would argue that one of Ford’s great strengths, like Dickens’, is the wonderful “bit” characters. Ford creates real people, whether heroic or comic.
Maureen O’Hara being dragged along: Come on, you’re forgetting all the shit she put John Wayne through. Wayne didn’t want to fight, and she forced him to. She needed some come-uppance, some recognition that her behaviour was mean and horrible. And she’s obviously not being hurt by the dragging scene – she hops along putting on her shoe, she thanks the person who hands her the shoe, and at the end she’s happy with what Wayne has done. That may not be the way YOU’D react, but that’s CLEARLY the way she reacts and what she wants. She’s a very strong character, and a very independent one, and she doesn’t fit the traditional stereotypes (neither of woman-as-dependent-on-man nor of woman-as-independent-of-man.) Take her for what she is, a unique character, rather than trying to pigeonhole her into some sort of stereotype mold.
Remember that most of Ford’s movies are set in an earlier era. The mythos of the West is that the home was the woman’s domain and the wilderness/polis was the man’s domain. There were clearly defined roles within the mythos. Ford uses those roles, and usually transcends them. No, he doesn’t have women riding shotgun on the stagecoach or killing buffalo, and when he does do role-reversal (Jimmy Stewart in an apron being a waiter in LIBERTY VALANCE), it’s significant for the character and the plot. When Valance makes fun of the Stewart character, Stewart knows (and the audience knows) that he’s making fun of human dignity.
And I don’t know why the role of women should have anything to do with the greatness of a director. Chaplin’s women are certainly anything but independent or strong-willed, and I don’t think anyone would deny Chaplin’s greatness. Where’s a strong woman in Hitchcock’s work? Great directors, like other Artists, are products of their times, and it’s unfair to charge them with failing to rise above their times.
You misunderstand me. I wasn’t really denigrating The Quiet Man for being a comedy, I was simply using it as an example to illustrate my point about Ford’s self parody. He tended to go for the drama at the sake of depth. The motivation of the characters was often lacking, even if the performanes weren’t.
I didn’t care for The Quiet Man, though. It seemed cartoonish and condescending.