John Ford

[RedRiver]

Who's this John Ford people are talking about? Is that the guy who made the cowboy shows?

[MissGoddess]

The Elizabethan playwright. 'Tis a pity....

[JackFavell]

Didn't he work with Ben Jonson?

[MissGoddess]

Didn't he work with Ben Jonson?

[RedRiver]

Ben Johnson. Elizabethan drama. I think I'm on acid!

[JackFavell]

No, it's just a normal day at the Oasis....

[RedRiver]

You said it well, King Rat. This second tier Ford film has quite a bit going for it. Understated relationships. Bittersweet themes. Some thrilling "storm at sea" shots. And this Wayne fellow...a limited actor? Here's the world's most famous tough guy playing naive, cheerful and innocent. Not a bad show at all!

[JackFavell]

It's a beautiful film, kingrat. I have a hard time seeing it as 'not as good' as Ford's other films.

There was something I noticed watching The Long Voyage Home this time around - it struck me so forcibly that I can't believe I didn't see it before. I used to own a lot of books with photos from stage plays as well as movies, and there was a very specific look to most of Eugene O'Neill's plays. It's actually very Fordian. The way his plays were lit, and the blocking of the actors on stage seem highly reminiscent of Ford's work, albeit more selectively done for the greatest theatrical effect.

I had always thought that in this particular film, Ford was pretty much exclusively using expressionistic styles he had learned from Murnau when he traveled to Germany. But watching the film this time I immediately and strikingly saw those old stage photos in my mind's eye.

Ford mimics the look perfectly, right down to the lighting. Still expressionism, but O'Neill's Expressionism. I would be willing to bet some of the inspiration for this movie was from the O'Neill stage plays he might have seen over the years, or stills from them. Perhaps others in the audience at that time would also recognize The Long Voyage Home as distinctly O'Neill-ian.

We know Ford was attracted to Irish theatrical properties and writers. The playwright O'Neill was heavily influenced by Strindberg, who is said to have propelled the Expressionist movement forward in theater, in the same way Manet propelled Impressionism in art but was not of it. O'Neill was also very inspired by German drama of his time - starting in 1905 German theatre became highly Expressionistic. The themes often took the form of a lowly protagonist on a pilgrimage, or a fruitless search, ending with his destruction by forces out of his control. Sound familiar? Other themes dealt with the protagonist's discovery of the corruption of bourgeois values, and his rejection of them; or on a more uplifting note, spiritual awakening. But of course, in the end it didn't matter that the hero's eyes were opened, because it was too late.

“Isn't it, after all, pretty stupid, to demand that art deal only with the obvious realities of the world, when there are so many realms of emotion, of imagination, of cosmic experience, which the artist is better fitted, spiritually, to explore and interpret to us than anyone else”

- -Sheldon Cheney 1921

O'Neill was the first successful American playwright to use expressionism to put his ideas forward in plays like The Hairy Ape, The Great God Brown, Strange Interlude and The Emperor Jones. His expressionism was extremely psychological, and he also used ideas put forth by Freud and Jung in his work.

The look of O'Neill's successful German-inspired plays was very different from the realistic plays of the early 1900's and 1910's that the expressionists were rebelling against. Deep contrast in lighting, machine-like sets or ones with extremely skewed perspective (with raked floors or ramps and views not normally seen inside a regular proscenium arch), the use of masks to hide or exhibit true feelings, all these extraordinary devices were used to show man's interior relationships to women, other men, their work, their dreams, their government, the powers that be, their fate, etc. Exaggeration and distortion for emotional effect was the name of the game. O'Neill sometimes combined realism with expressionism for emotional effect. I think Ford did too.


some of the flatter lighting of the shipboard scenes in Ford's film reminded me of O'Neill's early realistic shipboard plays, like Bound East for Cardiff


The Iceman Cometh


The Hairy Ape


Days Without End


In fact, I began to ponder the many similarities between Ford and O'Neill... both New Englanders, bith Irish, both drawn irresistibly to the sea, both hard drinkers, both artists with a singular vision, both drawn to German Expressionism, and yet not bound by it in any way, eventually moving on from it, or incorporating facets into a different style.

Then there are the differences - Ford came from a large, rowdy Irish family, O'Neill from a small neurotic one. O'Neill grew up quite ill, making him subject to more daydreaming, possibly, than Ford, though I can only guess. It could of course be a similarity, but I just don't know Anyhow, the men seem very similar to me when I think about it.

I wondered why Ford did not do any more O'Neill plays? I guess he must have figured he'd done one pretty near perfectly, and moved on to something new.

[Gary J.]

O'Neill in his prime was not exactly Ford's cup of tea -- too much despair, not enough optimism.
But the stories selected for this film were all from early stage works when O'Neill was getting started and they all were about the author's love of the sea. That was something that the two men had in common.

[JackFavell]

I suppose you are right, I can't imagine Ford directing, say.... Long Day's Journey.

But I can see him directing Beyond the Horizon or Ah, Wilderness.

[moira finnie]

Great comparison of Ford and O'Neill's approaches to storytelling, style and emotions, JF. I believe that Ford and O'Neill had much in common--though I wonder if Ford's need to make money (he had many individuals to support) and the director's visceral Catholic faith might have made him a bit leery of pursuing O'Neill's later plays further. The playwright's deeply felt disillusionment with faith and institutions in general might have stirred the director's own fears and contradictions a bit too deeply--but gee, I suspect that a Ford-directed production of Long Day's Journey Into Night or A Moon for the Misbegotten might have been absolutely shattering.

In my copy of The Selected Letters of Eugene O'Neill, I discovered that the author wrote his daughter Oona in 1940 that :

The Long Voyage Home is an exceptional picture with no obvious Hollywood hokum or sentimental love bilge in it. I like very few pictures but I did like this one. John Ford, who directed it, is one of the best directors in the game--and incidentally, a most likable man personally. And Dudley Nichols, who wrote the screen adaptation, also did a good job. Between them, they managed to keep the spirit of my plays in spite of the changes they had to make--bringing the story up to the present war, etc.--and the handicaps under which everyone in the picture business has to work.

In another 1940 letter to a friend he wrote:

There seems to be a lot stirring among independents now. Two are dickering with me for the rights of The Hairy Ape and Desire Under the Elms and it looks as if both deals might go through. The Long Voyage Home, as you know, was an independent film, done by Ford and {Merian} Cooper, and Walter Wanger in on it to some degree. In spite of it being a no plot, no sex, no slop, honest picture, it has made good money for all concerned--not Hollywood wow millions but good money just the same.

Later in the letter, O'Neill says that "When thinking of a woman for Desire Under the Elms revival, think of Beatrix Lehmann, a great hit in the part in London two years ago...exceptionally talented."

In 1941, O'Neill tried to encourage theatrical producer Lawrence Langner to mount "a revival of The Hairy Ape with Victor McLaglen as Yank and John Ford to direct it. Ford could do a grand job, I think--if he would, and Bob [Sisk, a Hollywood producer] thinks he could be persuaded. Also he has proved he can get the best out of McLaglen and make him a fine actor. Remember The Informer film?"

[JackFavell]

That's so cool, Moira! Thank you for that! I had no idea they met, or that O'Neill had liked the movie. None of it!

Gosh, I wish I could travel back in time and persuade Ford to make another O'Neill film. Now you have me thinking about what they might have been like.

Or go back in time and see Beatrix Lehmann as Anna! Whew! That would be awesome! I can't imagine it, but I know she could act anything she set her mind to. She's really a great actress.

[MissGoddess]

Wow! Another socks-blowing-off post by Wendy...you have inspired me to look a little more into O'Neill (like so many ultra serious artists, he scares me). You once again find the connections between different art forms. I think O'Neill certainly shared in common the darker more introspective side of Ford. Is there are more soul-searching playwright? Maybe Miller. I'm really not an expert on playwrights, especially the serious ones.

I think of TLVH as one of Ford's most accomplished, most complete films. I find myself drawn to it even more than to The Informer, perhaps because I love sea tales. It stands quite apart from its time in spite of the wartime references, which I tend to ignore, maybe because the sea setting makes it seem like a world and people isolated from reality. They wander into port in England yet the way the alleys and streets lead to the bars seem to connect them, like an umbilical chord, to the ships at anchor so that they become an extension of the sea-world. You never get the sense of "land" from the movie, even in those scenes in the bar and streets.

Ian Hunter breaks my heart. And I recommend people catch him in a slightly similar role coming up this Friday in *Strange Cargo*.

I don't think I have never seen The Hairy Ape though the title is very familiar, can anyone give me a rundown what it's about? I used to imagine it was a Mighty Joe Young type story.

Moira, I had no idea O'Neill wanted Vic and Ford for THA. The things that never were...

I acquired some new photos from the filming of TLVH, you can see them here (the first 3 images):

http://directedbyjohnford.com/galleryfi ... voyagehome

[MissGoddess]

That's so cool, Moira! Thank you for that! I had no idea they met, or that O'Neill had liked the movie. None of it!

O'Neill asked for his own print of the film so he could watch it whenever he liked. I wonder where it is now.