John Ford

[MissGoddess]

You could compare Thursday to anything that starts out great but then becomes hollow...it begins out of sincerity, a great idea, but soon becomes tradition, a thing practiced by rote, then rigid, then petrified and stultifying to the very people it is supposed to serve and can even create the kind of people that undermine its original intent. That's one of the biggest themes I've seen in Ford's films, and Fort Apache is one of the best, if not the best, at presenting it.

[tinker]

It is an interesting view that Thursday equates to Macarthur. Ford seemed to regard him as quite godlike in They were Expendabley. Or being Ford perhaps he was capable of recognising the dangers of creating godlike military heroes from his own experience and used film to paint his views. Actually the more I consider the comparison the more plausible it seems. Fort Apache often seems to me to be the film of the triology where Ford is saying most about his own war experiences. The other two are far more idealised, which is maybe why I can watch them more often.

I am not sure that I would say Fort Apache was my favourite of the three triology films, probably because it was the most confronting and it depends on my mood. It does contain some of my favourite moments like the grand march and I think a very early statement about racism of the time, sharing drinking fountains and things, when York shares a canteen with Beauford the Mexican sergeant, drinking after him then throws the canteen away. I also love the quiet dignity of the introduction of the Indian chiefs to Thursday, compared to Thursdays meglomaniac reaction, and the almost confusion on Cochise's face as to why Thursday would act that way. Especially when you compare it to Thursday's earlier response when he discovered Meacham short changing the Indians. It is as if Thursday is insulted at being asked to treat the Indians as real people. I wonder if Ford had seen that sort of hypercritical paternalism in some commanders in the war.

The idea that in Ford's world men were not complete without women is one I had never thought about before but when you think that one of the tragedies of Fort Apache is that good men died it is something that strikes a cord. Because Fort Apache would probably have to be the film where Ford presented some very normal lives, and most of those lives were connected deeply to family and the women in them. Friendship as a form of family seems to be the only other way for a man to be complete. Ford's most isolated heroes or anti heroes had neither. Kirby Yorke of Rio Grande is an incredibly lonely man and only seems to find friendship with anyone other than Quincannon when he found family. And Ethan Edwards never finds either or at least rejects them. Curious how in Ford the strongest women and female characters are wives, usually in westerns it seems to me, interesting female characters ar enot wives and woman immediately become uninteresting when they become wives.

And the implication at the end of Fort APAche is that Lieutenant 0'Rourke will be a good officer because he has a good woman. Yorke for all his charm and easy attitudes seems strongly attached to other men's families as if he is searching. (If he really is a version of Rio Grande's Kirby York then that is explained.) York is seen dancing with Collingwood's wife;as a regular and familiar visitor to their home and perhaps one of his tragedies is that Thursday destroyed his connection to family, although he seems close to O'Rourke's family. Perhaps that is why he seems so rigid and brittle at the end, with hardly any of his earlier humour and charm showing . Although his decision to support the view of Thursday's deification may also account for the rigidity. I wonder if deifying Thursday for all the best reasons makes York uncomfortabley aware of his following elements of Thursday's own hypocrisy. Which if you think that Thursday is as much Macarthur as Custer makes you wonder what Ford was thinking of his own actions in adding to the Macarthur myth in They were EXpendable.

I read some where that there is a certain similiarity of style in many of the portraits used in Ford films, implying that he painted them, for example all the ones in Donovan's Reef. I wonder if he painted the portrait of Thursday.


dee

[MissGoddess]

Hi, Dee,
What a fascinating idea about the paintings and they being Ford creations. I'm going to think about that. I've always connected him strongly to both painting and music, since he knew so well how to use each medium in a cinematic way. He knew how to draw when he was younger, I believe, and his brother Frank was certainly an artist in many respects. Portraits are very significant in most of his movies and I'm always drawn to them time and again, trying to see more of the detail and their significance. Thank you for bringing it up!

With regard to "Thursday's Charge", a painting we don't see, I always imagined it must have had a real life correlation, maybe to a painting of Custer? I know there is one scene at the finale where all the men are surrounded and they form an almost triangular tableau that is taken directly from an actual painting (though I forget exactly which). I always thought York's comment, "Correct in every detail" and the way his eyes immediately avert was fascinating because it's an unusual moment for John Wayne as an actor, which makes the significance of scene stand out even more so.

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Thanks for the earlier links about Cynthia Ann Parker on Amazon, Miss G. I prefer the documented research in the Jack Ramsay and Margaret Schmid Hacker books (both nonfiction), but I haven't read the newest ones published in 2011 and 2012.

I have traveled in and around Groesbeck, Texas, and stopped at all the historical markers in the area having to do with the Parkers and Fort Parker.

For some reason, I always envisioned Anjelica Huston directing an updated biopic of Cynthia Ann Parker's life.

[tinker]

With regard to "Thursday's Charge", a painting we don't see, I always imagined it must have had a real life correlation, maybe to a painting of Custer? I know there is one scene at the finale where all the men are surrounded and they form an almost triangular tableau that is taken directly from an actual painting (though I forget exactly which). I always thought York's comment, "Correct in every detail" and the way his eyes immediately avert was fascinating because it's an unusual moment for John Wayne as an actor, which makes the significance of scene stand out even more so.

There are quite a few paintings glorifying such failures I think. Quite a few about the Charge of the Light Brigade.

I know what you mean about "Correct in every detail". That line really spells out Yorke's conflicts. How anyone seeing that could suggest that John Wane could not act is beyond me. In fact I am not sure anyone else could have got that conflicted meaning into the 4 words.

And it may not be in the league of "Picnicing Mr Purnell" but the way Wayne gtes out the the silver salver line is pretty impressive.



dee

[MissGoddess]

With regard to "Thursday's Charge", a painting we don't see, I always imagined it must have had a real life correlation, maybe to a painting of Custer? I know there is one scene at the finale where all the men are surrounded and they form an almost triangular tableau that is taken directly from an actual painting (though I forget exactly which). I always thought York's comment, "Correct in every detail" and the way his eyes immediately avert was fascinating because it's an unusual moment for John Wayne as an actor, which makes the significance of scene stand out even more so.

There are quite a few paintings glorifying such failures I think. Quite a few about the Charge of the Light Brigade.

These are just a couple, culled from a very quick and sloppy internet search (Ford would have choked me if I was his researcher):

And it may not be in the league of "Picnicing Mr Purnell" but the way Wayne gtes out the the silver salver line is pretty impressive.

Wonderful observation! I thought it was one of the little details Ford slipped in that gives what Wendy called the "texture" of a film. It calls to mind gestures and customs and a way of life, and the meanings behind them.

[RedRiver]

"Correct in every detail"

When the legend becomes fact...

treat the Indians as real people

"Walking hurts their pride. Us watching will hurt it even more."

[pvitari]

More Blu-ray reviews.

Blu-ray.com review of How Green Was My Valley
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/How-Green ... 02/#Review

DVDtalk.com review of The Quiet Man
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/58701/quiet-man/

DVDSavant review of The Quiet Man
http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s4070quie.html

[movieman1957]

I'm anxious to have "The Quiet Man" but in the extras it doesn't say anything about the one thing that the Olive disc had - the Maureen O'Hara commentary. That's the only thing keeping that disc from being a coaster.

[JackFavell]

I thought this one was really evocative of the Fort Apache massacre:

[tinker]

THose pictures are terrific. Thanks for finding them.

Re: John Ford

Postby MissGoddess » Fri Jan 18, 2013 5:33 pm
(Ford would have choked me if I was his researcher):

Me to and I am a librarian

dee

[JackFavell]

I got this from a PBS page about an American Experience show on Custer. It makes me wonder if we'd see Custer's Last Stand in the same way if Ford had not made Fort Apache.

"Custer is controversial for the same reasons he was so successful in his own time," says historian Michael Elliott. "He was an outsized personality who used the tools around him to shape himself into a public figure that embodies many of the things that make us uncomfortable about American history -- the way that Americans sometimes rush into a military action, the way that America has treated American Indians and other peoples now around the world. These are questions that are really raw and nagging and we haven't resolved them. And until we do we're going to keep returning to Custer and the controversies that surround him."

[MissGoddess]

Wendy THAT is the picture, thank you!!

At least Custer has become a byword for foolish, headlong leadership and not something to be admired. It's funny how things trickle down in popular culture: I've counted at least five or six references on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" alone to Custer and his predicament. Someone on the writing staff must have been a history buff.

[MissGoddess]

I'm anxious to have "The Quiet Man" but in the extras it doesn't say anything about the one thing that the Olive disc had - the Maureen O'Hara commentary. That's the only thing keeping that disc from being a coaster.

Chris, I think it's crazy they didn't include Maureen's commentary. It was the best thing about that DVD release!!

[movieman1957]

I meant the Artisan disc but you knew that.