Sadly, I haven't seen "The Iron Horse" and I'm not a huge western fan per-se, but I like very much good westerns, especially if they were directed by such masters as Ford or Anthony Mann.
One of my favorite films of all time and not because it is a western, because in my opinion it trascends the genre, is "The Searchers" (1956). A masterpiece in many levels. It has the most potent, strongest performance of John Wayne I have ever seen. He plays such a complex, multidimensional, yet disturbing character. And totally believable. I fell in love with this wonderful film when I was very small and I have never forgotten it. In fact two or three weeks ago I bought the DVD edition, only to discover that it had a Pan&Scan version
I'm also a fan of "Mary of Scotland" (1936), maybe one of the most underrated of Ford's films. I can't help it, but I love it and I don't see as many flaws as other people see in it.
Also the allegorical, atmospheric qualities "The Fugitive" (1947) enthralled me.
Ford has defenitely directed so many masterful films: "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), "My Darling Clementine" (1946), "The Informer" (1955), "Fort Apache" (1948), "The Quiet Man" (1952), "The Lost Patrol" (1934), that we have subject for discussion for years to come!
I agree about The Searchers, Nando. I think one of the reasons I like it is because it isn't really a "Western," but a saga, a character study, maybe even a mystery.
I've already expressed my dislike of Grapes of Wrath. I can't sit through it, and it isn't because it's a sad story, but because I find it ponderous, sententious and just plain boring. Same for both Yellow Ribbon and Clementine. They bore me. I don't know -- is it the pace, the story line, the performances? I can't say for sure. I like, but don't love, HGWMV, but I really do not like The Quiet Man. People rave about this movie, and I find I'm just left cold by it. And this is also for reasons I can't quite articulate. I'm hoping some of us here will describe something I can point to and say: yes, that's it, that's why I don't like it.
I happened to see "The Iron Horse" a few months ago. The plot didn't impress me that much, but there was one scene that leaped out at me.
The hero is going to enter the saloon. The bad guys are waiting to get him into a fight and kill him. However, the hero's friends arrive first and generally even out the odds.
What struck me about this scene is that it is very similar to the end of "Stagecoach," in which the Plummer brothers are getting ready to face the Ringo Kid, and the Doc comes in and bluffs them into leaving the shotgun behind. They weren't photographed the same, but the pacing of the scene (sinister buildup, false climax/switch to humor, swing back to serious as these comic characters show their backbone) was very much the same.
These are my, forgive me, random musings as to why many may not care for Ford's movies or his style, based purely on my own initial ambivalence. Maybe others feel the same way. If they do, I totally understand why. He may never appeal to many, because his movies, in general, are uniquely subtle.
I think it's easy to understand why many people won't be bowled over by most of Ford's films. If I thought of him at all I thought of him as a "solid" director but nothing leaped out at me from his films, nothing at all that was in-your-face or peculiar enough to identify as "Fordian", as would be with names like Hitchcock, Lubitsch, Hawks or Preminger. So? What about Wyler, Stevens and a host of other "studio" directors who had "invisible" ways of directing and whose movies I DID love? But they usually featured bravura stars---people like Bette Davis and Kate Hepburn. (Kate was in a Ford film and it was one I didn't particularly care for).
On the surface, a Ford film is solid and entertaining and well crafted. Expressionistic flourishes were to be found---but they depicted stories that were of limited appeal or with little known stars. And Ford is the exception to one of my cardinal rules: he rarely focuses a film on a love story. No wonder I was unimpressed!
Maybe I was not drawn by (so I thought) American history themes or movies about "family"---or to state it plain, movies about people who were not rich or glamorous. Now it gets clearer. I liked colorful subjects or colorful stars and it has to be admitted that Ford's movies are vastly subtler in comparison on both counts. John Wayne being the exception, personality wise.
It was only upon frequent rewatching and paying closer attention in the past few years that I began to notice things I had missed and opening up to the possibility that a movie without flashy stars or about subjects that generally bored me might still be cool. I don't think anything in my movie watching experience prepared me to look for what makes Ford's films so special: intimate, human touches about common people. I can't say I've ever cared about those things in movies or sought them out, and now I find that they are the most meaningful and beautiful things I have EVER encountered on film.
And still I think I've only scratched the surface. Maybe I just got hungry for something deeper, more grounded in very fundamental emotions than the more glamorous or flashy movies provided. Ford served me with what was substantive.
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education." -- Will Rogers
I've mentioned it a couple of times, that often you and I agree on our likes and dislikes of certain movies and actors, so it surprises me that you are not a Ford fan. Perhaps you'll run across a reason after reading Miss Goddess' post.
In any case her examples of directors interested me because I know Hitchcock when I see his movies, but I confuse Hawks with Ford, and I have no idea when I'm watching a Lubitsch or Preminger, though when I Find out, I do like them both, just don't go out of my way to find them. The one that I do recognize and dislike with a major passion is Douglas Sirks. Elvis spent a lot of time discussing him the other night, and to me, unless you are a frustrated, lonely old maid, Sirks movies are nothing but overdone soap operas, totally beyond belief and full of foolish characters.
Anne
Anne
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Judith like you I'm not a huge Ford fan but I do like The Quiet Man. I like it because it's so quaint, so full of cliches, a picture postcard look at Irish life at the town, couple that with the almost fairytale like characters and finishing with a huge brawl at the end, it's like watching history through rose coloured spectacles. There's no special reason I like it, I just do.
The one I did find a huge disappointment was How Green Was My Valley because it was too clean and didn't look at all like Wales. I've been through the valleys and it was nothing like Hollywood's version. Having said that I'm aware that that is a criticism that could be levelled at many movies.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
It's just all so subjective. I can't stand horror movies yet there are those who love them. No amount of talk will change my mind. It's me. People love Joan Crawford. She's about my least favorite actor. Abbott and Costello, while still funny, aren't nearly as funny as they used to be. My preferences seem to go in cycles. I don't flinch when Hitchcock is on like I used to but I still hunt for Laurel and Hardy. (Maybe therapy is in order.)
I think it must all boil down to what interests you. Why do some people love westerns and others hate them. I don't know but I bet both camps don't understand what is going on with the other.
There may be no explanation.
Chris
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
I think it must all boil down to what interests you. Why do some people love westerns and others hate them. I don't know but I bet both camps don't understand what is going on with the other.
In most cases yes---in my case, quite the opposite. I thought I knew the perameters of what I liked in films until I found something else. I've made many about-faces in my movie viewing and find my tastes change in the most unexpected ways. This makes it easier for me to understand why someone does not like the same movies I do.
Why someone DOES like a movie that I do not, however, is another question.
I remember a time not too many years ago when I never would have thought I'd be "cool" toward Audrey and Katharine Hepburn movies. I still like some of them---a few are beloved---but I've lost that uncritical enthusiasm I used to possess and have passed it along to other objects.
I even used to be indifferent---completely---to Gary Cooper.
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education." -- Will Rogers
In most cases yes---in my case, quite the opposite. I thought I knew the perameters of what I liked in films until I found something else.
Is that because you found something new and it caught your interest right off or was it something you were aware of but your interest and fondness grew?
For my dislikes I try to give them enough chances to sort of win me over. At some point I finally think that's enough. It took my about 6 Crawford movies to decide that she wasn't going to do it for me.
Chris
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
As usual, our fellow posters' comments are cogent and well expressed. But also as usual, it appears that there is a certain personal factor, a chemistry, that exists between the viewer and the screen, and that forms our opinions on what we are seeing.
I appreciate your comments about the small touches and the intimate moments, MissG, but I will point out to you that there have been much more modest and "minor" movies with the same sorts of touches which have interested and moved me much more than most of Ford's output.
It never ceases to amaze me, how we all can look at the same thing, and each see something quite different. In reading these comments, I'm reminded that I do like Hawks' work better than I like Ford's. However, there are so many other factors that go into the making of a movie that I can find something to admire in the work of just about any Hollywood director, John Ford included.
Chris - Interesting question but I have to be honest and say that I seldom "try" to like something that I actively dislike. I guess my example of Ford and Gary Cooper would better be expressed as travelling from indifference to appreciation, rather than from dislike.
I'm trying to think of some movie or personage I really disliked and came around to liking...oh! Yes: Margaret Sullavan. How she irritated me at first and I could see NOTHING of which critics raved about her performances. It was seeing her in Three Comrades that changed my mind. I haven't the foggiest notion why because her character was very much like many others she did: gallant, disillusioned yet partly redeemed by the love of someone more innocent.
Judith---I'm sorry but my post was not intended to point out any little touches or specifics about Ford films that one should appreciate, I only meant to convey the reasons why I think many people might not respond to him. I have no interest in making any "Ford converts", lol. No one did and no one could make a convert of me. It happened, that's all.
And I like Hawks very much, always have. A very stylish man.
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education." -- Will Rogers
I have been reading all the different comments and they are all so good .We all have our different reasons for liking a certain type of film or not.I have found that if it reaches me somewhere down deep and makes me think alot afterwards I am sold.I am not that great at expressing the finer technical points but if a movie moves you and makes you ask questions afterwards thats a good movie .Ihave not seen the Iron Horse but I am really intrigued now .Can anybody tell me what its about ? Thanks ,Carol
Sorry for being so scarce yesterday. Between the earthquake, aftershocks and physical therapy, there went the day. Today the ground was much more stable but appointments kept me busy.
I wanted to start with the The Iron Horse because it seemed to me upon watching it that it was this film that had Ford falling in love with the West and making the landscape a character. The opening scenes in Springfield are very stage-bound, run of the mill set-ups for the most part, but once Ford starts heading West it's almost as if he finds his voice (and from this point on will hone that voice like a Stradivarius violin).
The land becomes a character from here on out whether it's Northern Nevada, Monument Valley, Moab, a Welsh mining village in Malibu, an Irish village or a memory tale.
Other characters and plot points will turn up again not only in Ford films but in other stories of the west by Ford's contemporaries and in modern westerns as well.
The bad guy, Bauman, is a renegade Indian, a half-breed able to live in both worlds. My first thought upon being introduced to this character was that he was an earlier version of Scar, complete with noticeable markings, in this case missing three fingers.
The broad humor supplied by the Irish ex-soldiers was a overdone in many places though Vic MacLaglen could have played the main Sgt, role and been right at home.
The Judge who owned the saloon in Hell-Town reminded me of Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner.
The railroad town reminded me of the mining town in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
I think you all have done a great job on talking about not only Ford's techniques and their effect on you but also the values that he holds in each film about family and ritual. Family in Ford films is not always the traditional family (mother, pop and kids) but family is the army regiment at the lonely Frontier Out-post, family is the community on the Frontier braving the wild and untamed West, family comes in many different shades in Ford films but it is always there.
Just as ritual is but I am getting ahead of the lesson plan!
Tomorrow we will move on to Stagecoach providing the ground isn't moving here in Southern California.
Thank you for your patience!
Lynn in Lake Balboa
"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."
"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese
Glad you are safe Lynn .I am away for a lttle holiday today .We have a long weekend here .I will be back to catch up .Its been alot of fun this class.I think for the first time I like school haaaa.Have a good weekend everyone,Carol
What do you feel are Ford's real strengths in this film?
Is it the grand-daddy of disaster films by putting a diverse group of people in danger and watching how they deal with it and survive? Back your response up with examples.
Ford's first film in Monument Valley. How do you feel he made the landscape a character?
Compare the relationship between Hatfield and Mrs. Mallory with that of Ringo and Dallas.
Lynn in Lake Balboa
"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."
"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese
