Dawtrina:
Your post was an eye opener for me. I know how our present day American Indians feel about their depiction in movies, but it never occurred to me how the British might feel. To me, there has been no animosity between us and England at any time except in the very, very beginning of the U.S. being a self sufficient country.
The truth is, at this time in fact, I prefer watching the BBC world news in the late afternoon to get the honest account of what our government is doing right now. The American stations are so biased it's ridiculous, but by watching BBC we learn just how much our world wide esteem has sunken in the past couple of years.
Anne
Drums Along the Mohawk
Aha, can of worms indeed!
jdb, I loved your description of the Boston Tea Party ship. I'd love to have turned up to that and taken the part of the British... I could have wandered around collecting taxes. That would have been fun!
MissGoddess, those are interesting points. I've been working through a lot of John Ford films over the last couple of years and I've seen a lot of what you say. There are certainly very different treatments of Indians in different Ford movies, and that probably has to do with the times in which they were set as much as anything else.
I completely buy the subtlety angle too, as I've seen a lot of subtle work in his films. Of course, more often I haven't seen it but then been pointed at it later, because often I don't have the cultural background to notice the underlying meanings.
Could Ford have been showing us the underlying decency of the Indians when rescuing Mrs McKlennar's bed (maybe their only crime was to pick the 'wrong' side) or just showing how easily they could be dominated? When the women at the fort pour boiling water on attacking Indians and they flounder around underneath, are they merely unable to retreat because it's not in their nature or are they just dumb enough not to walk out of the flow of pain?
You have a valid point about Blueback's last scene but I was also seeing details like the earlier church scene during the service. He doesn't do anything specific that was out of place, but still everyone stares at him when he opens his mouth: he's too loud, he's too opportunistic, he's too heathen. Sure, he's seen the light and converted, but he's still very much not one of the crowd. He won't even take off his hat in the house of God.
One of my biggest problems was that there was just so little of the enemy. Blueback is in quite a few scenes, but there are no speaking parts for any other Indians and none of them get any focused screen time except for when they're attacking. Caldwell gets one scene early on, but everything else is just posturing. All of it is decidedly villainous, underhand and indecent. He doesn't even fight fair.
If there was more effort given to depicting the enemy, maybe Ford could have made his intentions clearer. As it stands, there's not much material to work with, even subtly. And as a result there are many different potential readings. Maybe Blueback was the proof that Indians could become something other than just savages. Maybe he was there as a savage to do the things that needed to be done that others would have been too decent to do themselves (the church scene). Maybe he was just the biggest target for the Indians anyway because he was a traitor to his own kind.
The only scene I felt was overtly jingoistic was the last one with the flag, which seemed like it was just tacked on without much thought for how it would connect with the tone and style of the rest of the film.
And mrsl, I still enjoyed the film. All of the anti-British content in this and other films doesn't offend me or make me want to stop watching. I can happily watch Triumph of the Will or Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips from a historical or artistic perspective without buying into their philosophy. It's very rare that I'm actively offended by a movie and then it's usually something people wouldn't expect, like Funny Face.
jdb, I loved your description of the Boston Tea Party ship. I'd love to have turned up to that and taken the part of the British... I could have wandered around collecting taxes. That would have been fun!
MissGoddess, those are interesting points. I've been working through a lot of John Ford films over the last couple of years and I've seen a lot of what you say. There are certainly very different treatments of Indians in different Ford movies, and that probably has to do with the times in which they were set as much as anything else.
I completely buy the subtlety angle too, as I've seen a lot of subtle work in his films. Of course, more often I haven't seen it but then been pointed at it later, because often I don't have the cultural background to notice the underlying meanings.
Could Ford have been showing us the underlying decency of the Indians when rescuing Mrs McKlennar's bed (maybe their only crime was to pick the 'wrong' side) or just showing how easily they could be dominated? When the women at the fort pour boiling water on attacking Indians and they flounder around underneath, are they merely unable to retreat because it's not in their nature or are they just dumb enough not to walk out of the flow of pain?
You have a valid point about Blueback's last scene but I was also seeing details like the earlier church scene during the service. He doesn't do anything specific that was out of place, but still everyone stares at him when he opens his mouth: he's too loud, he's too opportunistic, he's too heathen. Sure, he's seen the light and converted, but he's still very much not one of the crowd. He won't even take off his hat in the house of God.
One of my biggest problems was that there was just so little of the enemy. Blueback is in quite a few scenes, but there are no speaking parts for any other Indians and none of them get any focused screen time except for when they're attacking. Caldwell gets one scene early on, but everything else is just posturing. All of it is decidedly villainous, underhand and indecent. He doesn't even fight fair.
If there was more effort given to depicting the enemy, maybe Ford could have made his intentions clearer. As it stands, there's not much material to work with, even subtly. And as a result there are many different potential readings. Maybe Blueback was the proof that Indians could become something other than just savages. Maybe he was there as a savage to do the things that needed to be done that others would have been too decent to do themselves (the church scene). Maybe he was just the biggest target for the Indians anyway because he was a traitor to his own kind.
The only scene I felt was overtly jingoistic was the last one with the flag, which seemed like it was just tacked on without much thought for how it would connect with the tone and style of the rest of the film.
And mrsl, I still enjoyed the film. All of the anti-British content in this and other films doesn't offend me or make me want to stop watching. I can happily watch Triumph of the Will or Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips from a historical or artistic perspective without buying into their philosophy. It's very rare that I'm actively offended by a movie and then it's usually something people wouldn't expect, like Funny Face.
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movieman1957
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Oh now that's a whole new argument for a whole new thread!
And before I end up setting myself up as the controversial newcomer that's going to attempt to slay everyone's sacred cows, I should quickly point out that I'm travelling through the world of classic cinema with open eyes and an open mind. I signed up here to ask a lot of questions and to perhaps offer something in return from a slightly different perspective.
And that said, I went back to my blog and reread my review of Funny Face and found that I was more than a little vehement in my response to it, which is pretty accurate because I still shiver when I think back to it.
My review is here: http://dawtrina.blogspot.com/2007/02/fu ... donen.html.
And before I end up setting myself up as the controversial newcomer that's going to attempt to slay everyone's sacred cows, I should quickly point out that I'm travelling through the world of classic cinema with open eyes and an open mind. I signed up here to ask a lot of questions and to perhaps offer something in return from a slightly different perspective.
And that said, I went back to my blog and reread my review of Funny Face and found that I was more than a little vehement in my response to it, which is pretty accurate because I still shiver when I think back to it.
My review is here: http://dawtrina.blogspot.com/2007/02/fu ... donen.html.
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Mr. Arkadin
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Dawtrina,
Very insightful posting. This is one reason I personally have problems with many early westerns. Indians are many times poorly (almost laughingly) represented and hard to take in any kind of serious context. Most of the westerns I enjoy avoid this altogether or present things in a much better perspective.
As far as DATM goes, I would agree with both you and Miss G. You can see Ford trying to create some kind of balance here, but it's awkward in places and not really what it should be. I'm also sure that many filmmakers had to deal with what an audience could accept in certain periods and what executives would allow.
Very insightful posting. This is one reason I personally have problems with many early westerns. Indians are many times poorly (almost laughingly) represented and hard to take in any kind of serious context. Most of the westerns I enjoy avoid this altogether or present things in a much better perspective.
As far as DATM goes, I would agree with both you and Miss G. You can see Ford trying to create some kind of balance here, but it's awkward in places and not really what it should be. I'm also sure that many filmmakers had to deal with what an audience could accept in certain periods and what executives would allow.
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MissGoddess
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Hi Dawtrina---I think had Ford more time to make DATM he could have played around alot more with subtleties but keep in mind this was one of four movies he did in 1939-1940 (including THREE masterpieces), and considering how quickly he worked through it it's surprising how good it is. Blue Back's killing the enemy would not have gone down pleasantly with alot of folks back then, so I think it's rather daring. I think in Ford's universe, everyone was equally subject to being made fun of, Indians and minorities included, just as everyone had the opportunity to be shown unheard of respect. The scenes with the bed and Edna were clearly just to be funny, which I thought they were. No one would have expected the Indians to turn around and obey her. Yet anyone would obey Edna May, even the King, if they knew what was good for them. 
I think that the failure to delineate the "enemy" was due to the fact that England was at war and Hollywood didn't want to get too much into depicting the English in too bad a light. This may be why Caldwell comes off more like a troublemaking renegade than an functioning representative of His Majesty. And any time you have John Carradine portraying the "enemy", you're not likely to get much subtlety! lol
I think that the failure to delineate the "enemy" was due to the fact that England was at war and Hollywood didn't want to get too much into depicting the English in too bad a light. This may be why Caldwell comes off more like a troublemaking renegade than an functioning representative of His Majesty. And any time you have John Carradine portraying the "enemy", you're not likely to get much subtlety! lol