By Peter Lenihan
Finding Ford is a biweekly series in which I examine the films of John Ford.
There are, it seems, at least two ways of framing Rio Grande, one of the three Ford features of 1950 (Wagon Master and When Willie Comes Marching Home are the other two). The first (and far more common) way to discuss it is as the final entry in the cavalry trilogy, a series of films starring John Wayne and many members of the Ford stock company that revolved (some would say obsessively) around notions of duty and justice and the (im)possibility of reconciliation. Despite these films’ rejection of classical storytelling technique and traditional methods of audience identification, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache are, at least among Fordians and western aficionados, very kindly looked upon, and have been embraced in a way that Rio Grande, a film no one seems to know what to do with, hasn’t.
It’s not all that hard to see why. Next to Fort Apache, whose tonal complexities and simultaneous celebration and repudiation of the U.S. military is among the most contradictory in the director’s filmography, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which features some of the most poetic color cinematography in the history of cinema, Rio Grande can seem a little, well, slight, and its undeniably low-budget feel only contributes to the sense that the director might be on auto-pilot here. History suggests Ford made it for Republic to help get The Quiet Man off the ground, and the digressive, ramshackle nature of the “plot,” and the familiarity of the characters’ names (protagonists named York, Quinncannon, Sandy and Tyree had all appeared in earlier Ford films) has helped encourage the view that it is something minor.
It’s an understandable position, though one I’m not particularly sympathetic to, partially because Ford at his slightest is often Ford at his most interesting. Take, for example, his employment of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara here. As a director, Ford was never above building films around his stars, and in The Quiet Man and The Wings of Eagles he came close to doing just that, wrapping the disparate narrative strands around their (frayed) relationships in a way that is a lot more familiar, though no less affecting. Here, however, neither actor gets significantly more screen time than Victor McLaglen or Ben Johnson, and its focus on the ensemble, on a social world outside of the “leads,” occasionally makes it seem like those involved are coasting. (Nothing, it must be mentioned, could be farther from the truth, and Wayne gave few performances this tender, or in which he seemed to be so aware of the frustrated pain his face was capable of expressing.) This brings us, I suppose, to the second way we can frame Rio Grande, and the way I think we should—not as the third cavalry picture, but as Wagon Master, Part 2. Released only six months apart, they share Bert Glennon, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., the Sons of the Pioneers and what appears to these eyes to be many of the same Moab locations. From the font of the opening titles to the beautiful, modest cinematography—and it’s worth noting that few of the films Glennon worked on (and he shot everything from The Last Command to Crime Wave) look like this—all this seems to be of a piece, and if the two films hadn’t been made for two different studios one might suspect they were shot concurrently. Given the director’s fondness for Wagon Master (he frequently listed it, along with The Sun Shines Bright and The Fugitive, as the favorite of his own films), it’s not unreasonable to think that Rio Grande may have been an attempt to remake it, to recapture the very specific magic of that film. And even if it isn’t quite its equal, it remains a striking achievement, and one that deserves to be discussed more seriously than it generally has been.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, despite its preoccupation with the ghost of Wayne’s dead wife, opened with the witty repartee of McLaglen and Wayne; Fort Apache, a comedy in which almost everyone dies, openly and humorously mocked the stiffness of Fonda in its first minutes; Wagon Master, a comedy in which almost no one dies, begins with some jokes about Solomon’s wives and the horns hiding under Ward Bond’s hat—Rio Grande doesn’t. Instead, things proceed solemnly—it opens with a battle unseen and all we glimpse is the tired aftermath, the soldier and officers and Native Americans returning exhausted and disappointed, incapable of crossing the Rio Grande, incapable of fighting the fight they believe they should be. In the face of death (and Ford is always thinking of death) all conflict is pointless, but Wayne & co. aren’t even able to recognize that pointlessness, to wage combat of any kind, and the weariness of being able only to face the possibility of pointlessness shows on their faces. No jokes, then, or at least not until McLaglen (who was English, if you can believe it) shows. Instead, movement for the sake of movement, talk for the sake of talk, ritual for the sake of ritual, and already the deep melancholy that pervades so much of the film sets in. Boys, faced to see their fifteen year absent fathers as commanding officers and nothing more, and men, American and Mexican alike knowing what they should do and knowing they can’t—these things are the body of the film, and while for any twenty-first century filmmaker they would be ironies of history, for Ford they’re goddamn tragedies, athough you’d never hear him admit it.
Eventually the jokes come. Most of these revolve around McLaglen and O’Hara—she keeps calling him an arsonist, and he doesn’t know what the word means. Shenandoah, a place first referenced in that opening conversation and resurfacing throughout, is Rio Grande’s ghost (there’s always one in a Ford film), now a farce in long shot but no doubt a tragedy in close-up were we permitted to see it. Wayne, a Northerner and West Point officer, seems to have been ordered to burn down his Southern wife’s plantation, and O’Hara never forgave him, leaving him and raising their son on her own. McLaglen, we later learn, was one of Wayne’s men, and she doesn’t seem to have forgotten that either. And of course his son is transferred to the regiment he commands, and of course his wife shows up—as plot points these are obvious, but Ford needs excuses to get these people and ideas into the same room, and they go down easier on-screen than they do on paper. Nevertheless, the construction is clumsy even for Ford, and the half-assed approach to the film’s plot will no doubt be off-putting for those that go to the movies to see a story well-told.
(A quick aside here: how many great movies are actually great stories? I’d argue there aren’t many, and, even more importantly, that most great stories make for really bad movies. The fact that the directors (Ford, Hawks) who most frequently claimed they were just telling tales, and that were most often cited as embodying a rich tradition of narrative classicism, were such lousy storytellers, and so consistently made movies defined by their lengthy, dramatically unjustifiable digressions, only supports this I think. “Storytelling” is the arena of a Zinnemann, not a Ford.)
And it’s not that this is a significantly more lackadaisical or stubbornly anachronistic film than She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or Wagon Master are—but everything here is a bit more transparent, and while Ford would quicken or revise a scene he wasn’t interested in to reshape the trajectory and rhythms of a film, here he doesn’t even bother to finish the scenes he’s bored by, and the radically oscillating tones are almost without parallel among his mature works. There’s a let’sjustshootthisscene spontaneity to it, and when a wagon train is raided out of nowhere by a band of Native Americans, ruthlessly interrupting the subtle, developing sense of social interaction among these frightened people, it’s hard to shake the feeling that in this moment, in this film, right now, anything can happen. Is it inelegant? Of course, but it’s very hard for me (an avowed Fordian, admittedly) to fault a director for making a film that privileges all his bizarre, wildly lyrical idiosyncrasies over the (potentially banal) let’s-get-them-Indians narrative.
And so it goes; incidents happen, many of which I could comment on, many of which I couldn’t. Two moments linger above all others, however, and neither of them have anything to do with tracking shots, gunfights or running horses. The first is a simple shot of Wayne, looking in on his wife helping her son, badly beaten in a fight the night before. Many Ford movies exist through their windows, and having a character look through one at a world that is no longer their own is hardly new. Neither is pointing it out. But there is something embodied in this shot, something Ford and Wayne were able to put into it, that’s unshakeable. Perhaps it’s this–Ford’s movies are filled with outsiders who long to be part of a community, despite their awareness (or ours) that the group itself is a humiliating beast, and that if they were a part of it they’d either hate themselves or be bored. Nevertheless, because Wayne is looking in not on a social order but a family that abandoned him (or, perhaps more accurately, he abandoned), it generates a striking, deeply emotional pitch that cuts through, and states without stating that he ain’t living like he should.
The other moment, and one I cannot really remark on, is this. The Sons of the Pioneers (corny to some, but not to me) sing an unbelieveably beautiful song called “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen.” “I will take you back Kathleen to where your heart will feel no pain,” the man sings. Ford cuts to Wayne and O’Hara. And they both seem to have died.
I’m fond of this film and I’m glad to see you are too – and your description of the Wayne moment is wonderful.
One amusing aspect of the movie, when you think about it, is the idea that O’Hara, only 30, is old enough to be the mother of Wayne’s grown son. And yet it works – Ford has that ability to make the ridiculous sublimely right, somehow.
To be honest, Joel, it never even occurred to me, although O’Hara’s not the kind of actress you ever really think of as “young” in the conventional movie star sense–she’s too damn beautiful, she’s too damn smart, she wears everything she knows on her face.
As archivist and editor/designer of Maureen O’Hara’s official website for the past 20 years, “Rio Grande” was a favorite film of mine. In what I have read over the years and in conversations with Ms. O’Hara and Harry Carey, Jr., and Maureen’s brother, Charlie FitzSimons, many felt that Ford (who cherished his “Irishness”) more or less lived vicariously through actors John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Maureen and Duke fairly exploded with chemistry on the screen…and needed little or no dialogue to transmit that chemistry. The scene in “Rio Grande” where they are having dinner together in the tent projected such intense emotion one could vividly imagine what they were thinking. Ford then adds the fabulous lighting…the shadows….the lamplight. Absolute genius!!!!!
Wow June this is a fantastic comment! This essay and your comments have convinced me to go see Rio Grand again ASAP! I do really like the thoughts about Ford living vicariously through Wayne and O’Hara. Great stuff.
Another one of my favorite scenes is where Kathleen (Maureen) is left to unpack the china for their dinner and she discovers a music box. Ford does this again, with lighting, and the intense close-up of Maureen O’Hara as she is flooded with memories of better times while the music box plays. I have this great freeze frame in Photobucket that you might enjoy. Not sure if they allow links in this forum. If not – email me at momagazine@gmail.com

Jon, I couldn’t agree more. What an honor to have June stop by to comment under Peter’s superlative essay!
Peter,
Wonderful examination of a film that I saw many years ago and don’t recall too vividly but you do remind me that it’s a solid picture. I actually just watched She Wore a Yellow Ribbon 2 days ago for the first time. What was interesting about that film is yes, it’s lack of a traditional flow. It is filled with all the great Fordian touches though; sentiment, comedy, romance, action. I actually found Wayne’s performance in Yellow Ribbon to be one of my favorites of his and you’re right the color cinematography is wonderful. As for your references to Wagon Master, I have not seen that one, but also have that at the house right now waiting to be seen! Let’s just say through all this I’m hoping to be a more well rounded appreciator of Ford. I do really like Maureen O’Hara though, and the collaboration between Ford, O’Hara, and Wayne in The Quiet Man yielded one of Ford’s top 3 films in my opinion.
As far as the Cavalry trilogy goes, which in your opinion is the best film?
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is my favorite of the trilogy, Jon, though not by too much.
Great piece, Peter, about the only “cavalry trilogy” film I haven’t seen. You make it sound absolutely fascinating, and I love the comparison to the looseness of Hawks’ storytelling – you’re right, Hawks loved to adopt that modest I’m-just-spinning-yarns tone, but his best films are actually defined precisely by the near-total lack of narrative satisfaction. Again I’ve never seen this, and I’m not that well-versed in Ford as a whole yet, but Ford seems different, at least sometimes. He can be a very good storyteller, in stuff like The Searchers and How Green Was My Valley (which I just saw recently and liked a good deal). Of course he can also be more meandering, from what I’ve seen, and especially the other two cavalry movies are kind of “hangout” flicks like Hawks always loved to make, except set in a fort.
I’ve always loved She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, glorification of the military and all. It’s just so gorgeous looking, a fantasy of war without the blood, only the bright uniforms and the camaraderie between the men.
This is an actual quote from Ford – taken from a video interview.
“A lot of people ask me, ‘What is the secret of direction?’ There’s no secret about direction except good common sense and a belief in what you’re doing. In our day direction came by instinct. Most of the young directors are obsessed by the camera. Instead of looking at the people, they look at the camera. The secret is in peoples faces, in their eye expressions and their movements.”
That’s a beautiful quote.
Ed, you brought a big smile to my face when you said you liked HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY a great deal. That’s one of my own favorite Fords.
And speaking of Ed’s opinion on HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY I just now found his stupendous review of it leading up at ONLY THE CINEMA. It’s an essential read for cineastes!
http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-green-was-my-valley.html
Thanks Ed. She Wore a Yellow RIbbon may be Ford’s best color picture, and I’m sure I’ll write on it eventually, but yeah it’s absolutely one of my favorites.
Beautiful writing. Rio Grande features one of Wayne’s iconic performances, some unforgettable characters, a wonderful feel for post life, plenty of action and some lovely black and white scenery. I’d say it is my favorite film in the Trilogy.
Orson Welles called Ford a “poet” and this film confirmsd those sentiments convincingly. The characters are dwarfed by their environment. And this is a prime example of the ‘Indians are enemies’ slant. Wayne has never been better. This is also my favorite of the trilogy, but I also like Ford Apache quite a bit. Exceptional review of a screen classic.
I appreciate the discussion/comparison of the three films in the trilogy. This is exceptional writing. I have always seen this film as a sprawling, oversentimental film, inferior to both “Fort Apache” and “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” but sporadically interesting for its well-staged action sequences. Wayne and O’Hara are terrific.
Wonderful job with this, Peter. I’d be lying if I said that I preferred Rio Grande over either of the other two cavalry movies, but you’re of course right that it needn’t at all be thought of strictly in terms of the other two; it’s a great movie, and certainly a great Ford movie, in and of itself.
I love your framing of it as Wagon Master 2, it’s certainly a salient comparison to make, considering, as you mention, the fact they were shot so close together and share many of the same actors and a similar tone / lack of narrative drive. That deeply felt, cohesive and effortless sense of elemental purity that runs throughout Wagon Master – every scene, every shot feels like a piece of the poem – isn’t quite recreated here, but in its sublime individual moments (which I would add to the ones you mention York wandering along the riverbank, as well as the tent singalong with the son and his friends), it is undeniably Ford working at the height of his personal, lyrical powers. Ford’s work largely hinges on such moments for me I guess (I agree with you 100% he was much more a poet than a storyteller or dramatist), moments that belong not to a single film, or trilogy, or even filmography, but to an authentic artistic consciousness. Obviously they’re often the moments most difficult to talk about, but the ones easiest to feel. Quincannon singing ‘Sweet Genevieve’ in Fort Apache has a similar effect on me as you state with the Sons of the Pioneers example – everything becomes stripped away, unstuck in time, laid bare in an instant.
“Unstuck in time.” Absolutely.
This is a masterful piece of scholarship on a vital work in Ford’s filmography. I would say it is my second favorite in the Cavalry Trilogy, behind FORT APACHE and ahead of SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON. Still I say that with misgivings in view of your brilliant deduction that the latter film features some of the most poetic color cinematography in all of the cinema. And I think you ar eright to point to the ‘tonal complexities’ of the former film. Bert Glennon and Archie Stout’s black and white cinematography in RIO GRANDE is nonetheless striking and the film is loaded with memorable characters and performances. Love your developmemnt of the WAGON MASTER 2 proposition.
God, I never realized that McLaglen was English. Unbelievable.
Personally Sam I’d put the photography right up there with Black Narcissus or Lola Montes. You should definitely revisit it, it’s one of my favorite Fords.
I agree the photography in Yellow Ribbon is very poetic, but I don’t think it’s used nearly to the emotional/psychological depth and urgency of Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. Granted those are different types of films, but the color and photography there is nearly a character unto itself. I just watched the documentary on Cardiff and his attention to detail and artistry was unmatched as far as Technicolor is concerned.
Peter L, I can ‘t agree with your aside about ‘great stories’ not making ‘great movies’. Rather, I think you can’t have a great movie without a great script – the script in essence being ‘the story’.
What a director does with a script is of course a measure of his/her greatness. While auteur theory’s privileging of the director is the current fad, apart from true auteurs who write their own screenplays or are intimately involved in the writing, the credit for a great script must first go to the writer and, if involved, the producer. Also the DP and editor have crucial roles in sustaining the narrative flow and in the director’s success in building a narrative. Indeed, some academics argue that for any given director’s oeuvre, his/her best films are typically those where there is a particular synergy with certain writers and DPs – a kind of gestalt. I would say Ford’s best films are those with the strongest narrative.
June’ s Ford quote is instructive on narrative also – inter alia “Most of the young directors are obsessed by the camera. Instead of looking at the people, they look at the camera. The secret is in peoples faces, in their eye expressions and their movements.” – in as far as emotions and states of mind can be portrayed by simple focused images (and this goes back of course to Griffith and the early silents). But the expressionists showed us that lighting and the camera are also very important, while Eisenstein and Pudovkin revealed the power of montage.
But to reach a large audience you still need a cohesive narrative and a compelling story.
I dispute the idea that you need a cohesive narrative to reach a large audience. Peter brought up Howard Hawks, and of course Hawks made hugely popular movies that often had anything but cohesive narratives – The Big Sleep has confused audiences for as long as it’s been around, and has scenes that just plain make no sense, while Rio Bravo is basically about guys hanging around waiting for something to happen. It’s become the norm to think that audiences need crowd-pleasing narratives to connect with a movie, but I guess mass audiences in those days had more patience.
Anyway, I certainly don’t think that a great script is necessary for a great film. The magic of film is the interpretation of words into images, not in the words themselves.
I have a stack of scripts: “The Quiet Man,” “Wings of Eagles,” and “Only the Lonely.” When I read them…after seeing the movie, I have seen some scripts sent to Ms. O’Hara and quite honestly I couldn’t tell by reading the dialogue and business, whether they were “good” or not. She could, however – because that’s her business.
Maureen’s brother, Charlie FitzSimons, produced many TV series…including “Batman” and “Nanny the the Professor” and helped me so much in better understanding the business. He was a brilliant man! The following is some advice he gave me which has become my watchwords.
Charlie: “…….Charles: So many try to analyze the professionals in the industry and there is a whole area in life that I call “movie buffism”…people who are in love with movies who think they know more about movies than people who make movies; they put all kinds of interpretations on people’s work. In fact you saw the Ford Documentary and you saw a lot of the interviews with Ford on film and you saw how scathing and how cynical he was about all of this. As a matter of fact his partner, Marian C. Cooper who was the creator and producer and director of “King Kong”, used to comment that all over the world there were all of these books written by psychiatrists that were interpreting what he meant in “King Kong” and what the sexual overtones were, and he said all of these experts had written hundreds of thousands of words and he said it was all baloney; that all he was doing was making the story of beauty and the beast and that all of the things that they discovered was absolute nonsense (laughing)! So this is the true of most of the movie business. The buff or the fan,..especially the “buff”..the “fan” is different. They get a lot of self-fame, or self-induced fame on being an expert on these people. It suddenly turns – instead of it being John Ford’s career, it is the brilliance of this interpreter of John Ford. Beware of that! “
June, what do you say to the film critics of the Cahiers du Cinema, who went on to make films? Ed Howard by the way is a film critic 😉
There will always be critics. Speaking for myself only, when it comes to current films, I seldom agree with the critic. Likewise, I don’t watch that many new films. But that’s okay. Everyone has their own opinion. My focus for the past twenty years has been more on classic films; research on Ms. O’Hara’s life and career and incorporating that research on my website. Went to Ireland in 1999 and got a first hand look at that culture, the arts, films. Very rewarding. I don’t engage much in intellectualizing or over-analysis of films; although I don’t hesitate in letting people know what I like…..and don’t like. I am 74 years old and if someone asks me what my favorite film of all time was, my answer, “The Trip to Bountiful” with Geraldine Page. It was my favorite since I was in my 40s….it never changes.
There is a book published in 2009, “The Quiet Man…and Beyond – Reflections on a Classic Film, John Ford and Ireland” – edited by Sean Crossson and Rod Stoneman with contributions from the hierarchy of Irish academics/ writer, etc. They had such titillating chapters as “Ethnic Revenge: A Structural Analysis of the Western Tropes of Twentieth Century Irish-American Assimilation” by James P. Byrne. I could hardly wait to tie into that chapter. Or you might want to delve into Chapter 8 – “John Ford, the Irish Language and the Linguistic Politics of Multiculturalism.” When I got to a chapter where the cinematography of Winton Hoch – that’s when I bounced the book off the wall.
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL is a lovely, deeply-moving film June. I share your feelings for it.
I was raised in a small town (population 1,000) about 100 miles southwest of Chicago. (I’m in Phoenix now) So I really had the best of both worlds. We could go to the city to see plays, ballets, museums, (and ride the elevators at Marshal Fields) and then return to our little Dick-Jane-and Baby Sally village where it was safe and comfortable. I guess Ashton,Ill. was my “Bountiful.” Unfortunately, when I returned about 7 years ago I found my old house was remodeled and lovely and the owner even gave me a tour. LOL I so wanted to find the tree stump in the front yard where I would stand and recite poems……..or the vegetable garden….or the asparagus field adjoining. All gone…. Oh well…. the world keeps on turning.
Lovely, aching remembrance there June. And I could picture everything you said. Sounds like you were in the perfect location to take advantage of the rustic qualities in your town, but close enough to Chicago to make good on all it had to offer. Nice.
June thanks so much for your comments, and obviously O’Hara was there, and so of she has anything to say that should be foregrounded. And I can completely sympathize if those who made a film (or those who didn’t) become frustrated with overly ambitious theorizing of the things they made. Hope I didn’t do too much of that here–for me there’s an ideal balance between historical context and substantive criticism that informs the best film writing, I don’t think I’m there but I think there’s a lot of writers on the net who are able to do this (the Self-Styled Siren comes most immediatly to mind in this regard).
This is not about John Ford….but about stories and scripts. Charles FitzSimons, who was the Executive Director of the Producer’s Guild in Beverly Hills (at the time of my interview with him in 1993). In 1961 he produced a movie “The Deadly Companions” starring Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith, and Chill Wills. I believe it was one of the first films Sam Peckinpah directed. Unfortunately the film fell through the cracks thanks to distributor, Pathė. It did, however, do very big box office in Europe.
In this instance, Charlie had a story idea adapted to the screen by Sid Fleishman and before he sold the movie he had a book written….after the fact because it was easier to sell a picture if the investors/producers thought it was first a book…and then adapted to a movie. Whatever works! In this case…a script became a book.
I couldn’t disagree more that you need a great script/story to make a great movie; what about experimental film, which far more often than not foregoes scripts and traditional notions of “storytelling”? You’d have a heck of a time convincing a good number of people that there are no great films to be found within the experimental genre. The effectiveness of cinema isn’t necessarily limited to its ability to tell a ripping yarn, or whatever. I think part of Peter’s point, at least as I understood it, is that for some directors a solid narrative through line was not the be all end all component of creating a piece of expressive cinema, that there were other concerns in the mix, and that in many of the cases with these films and their directors, stricter adherence to simply conveying a narrative would have robbed the movies of the qualities that so many people find special in them today. There’s good reason why plenty of Ford scholars will cite Wagon Master – a movie that barely has a narrative to speak of – as one of his greatest works.
also, FWIW, I’m pretty certain that Ford almost always worked diligently with the writers on his movies during the scripting process.
I am sure Ford was involved with every aspect – script, lighting…audio… everything concerning his film. Maureen O’Hara even took dictation and typed the notes for “The Quiet Man” (when members of the Ford Stock Company were with him aboard his boat). Just for fun I’ll call Maureen tomorrow; also have contacts with Dobe Carey (Harry Carey Jr.), and Andrew McLaglen; it would be fun to get their thoughts on this – since they were there.
“Get the Sherrif, there’s a lynching!”
Before the noose tightens, let me try and hold the stampede. First and foremost, I disagreed with this statement: “A quick aside here: how many great movies are actually great stories? I’d argue there aren’t many, and, even more importantly, that most great stories make for really bad movies.” Second, it seems I had the gall to proffer a contrary opinion.
To all the hot-heads, my conclusion must be understood in its context (my emphasis): “But to reach a large audience you still need a cohesive narrative and a compelling story.” Clearly, I am not referring to the avante-guarde, experimental films, or high brow fare.
Sure disagree with me, but please have the intellectual honesty not to ignore the ludicrous statement that precipitated my response.
Next, what I said has been taken as a criticism of Ford as a director. Just how this follows I don’t know. Let me reiterate, “I would say Ford’s best films are those with the strong narratives”. Also, have a look at my piece on The Fugitive published on this site a few years back – https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/review-of-the-fugitive-1947/.
You can now thrash the horse and consign me to oblivion. You are doing me a favour.
Tony, I take it your last reply was directed entirely towards me. I don’t see how my post comes off as hotheaded at all, but I’m sorry if it did, it wasn’t meant to. I am extraordinarily confused with everything that you are saying, to be honest. You disagreed with the bit from Peter that you’ve quoted by claiming at the top of your initial post “Rather, I think you can’t have a great movie without a great script – the script in essence being ‘the story’.” – a rather blanket statement that I disagreed with. I don’t see what this stuff about “reaching a large audience” has to do with anything that anyone has said at all, unless their is somehow a correlation for you between a movie’s supposed greatness and the reach of its exposure, which seems asinine to me. If I’ve misconstrued what you’re saying, which I think I must have, or something, then I apologize again. There is no intellectual dishonesty going on here, I’m just having trouble following your point.
No Drew not at you personally. Rather the last straw. Asinine? Your prerogative. I can’t see how I could have been any clearer. Perhaps a computing analogy may help: GIGO.
Tony, this conversation has taken a turn for the unpleasant and I don’t really feel like prolonging it. You find my argument ludicrous; what I find ludicrous are the notions that a script is in essence a story, that auteur theory is a “fad” (or that auteurism introduced the idea that the director was the author of a work), or that bitching about hypothetically being “consigned to oblivion” has any place in this discussion. But to each his own, pard.
Oh Cisco! Oh Pancho!
Ed, sorry but you have used a very poor example to argue your case. The Big Sleep has a strong narrative and is essentially true to Chandler’s novel – there is no confusion – only some mystery as to who killed the chauffeur. Indeed it has a classic Hollywood narrative structure. You are also confusing ‘script’ with your word -:) ‘words’. A script is not just dialog. Look at the script for Sunset Boulevard for instance.
June, my post is about Ford: ” I would say Ford’s best films are those with the strongest narrative.” Sorry, but I can’t see the point about a script becoming a book? In any event, at WitD anything goes 🙂
I enjoyed your article very much, Peter, and look forward to more on Ford by you in the future. If you don’t mind, I’ve added this post to my “Links” page under Articles & Blogs at directedbyjohnford.com. Rio Grande is one of my favorites. I find the love, sexual tension and conflict between Kirby and Kathleen beautifully played out and one of the most interesting romantic relationships in all westerns. It’s also a great father-son film. And you won’t find many films where John Wayne is sans a hair-piece. Somehow, this makes his character seem even more vulnerable and human.
Thanks so much April, I appreciate the link. This is certainly one of Wayne’s most vulnerable roles and one of his best, I think (I just love that close-up as he walks back from the river).
This is a really great piece, Peter – I saw this film very recently and am very interested to read your detailed review. I agree with you that the scene with Wayne in effect looking in from outside on the family he lost/abandoned is moving. I really like the way you describe it here, which to me helps to make sense of the way the loners in Ford’s films nevertheless hang on to the McLaglen characters and lurch between isolation and determination to be one of the boys:
“Perhaps it’s this–Ford’s movies are filled with outsiders who long to be part of a community, despite their awareness (or ours) that the group itself is a humiliating beast, and that if they were a part of it they’d either hate themselves or be bored. Nevertheless, because Wayne is looking in not on a social order but a family that abandoned him (or, perhaps more accurately, he abandoned), it generates a striking, deeply emotional pitch that cuts through, and states without stating that he ain’t living like he should.”
When I watched the film, I was somewhat taken aback by the far-fetched plot element of Wayne having personally had to have his Southern wife’s plantation burnt down. As you say, the plot construction here seems clumsy, and yet I suppose it works as a sort of concentrated nightmare image of Civil War, like the endings to stories by Ambrose Bierce where soldiers discover it is their own house they have just burned down.
Great, great comment Judy. I would assume this is your favorite of the Trilogy, no?
Thanks very much, Sam. Must admit I haven’t seen Fort Apache as yet, so I don’t know which my favourite of the trilogy is. I’m also not even sure which I prefer out of this one and ‘She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’ – suffice it to say that I like them both a lot.
This is a great piece, Peter. I love anything Ford, so keep on writing!
Your point about the relationship between Wagon Master and Rio Grande is interesting–I never noticed any connection. Of course, I saw the two films at least a year apart, so I never thought to compare them. I did think Rio Grande was the weakest of the cavalry trilogy. I liked Fort Apache best, it seemed the most complex at the time, but you make a convincing case to revisit Rio Grande sooner rather than later. I think pretty much everyone would agree that Maureen O’Hara is John Wayne’s greatest onscreen love interest. She always stands up to him so well in a way that only makes her seem sexier.
Your point about stories is interesting. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit lately. What I think of when I think of film stories is a “story” in the traditional sense of a classic narrative, clearly told. For the greatest stories, I think of classic fairy tales, old literature, and things like that, where the stories become universally known for their narrative elements (The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, Jack and the Beanstalk, A Christmas Carol). I have been noticing lately that the farther I travel into foreign, arthouse, and experimental cinema, the less important the “story” is, and the more the way it is told (which is always important), and/or things like ambience, mood, framing and cutting, character study, theme, etc. If you were to go through a list of the most acclaimed films of all time, you would find relatively few that are great for their “story”– Citizen Kane is great for character and style but it has little real narrative in the traditional sense, Vertigo is practically all staring and mood, 2001: A Space Odyssey is abstracted almost beyond narrative altogether, Raging Bull is all character study and fragmentary fight scenes, etc. Even when they have clear stories, they’re often best known for other details of how the stories are told, digressions and poetics and style, etc. (L’Atalante, The Rules of the Game, Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc). I’ve found myself greatly defending this idea that movies don’t NEED to tell a straight story when talking to people about things like The Tree of Life. And I agree with all this–there are so many things film (and art in general) can do beyond straight narrative. We should never try to limit that.
But I’ve also been thinking a bit about the importance of stories in and of themselves. This seems to be a big postmodern theme actually–the importance of understanding things through stories, whether religion or politics or philosophy. Understanding facts as just simple facts always leave something out, it’s better to get a whole story and use that as sort of the governing paradigm for understanding something. Also, stories become part of public cultural memory and discourse much better than, say, shots or individual scenes. They fulfill certain desires and needs for humanity. And I think that’s important. But (high) film and literature from the beginning of the 20th century on has seemed to become more and more opposed to things like “a simple story well-told” and more and more interested in self-reflexive examinations of the nature of story and character and art, with more emphasis put on close analysis of a particular mood or situation of day-to-day life than in providing a pleasurable narrative. Not that there haven’t been plenty of straight plot books and films, but they are rarely gifted with the title “Art”. I’m not entirely sure why that is, if it’s good or bad.
But you’re right–many of Ford’s films rely very little on story, or else re-use old narrative devices again and again because he’s more interested in things like specific characters, communities, and themes than in giving plot, and I like that. (Though he can do plot when he wants to==Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, The Searchers.) I’m digressing a great deal here, I’m just trying to think through the issues at stake here.
Wow what a spectacular comment, Stephen.
Excellent piece. “Rio Grande” has always been my comfort movie. While I’ve always known it’s the “least” of the trilogy, it’s the one I revisit most frequently. The combo of Wayne+O’Hara (now, that is chemistry), plus Ben Johnson riding roman style – I find it hard to beat.
Note: “Ft. Apache” is getting released in Blu-ray in about a month. The B&W should look incredible.
http://zvezdan.forumfree.tv/t1991-rio-grande-1950#6461