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If I were to dissect the parts and analyze them, there might be much that seems disagreeable, but what criteria would I use? The film creates a very vivid, very alive context in which to see everything in. For me, it works as a whole. I'm not sure there aren't elements which are unsuccessful, but virtually every scene is touching to me. Do separate scenes always work? In a bad and formless movie much of it would certainly be cringe-worthy. But any dubious aspects of the script or what have you feel subsumed to the style and the overall whole. Partly through the cutting and the framing, which throughout always feel "felt" and in-tune with the narrative, and most especially to the characters, yet at once distanced, and sounding much more powerful notes than those sounded in the script. It's not merely that it has a style; it's the deep-seated integrity of a style that has been enriched through a lifetime of work. It has one of the most graceful and subtle rhythms of any film I know! It's awake from the very beginning until the final fade.

mattkc wrote:If I were to dissect the parts and analyze them, there might be much that seems disagreeable, but what criteria would I use? The film creates a very vivid, very alive context in which to see everything in. For me, it works as a whole. I'm not sure there aren't elements which are unsuccessful, but virtually every scene is touching to me. Do separate scenes always work? In a bad and formless movie much of it would certainly be cringe-worthy. But any dubious aspects of the script or what have you feel subsumed to the style and the overall whole. Partly through the cutting and the framing, which throughout always feel "felt" and in-tune with the narrative, and most especially to the characters, yet at once distanced, and sounding much more powerful notes than those sounded in the script. It's not merely that it has a style; it's the deep-seated integrity of a style that has been enriched through a lifetime of work. It has one of the most graceful and subtle rhythms of any film I know! It's awake from the very beginning until the final fade.

Glad you enjoyed it!

I'll gladly suffer your derision. I'm more offended that you've twice quoted my posts complete.

mattkc wrote:I'll gladly suffer your derision. I'm more offended that you've twice quoted my posts complete.

You misunderstood my last post; I am genuinely glad you enjoyed it, but I won't be watching it again

One thing to add... Pether is tragically pathetic. The film is completely successful in conveying this. Emma is interesting and Lyon's awkward reading of lines lends those scenes an extra shade of peculiar character. What's important obviously is how marginal all these people are, each in different ways.

Hi, all. Happy to have found a lively and intelligent discussion of Ford online. After reading through this fascinating thread I hope to be able to contribute substantive conversation at some point in the future. For now, I believe some of you may be interested in these Ford pages I've stumbled across (see below), as well as an excellent site called Directed by John Ford.

John Ford Gallery
Review of My Darling Clementine

It seems to be polarizing, but I find The Wings of Eagles to be a very moving film, among the finest of Ford's later works. As with all Ford it's visually stunning, I'd go so far as to say scintillating, and Wayne turns in one of his strongest performances, running the gamut of hotshot, hell raising young pilot to helpless, completely vulnerable but stubborn middle-aged object of pity. It is a cautionary tale of tragedy and opportunities missed, while at the same time a celebration of life - no mean accomplishment. Ford was a friend of "Spig" Wead, but even beyond that connection the film comes across to me a very personal one for him.

I concur with Dave Kehr's assessment, published many years ago in the Chicago Reader.

evillights wrote:Wow. There's a lot of hate here for some Ford films which I think are pretty interesting.

I can't say that I've found any stinkers in the Ford corpus, of what I've seen. Actually, I should revise: the first two times I saw When Willie Comes Marching Home, I thought it completely sucked. The third time I saw the film (in the "Ford at Fox" set), it was a revelation — insofar as I thought it was a fine film; what irritated me about it initially, by then seemed pretty lovely. If I had to compare it to any other film (both in terms of shift of personal evaluation, and in terms of content), it would be Fritz Lang's Cloak and Dagger.

I had a similar turnabout on Tobacco Road, though that came only in a second viewing and one in rapid succession. I think it's a beautiful film.

So, for what it's worth, going through a list of all the Ford films I've seen, I'd rank each entry within the following brackets — from 'least good' to 'greatest.' (I caught part of The Hurricane last night on TCM for the first time, but it was only a portion, so I won't count it in the big tally; but what I saw I thought was fairly amazing.) Of course this is subject to change over time, as with any list. But maybe it will provoke in some forum-readers a reassessment of the films they haven't been keen on, or will inspire viewers who haven't seen much Ford to start investigating unexplored corners of the director's body of work.
===

VERY GOOD:
Straight Shooting
Bucking Broadway
Just Pals
Hangman's House
Up the River: A Comedy Drama
Seas Beneath
Arrowsmith
The Lost Patrol
The Informer
Mary of Scotland
Four Men and a Prayer
Tobacco Road
When Willie Comes Marching Home

EXCEPTIONAL:
The Iron Horse [US version]
Salute
Airmail
The World Moves On
The Whole Town's Talking
Steamboat Round the Bend
The Prisoner of Shark Island
The Plough and the Stars
Sex Hygiene
Torpedo Squadron 8
December 7th [1h 23m version]
This Is Korea!: The Story of the 7th Fleet and the 1st Marine Division
What Price Glory

PROBABLE MASTERPIECES:
3 Bad Men
Mother Machree [incomplete only-extant version]
Four Sons
Pilgrimage
The Long Voyage Home
3 Godfathers



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'Just Pals' is the only one of the Ford (at Fox) Silents box-sets I've yet to watch, although I don't expect to be ranking it among his Very Great Masterpieces, but I want to say how completely blown away I was by '3 Bad Men', which instantly shot into the rank of 'My Top Ten Fords', no matter what film has to give way.
I can't recall seeing another film which not only blended, seamlessly, comedy, tragedy, romance, and action-adventure into one film, but did so without skipping a beat.
A wonderful, wonderful film.
And anybody who insists the Coen Brothers have no taste just see which idea/shot they lifted, wholesale, for a scene in 'Raising Arizona'
(I'll give you that much of a clue)

I loved 'Hangman's House', also, although its not in '3 Bad Men' class
Not even by a long shot; although that's no shame

Yojimbo wrote:'Just Pals' is the only one of the Ford (at Fox) Silents box-sets I've yet to watch, although I don't expect to be ranking it among his Very Great Masterpieces, but I want to say how completely blown away I was by '3 Bad Men'... I can't recall seeing another film which not only blended, seamlessly, comedy, tragedy, romance, and action-adventure into one film, but did so without skipping a beat.

I love 3 Bad Men as well, but everything you say about that film is even truer of Just Pals - well, if you substitute pathos for tragedy.

Sloper wrote:

Yojimbo wrote:'Just Pals' is the only one of the Ford (at Fox) Silents box-sets I've yet to watch, although I don't expect to be ranking it among his Very Great Masterpieces, but I want to say how completely blown away I was by '3 Bad Men'... I can't recall seeing another film which not only blended, seamlessly, comedy, tragedy, romance, and action-adventure into one film, but did so without skipping a beat.

I love 3 Bad Men as well, but everything you say about that film is even truer of Just Pals - well, if you substitute pathos for tragedy.

Must check it out soon, so.
btw, I just discovered that 'Hangman's House' is screening at my local arthouse cinema next month

Perhaps part of or because of this event....

ellipsis7 wrote:Perhaps part of or because of this event....

...pro-ba-bly

Sloper wrote:

Yojimbo wrote:'Just Pals' is the only one of the Ford (at Fox) Silents box-sets I've yet to watch, although I don't expect to be ranking it among his Very Great Masterpieces, but I want to say how completely blown away I was by '3 Bad Men'... I can't recall seeing another film which not only blended, seamlessly, comedy, tragedy, romance, and action-adventure into one film, but did so without skipping a beat.

I love 3 Bad Men as well, but everything you say about that film is even truer of Just Pals - well, if you substitute pathos for tragedy.

Just watched it ; another wonderful film.

I wasn't prepared for the way he ratcheted up the pace in the last twenty minutes, but, up until then it had been a wonderfully charming comedy-romance, enhanced by the often-stunning quality of his painterly compositions.
I also loved the use of the refrain "the law will take care o' this", the way the old lad kept popping up at opportune times.

It wasn't apparent to me how much if any debt he owed to Murnau, here, as was all-too-evident in 'Four Sons', but his framing choices, for the most part, were already the work of a great artist, and those who decry him for his later 'Oirish' humour should check out the likes of this film to see what a great comic gift he had.
Which reminds me, I've only watched one of the comedy box-set, so far!

btw, that tree by the 'picket fence' looked remarkably like similar in 'The Iron Horse'

Murnau's impact on Ford isn't felt until the former came over to work for Fox in 1927. Apparently William Fox had several of his contract directors--not just Ford but Borzage as well--watch the shooting of Sunrise. Which is one reason why you see a Sunrise influence in a few films released either before or at about the same time as Murnau's masterpiece.

Four Sons is Ford's most slavish Murnau imitation, and Hangman's House shows a strong debt too. Eventually the Murnau influence came to be sublimated into Ford's aesthetic along with a host of other influences. The most interesting instance is Pilgrimage, where the scenes taking place on the farm have a very notable Murnau feel, from the lighting to the set design and cinematography.

In any event, Ford was a master long before he encountered Murnau's work, as a viewing of Straight Shooting will attest.

jonah.77 wrote:Murnau's impact on Ford isn't felt until the former came over to work for Fox in 1927. Apparently William Fox had several of his contract directors--not just Ford but Borzage as well--watch the shooting of Sunrise. Which is one reason why you see a Sunrise influence in a few films released either before or at about the same time as Murnau's masterpiece.

Four Sons is Ford's most slavish Murnau imitation, and Hangman's House shows a strong debt too. Eventually the Murnau influence came to be sublimated into Ford's aesthetic along with a host of other influences. The most interesting instance is Pilgrimage, where the scenes taking place on the farm have a very notable Murnau feel, from the lighting to the set design and cinematography.

In any event, Ford was a master long before he encountered Murnau's work, as a viewing of Straight Shooting will attest.

There's a beautiful shot in Hangman's House where the lovers are travelling by boat to where McLaglan has been secreted which compares with anything in Murnau, or Mizoguchi
But I don't see why Ford had to shoot Four Sons in such a blatant Murnau style?
Or was it some form of studio-sponsored promotion job, whether to boost Murnau's career, or prove that a local man could be just as artistic as the great German director, perhaps?

I finally finished the series, and on the John Ford featurette on "Young Indiana Jones 3" was possibly the first time I saw Tag Gallagher on camera. Is this a first? I've seen the featurettes he's done, but always through audio. Some really long hair going on there.

manicsounds wrote:I finally finished the series, and on the John Ford featurette on "Young Indiana Jones 3" was possibly the first time I saw Tag Gallagher on camera. Is this a first? I've seen the featurettes he's done, but always through audio. Some really long hair going on there.

I think I saw him on an Ophuls DVD

Yojimbo wrote:[

But I don't see why Ford had to shoot Four Sons in such a blatant Murnau style?
Or was it some form of studio-sponsored promotion job, whether to boost Murnau's career, or prove that a local man could be just as artistic as the great German director, perhaps?

What makes you think he HAD to shoot it in that imitative style?

Ford was completely open about his unabashed admiration for Murnau's style.. he proclaimed Sunrise to be the greatest film ever made (at that time), and the integration of Murnau's sensibility showed how profound the impact was. I think Ford wanted his films to reach that lofty place where every single shot would be a thing of painterly beauty that could hang in a museum, because he thought that's where all 'great films ' were headed now.

Problem was that Ford hadn't steeped himself in art history his whole adult life the way Murnau did.. thus he merely replicates Murnau in these self consciously arty films, rather than referencing the world of 18th and 19th century art the way Murnau did . It's only as the twenties give way to the thirties that Fords style matures, taking what he needs from Murnaus style and discarding the rest, particularly the hyper conscious pictorialism, which didn't suit Ford's character one bit.

Maybe a good word instead of transcends is strips. I think that Murnau worked like a chrysalis for that group of film makers where he allowed for their specific voices to evolve into something greater than they thought they could do. I believe, for example, that even without Murnau we would have Stagecoach, but that he allowed for it and its brothers to arrive sooner and with more personality. They could have easily turned up like Hathaway with strongly made anonymous pictures, but Murnau was the kick needed for them to really become authors in full.

The Murnau influence still popped up later - look at much of what happens in Lordsburg in STAGECOACH, as well as lots of MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Ford is my "Desert Island" director (this could change at any moment, of course...) But speaking of CLEMINTINE, thanks to Victor Mature, of the famous comment from Groucho Marx after seeing SAMSON AND DELILAH, "That's the first movie I've ever seen where the leading man has bigger tits than the leading lady."

I think I may have miscommunicated what I meant , Dave . I didn't by any means aim to indicate that Ford didn't have a highly developed pictorial sense ... Anyone who has seen his pre ,27 films knows that Ford had an extremely developed pictorial sensibility.

What Ford tried to lift from Murnau --and seems a pale imitation of the great German in doing so--was this excessively hyper painterly style of silent filmmaking resident in Four Sons, et al, those titles from the immediate post Sunrise period .

If Ford is rconsciously eferencing and specifically reproducing actual works of Dutch and German painting and Romantic etchings the way Murnau had been doing with Freund and Hoffman since 1920, I confess I don't see it. There are so many museum pieces consciously referenced in Murnaus films which cause his oeuvre to be an ever engaging dialogue with art history in a degree that even Lang could only approach in a reproductive sense, rather than expanding on the works referenced via a living breathing dialog with the visual masters of the past , a la FWM.

Murnau doesn't necessarily mean Great Shots. Just because Informer contains fabulous cinematography doesn't, to me, make it Murnau -esque. Informer is to me something altogether unique , almost Hitchcockian or Langian more than Murnau-esque... Though of course the influence is there beneath the surface. By the30's, Ford had shaken off tthe vast bulk of that gauzy dreamy patina and returned to a less lingering, self conscious style, and moves things along, allowing the influence to show during moments of high expression and the establishment of mood and place a la the great Pilgrimage . But never again would we see the great Ford touch and flawless intuition buried under all that excessive gauze .

Tuco wrote:The Murnau influence still popped up later - look at much of what happens in Lordsburg in STAGECOACH, as well as lots of MY DARLING CLEMENTINE.

...not forgetting 'Grapes of Wrath',....

HerrSchreck wrote:I think I may have miscommunicated what I meant , Dave . I didn't by any means aim to indicate that Ford didn't have a highly developed pictorial sense ... Anyone who has seen his pre ,27 films knows that Ford had an extremely developed pictorial sensibility.

What Ford tried to lift from Murnau --and seems a pale imitation of the great German in doing so--was this excessively hyper painterly style of silent filmmaking resident in Four Sons, et al, those titles from the immediate post Sunrise period .

If Ford is rconsciously eferencing and specifically reproducing actual works of Dutch and German painting and Romantic etchings the way Murnau had been doing with Freund and Hoffman since 1920, I confess I don't see it. There are so many museum pieces consciously referenced in Murnaus films which cause his oeuvre to be an ever engaging dialogue with art history in a degree that even Lang could only approach in a reproductive sense, rather than expanding on the works referenced via a living breathing dialog with the visual masters of the past , a la FWM.

Murnau doesn't necessarily mean Great Shots. Just because Informer contains fabulous cinematography doesn't, to me, make it Murnau -esque. Informer is to me something altogether unique , almost Hitchcockian or Langian more than Murnau-esque... Though of course the influence is there beneath the surface. By the30's, Ford had shaken off tthe vast bulk of that gauzy dreamy patina and returned to a less lingering, self conscious style, and moves things along, allowing the influence to show during moments of high expression and the establishment of mood and place a la the great Pilgrimage . But never again would we see the great Ford touch and flawless intuition buried under all that excessive gauze .

Schreck, if you're now saying Ford already had a highly developed pictorial sense, perhaps you might reconsider your answer to my question as to why he felt he THEN had to produce a complete film, which was more pastiche of/homage to Murnau than any of his films that I saw, before or after.
(admittedly my experience of his silent era is limited to the Ford at Fox box-set)
If you're accepting that he already had a fully-formed style, then 'Four Sons' must be considered either a retrograde step on his part, or pastiche/homage

And I also tend to relate 'The Informer' more with the crime cinema of the German Expressionists, rather than Murnau, specifically
(and perhaps it influenced later French films, such as 'Quai Des Brumes' and 'Le Jour Se Lève)

Yojimbo wrote:Schreck, if you're now saying Ford already had a highly developed pictorial sense, perhaps you might reconsider your answer to my question as to why he felt he THEN had to produce a complete film, which was more pastiche of/homage to Murnau than any of his films that I saw, before or after.
(admittedly my experience of his silent era is limited to the Ford at Fox box-set)
If you're accepting that he already had a fully-formed style, then 'Four Sons' must be considered either a retrograde step on his part, or pastiche/homage

And I also tend to relate 'The Informer' more with the crime cinema of the German Expressionists, rather than Murnau, specifically
(and perhaps it influenced later French films, such as 'Quai Des Brumes' and 'Le Jour Se Lève)

I'm not sure why I would want to reconsider my answer to your question, Yo.

Just because a person had a highly developed pictorial sense doesn't eliminate matters of degrees, and specific forms of stylization. Murnau is coming to Fox with a very specific pictorial sensibility where shots were endlessly labored over for hours and days and weeks with men like Wagner, Freund, and Hoffman in the echoing, reproduction, and expanding on famous works of art within the highly controlled zone of the studio. Maskings, overlays, gauze, fog, dreamy chiaroscuro, special effects, an excessively sophisticated dialog with art history . . . by the time Murnau came to Fox he was very famous for the incredible results he'd achieved within the UFA, along with his masterful command of film grammar, characterization, metaphor, and visual poetry. The end result is quite simply perhaps the most venerable level of genius resident within any filmmaker fore or aft, and the man ever remains my favorite filmmaker of all time.

John Ford, prior to the arrival of Murnau, had a very good visual sense--one that was very ventilated and naturalistic (albeit well-composed) versus the extremely highly labored over images of Murnau-- but had exhibited very little interest in this kind of excessively gleaming, dreamy, deeply shadowy, highly consciously poetic, swirling studio artifice which had such an "arty", "European" look. Ford was always--pre-'27-- at his best out of doors, allowing his actors and his narratives to breathe against the majesty of location, which was always his favorite place to be.

Obviously Murnau hit him like a ton of bricks . . . and starting with the hugely corny Four Sons, an obvious imitation of his new idol as well as a striving towards the new "high(er) visual art" to which he wanted his films to aspire, his style did a complete left turn andthe influence was more imitative than inspirational. As a couple short years wore on and Ford's own strong sense of self and style bloomed out and over his posession with all that was Murnauesque, we see him integrate somewhat labored over moments of pictorialism at key moments of establishment and narrative peak . . . but never thru and through across the entirety of the narrative, with fake beams of light stenciled on glass overlaying the lens (a la Four Sons), studio fog, etc. He becomes the Ford we all know and love, the master of that great intuitive sense of camera placement, striking visual moments at moments of punctuation, the deft editing, the capturing of magical moments and performance-- the perfect filmmaker for Hollywood's golden years.

I agree that after he got Four Sons (and Hangman's House) out of his system, Ford largely absorbed the influence of Murnau into his own personal aesthetics. I don't think Ford ever got a certain self-conscious pictorialism out of his system, though; it's evident right on through to 7 Women and it's one thing that distinguishes him from directors like Hawks and Walsh. I submit not just The Informer but also The Long Voyage Home and The Fugitive as instances where pictorialism almost gets the better of him. Of course, the latter two can almost be co-credited to their cinematographers, Gregg Toland and Gabriel Figueroa, respectively. The Fugitive looks as much like other Figueroa films like Enamorada and The Pearl as it does any other Ford film.

I don't know if it's come up yet, but Pilgrimage is a film where certain scenes look like a pastiche of Murnau, and others look like something else again. Indeed the first few reels, which take place in a rural setting, seem to be borrowing quite heavily from Sunrise.

One thing amazing about Ford is that several of his most striking shots occur in his very first feature, Straight Shooting, from 1917--indeed the shots stand out not only from the rest of this excellent film but seem to depart almost entirely from the conventions of late-1910s decoupage. (I'm thinking in particular of one shot that frames Harry Carey and Molly Malone in a doorway from a high, oblique angle, which caused the audience I saw the film with to gasp.) One might suspect the influence of his brother, Francis, who had been directing films for five years by that point. But as good of a director as Francis was, there isn't much in his work that equals the achievement of Straight Shooting. John Ford was a natural.