516 Stagecoach

[Fortisquince]

Watched the whole film on Blu Ray last Thursday night. No problems. Thought it looked great.

[Minkin]

It arrived today. I played through it, checked supplements and everything is fine (and I used it on a Sherwood that hasn't had any updates since I unboxed it.)

I must say, I quite like the menus.

[aox]

My works fine.

[jbeall]

Wow--what a great film. Worth it for the battle w/the Apaches alone a sequence which is light years better than the comparable scene in Fanfan la Tulipe.

And although this isn't the politix thread, Gatewood was such a caricature of a modern GOPer, complaining about federal debt and complaining about how gov't should be protecting business etc. Or rather, today's GOP is so caricaturish that they seem exactly like Gatewood. But I digress.

I watched the dvd (haven't taken the blu plunge yet) and thought the print looked great. Whatever Wells is smoking must make you really stupid. After this, I'd love to see Criterion get their hands on some more Westerns.

[scotty2]

Gatewood stood in nicely for the GOP of his day. Depression-era audiences were quite happy to blame the bankers and financiers for sending the country into a ditch.

[movielocke]

Watched Bucking Broadway last night. Looked gorgeous in 1080p, a shame so many people think that older, damaged movies shown in HD think the HD 'just makes it easier to see the flaws and scratches." And it shows that the silent ozu films would look terrific in HD even though they are severely damaged. :-p

I also sampled some of the Ford interview. Lying bastard toys with the interviewer left and right. Irascible asshole. "I'd like to ask you about..." "don't remember it." "well can I read you from a review at the time." "No." "I'd like to jog your memory" "I'd really rather you not." *starts reading from vintage review* Ford interupts to start telling a detailed story about what he doesn't remember. :-p

Looking forward to watching Stagecoach, though I may watch a few ford at fox films first and do a chronological breeze through ford.

[swo17]

Watched Bucking Broadway last night. Looked gorgeous in 1080p

It's actually only in 1080i, but yeah, it still looks great.

[John Hodson]

Disc of the year!

It is; the Tag Gallagher video essay is utterly brilliant and worth the price of admission alone.

[Napier]

Did you really need to quote David's whole post? But agreed, Tag's video essays are indispensable.

[John Hodson]

Did...

I enjoyed it so much, I thought I would. But on reflection you're right. Only cut down quotes from now on.

[hudakj]

And although this isn't the politix thread, Gatewood was such a caricature of a modern GOPer, complaining about federal debt and complaining about how gov't should be protecting business etc. Or rather, today's GOP is so caricaturish that they seem exactly like Gatewood. But I digress.

Yeah, he reminded me a lot of the "progressive Republican" GOP-ish congressman caricature in Ambassador Bill, who also hadn't changed much over the years.

I have been watching Ford at Fox, among other of his early works before Stagecoach in mostly chronological fashion, and was struck with just how seamless the transition from his last western 13 years earlier, 3 Bad Men, to Stagecoach in its use of humor, humanity, and gripping action (the stuntwork as well as visual clarity of the Apache attack blew me away). I hadn't watched this in 5 years, and it was like watching a whole new film. John Wayne's entrance alone was one among many standout scenes.

Also, this is the first time I'd seen Andy Devine get as high as third billing in a film. Perhaps the peak of his career?

[Norbie]

The 1968 interview by Philip Jenkinson.

A Classic!

Q: When did you come to America?

A: I was born here.



You'd think they might prepare for the interview.

[HistoryProf]

Watched this the other day and was blown away by how great it looked. Amazing presentation in every way and just such an incredible film. I watched most of the Ford interview and the Captain Ascot piece - which was about what I expected - and then sampled the audio commentary and about did a spit take. I'm not familiar with the fella, but I have to ask if anyone else has listened to it? I felt like he was speaking to a room of people he was pretty sure were retarded and/or partially deaf - loud, slowly, and awkwardly. The content of his commentary seemed informational and insightful enough, but man was it hard to listen to. I sampled a couple of scenes that I love myself, but just couldn't bear it.

I left it in the player to check out Tag's bit but then Football started and I never got back to it. But all in all my experience further proves Jeffrey Wells is a mouth breathing imbecile and Criterion did a heroic job with putting this all together. I assumed the War Trilogy would easily be my release of the year, but I think this one tops it. Awesome. Now if only they'd release MOAR WESTERNZ PLZ!

[manicsounds]

Still havent listened to the new commentary, but I really liked Scott Eyman's commentary on the Warner DVD.

[ianthemovie]

The commentary got better for me as it went on. My first response was "Jim Kitses sounds like THIS!?" After having read a bunch of his writing--he has written a great study of Western auteurs (Horizons West), co-edited an excellent anthology of pieces on the genre (The Western Reader) and has done one of the BFI Film Classics monographs on Gun Crazy--I was somewhat surprised. His writing tends to be remarkably clear, enjoyable, and often funny, overall very accessible, so I did not expect him to sound somewhat stiff and stilted in the commentary. He appears to be reading verbatim from a text (sadly, this tends to deaden many scholarly commentary tracks; the better ones seem to have been done more off-the-cuff). But I listened to the whole thing and got quite a lot out of it. As in his writing, Kitses shows his remarkable ability--all too rare among academics--to make savvy intellectual points in a coherent and entertaining way.

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, March 20th

Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Collection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.

This thread is not spoiler free. This is a discussion thread; you should expect plot points of the individual films under discussion to be discussed openly. See: spoiler rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.

[Mr Sausage]

We're trying something new. The winner of any List project will now automatically become the next film under discussion for the Film Club. And, of course, right off the bat there's a problem: the winner of the Westerns List Redux is Red River, which we've already discussed here. So we're taking the runner up instead, Stagecoach.

Because this was rather last minute, the timing is off, so this discussion will overlap with the Alfredo Garcia discussion and will run a bit short (just shy of 2 weeks). The next vote will start on the 17th, and everything will be back to normal on the 20th. I'm hoping to find a less clumsy way to do this in the future.

So, let's discuss Stagecoach, and give a round of thanks to domino harvey for running the list and for the idea we're starting here.

[domino harvey]

Nah

[Drucker]

I have itnout for this weekend!

[swo17]

Maybe next time we do a vote out of the films that place in the top 5?

[domino harvey]

The point is to discuss the top placing film. It only looks weird this time because we already discussed the top rating film. Why even bother if we are going to chose from a top five

[Mr Sausage]

I think it's quiet for the same reason the Persona discussion was quiet: what to say about such a monumental film? A clear starting point, like some questions or highly interpretive (ie. debatable) opinions to start everyone off might go some way to dispelling that. I don't wonder if the three of us ought to come up with one question or observation a piece before the list is announced, all of which I can post in the thread--give the thing more of a chance at life.

[teddyleevin]

I would love a spin-off TV series of Doc Boone. Thomas Mitchell is the soul of this film and his Oscar is so well-deserved. I'm with this film every step of the way. I don't know what else I could possibly say about it. Have you seen those stunts? The approach to the final shootout gets me every time. The first shot of Wayne. I'm desperately trying to think of something new to say about this one. It's brazen at times, subtle in its approach to other things, always asserts Ford's formalism in the clearest strokes. It's the type of Hollywood I wish we had more of/still had.

[domino harvey]

I always encouraged my students who were interested in taking screenwriting classes to save their money and just watch this and the Apartment instead, as they'll teach you everything you need to know

[Sloper]

This film is so full of good things, but what I like the most are the little interactions between the characters; just small moments that don’t advance the plot but tell you something important. They have the virtue (which I think is typical of John Ford) of being very clear and easy to read, while also being rich enough to yield something new every time you re-visit the film.

When you watch Lucy Mallory’s face the first time she sees Dallas – when the other ladies warn her not to travel with a prostitute – you can see their whole relationship mapped out in the look she gives, and in the way Dallas keeps her eyes facing forwards even though she can hear every word: you can see in Lucy’s eyes that sense of a connection, an instinctive sympathy, which social convention and prejudice force her to suppress. There are several more moments like this between them, until the wonderful payoff at the end when Lucy repeats Dallas’s earlier offer of help, but cuts herself off mid-sentence. She’s remembering how she cut off Dallas earlier, but also realising that a woman in her position can’t afford to give help to a prostitute; and Dallas casually acknowledges all this with her stoic, infinitely forgiving ‘I know’. Just this one relationship between these two women is a mini-tragedy that runs through the whole film.

You can also trace the growth of the relationship between Peacock and Doc Boone, as the former moves from irritation to concern to respect, and again it’s a nice, obvious bit of character development, but played with lots of feeling and nuance by Donald Meek and Thomas Mitchell, so there are always more details to pick up on.

On this last viewing, I even felt a little sympathy for Gatewood and his doomed quest to finally get a little happiness at the end of his loveless existence.

The overall theme of the film is that people naturally bond together, forget their differences and look out for each other, as long as they’re in a situation where ‘the blessings of civilisation’ (to use Doc Boone’s phrase) have been put aside; but civilisation inevitably swallows them back up again, and those bonds of sympathy are dissolved. Okay, not all of them are dissolved, and you could say that even for those characters who won’t see each other again their lives have been deeply touched by this experience. But in spite of the happy ending for Dallas and Ringo, I still think it’s essentially a melancholy film.