There is no book where you can learn
as much about cinema than through the films by John Ford or Yasujiro
Ozu. When, like Wim Wenders said Yasujiro Ozu was a sanctuary of
Cinema, one can say the same about John Ford. I discovered the films
of both masters around the same time for myself and Stagecoach was
one of the first films by Ford where I discovered that Ford was by
far more than a great storyteller. It is well known that Stagecoach
re-established the Western as an A-genre. For me, it is more
important that Stagecoach is also an exemplary Road Movie. In Road
Movies, a voyage if in a car or like here in a carriage became pure
Cinema, Cinema and voyage became one.
It is neither Fords only great Western
nor Fords only Road Movie (remember his early masterpiece Pilgrimage
from 1933), but it is a great film to begin your journey with the
films by John Ford. Stagecoach as a journey through the
mythological landscape of the American west and this other Road Movie
from Japan, Hiroshi Shimizu´s Arigato-san from 1936, a
journey through a very concrete Japan of the 1930sare films I always
come back to them. They help me to understand a lot of films which
are made decades later. The most recent masterpiece by Aparna Sen,
Mr. And Mrs. Iyer for example has affinities to both, Fords
poetic western/Road Movie and Shimizu´s journey through a Japan
shattered by by an economic depression.
In the critical reception of John Ford,
especially Stagecoach – there is always the stupid misunderstanding
of Ford as a racist. The natives we see in Stagecoach as a threat,
remain anonymous. More important Ford characters, the sympathetic or
the non sympathetic are still far away from the perception that they
are invaders in this beautiful country. In other words they are still
occupied with themselves. The white society in Fords films are full
of discrimination. The true heroes of this film are not John Wayne´s
Ringo or the sheriff, but first of all Dallas, a prostitute which is
chased out of town and an always drunken Dr. Boone. They are the
characters who are really confronted with challenges and they grow
with them. Finally it is Dr. Boone who has to help another woman in
the carriage to deliver a child. It is a very funny but also moving
moment when Boone has to make some efforts to get sober and how he
has to deal with his fear being not able anymore to work as a doctor.
Impossible not to fall in love with Thomas Mitchell´s Boone or
Claire Trevor´s Dallas. Like often in Fords films, the outsiders,
the misfits are often the most important people in a community when
they get a chance to proof it.
As Fords characters emerge during this
cinematic journey, we will see later how Ford´s sight of the
American west will develop to a much more complex one. As it is known
that finally Stagecoach
re-established the western 1929 again, Ford finally also invented the
sub genre we call “end time western” with his late masterpieces
The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and
Two Rode Together. Elements of a more critical sight of the
confrontation between the white invaders and the Natives begins
already 1948 in Fort Apache, by far the masterpiece of his
cavalry trilogy. The first western who really revealed racism were the
western by John Ford. No American director had the courage to use
John Wayne for playing an open racist like in The Searchers.
The cinema of John Ford is finally a
kaleidoscope of American history. The movement from a mythological
western to the avantegarde of the "end time western", And western, by
the way are only one chapter in the rich work of John Ford.
Like I mentioned his early any less
known masterpiece Pilgrimage would have been as well a great
introduction to Fords cinematic universe. Stagecoach was on of three
masterpieces by Ford made in 1939. The others were Young Mr. Lincoln,
one of the finest bio pic in the history of cinema and Drums Along
The Mohawk”. With the exception of Pilgrimage (1933), the 1930s
were for Ford mostly a time of experimenting with different genres
with different influences. With Stagecoach and
the other mentioned films, Ford was finally established as one of the
leading figures in American film history and the next 30 years of
American cinema are not even thinkable without his contribution.
Another
film by Ford will be screened in this retrospective: Grapes
of Wrath, his dark and grim
Steinbeck-adaption.
Rüdiger Tomczak
Screenings:
Saturday, Feb 8 Cinemaxx 8, 18.00
Saturday, Feb 15 Zeughauskino, 21.00
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