Who is up to the task of writing about this film? It wears its contradictions on its sleeve.It encompasses more than one can ever hope to clarify. If discussions about it bog down to "It's a racist film" "It's not a racist film" can anyone be blamed?
The film is so much more than its racial attitudes, and yet those attitudes form the loci of all points of agreement or disagreement about what this film wants to say, or says, or means.
The subject of the film is SOCIETY: the social contract, what holds it together, how an individual situates himself within a societal fabric. How important it is for a society to preserve its unique It-ness in the face of encroaching homogeneity. How all this is a balancing act, a tightrope walk. Is there such a thing as "equality", and how can one determine what that is in the face of so much DIFFERENCE? What does it mean to speak of strata - levels - different kinds of societies existing as part of one society? We encounter so many kinds of difference: Blacks, Whites, former Confederate and former Union soldiers, rich, poor, Men, Women...all living together in some kind of fractious unity.
On another level, though, the film can be read as nostalgia for a time when Blacks knew their place, and colluded in a "special relationship" where tolerant, "humanistic" Whites would recognize the vulnerability of the Blacks' social status and take on the role of "protector". Where this would require the Blacks to freely and happily participate in their infantilization, and where they would fulfill the important function of adding depth or "soul" to all rituals and celebrations. All would recognize the unique commingling of joy and sorrow in Black song, and none would try to compete, knowing full well that this was one domain where Blacks were sovereign.
We see no Blacks voting. Are they forbidden to vote? The film is very slippery on this point. When US, the Black banjo virtuoso saved from lynching tells Judge Priest he'd do anything for him, Priest replies "I know you would, son, but you're too young to vote!". Does Ford think the Blacks in 1905 Kentucky were too YOUNG to vote? Do women vote in this movie? Do you care?
Are we giving the ideas in this movie too much WEIGHT? The movie is meant as ENTERTAINMENT, isn't it? Well, let's look at the long scene of the whore's funeral - entertaining? Not really.
What is this long, mostly silent scene? Why is it so privileged formally? What does Ford want the viewer to get? Something about dignity. Something about the need for the individual to take a stand and - through ACTIONS and not through WORDS - compel a community to recognize and confront its deep - seated prejudices. Ford makes the point eloquently.
But there is something dangerous in this "cult of personality". Judge Priest wins the election by the barest of margins. He is aging and tired. Probably he'll lose the next election, if he even runs. Actual LAWS - WORDS inscribed in BOOKS - are also fragile, and can be defeated and overthrown. But they can potentially give a little more solidity to Social Change, no?
Ford waits a long time before confronting the ambiguity of the kind of personality who operates ethically while maintaining - and not in any real way challenging - the Status Quo. It's not until The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence that individual action (the Wayne character) is contrasted with a belief in the power of LAW (the Stewart character). And where does Ford leave us with this? With a lot of questions...
Ford is very sentimental. It's not very hip or cool. Everything is pushed to the point where a prostitute shows up just in time to see her abandoned daughter, right before dying. And all kinds of symbols - paintings, songs, etc. - connect to this event, gesturing towards the past, acquiring tactile significance. The stoic former Confederate leader is compelled to recognize this prostitute as the mother of his heretofore unacknowledged granddaughter. All of this generates the film's emotional high point.
Ford is often called the Poet of Lost Causes and maybe we should cut him some slack and accept that this attraction to Lost Causes explains what seems to be a preference for the Confederate characters...or maybe we shouldn't.
I love this film. I love its hermeticism. The fact that Ford is so out - of - date that he has Stepin Fetchit babble on in his insanely personal dialect when the entire civilized world was (slowly) headed in another direction. This film might be both Conservative and Radical but one thing it ISN'T is Liberal! No wonder the NYTimes hated it...
It is a work of art. No wonder Ford loved it.
Andrew Sarris questions whether it deserved the care it was given, and suggests that Ford should have treated it as one of his throwaways. Nonsense! Real artists are quixotic, never knowing which project "should" be the more loved one. That's why we need critics. But what am I saying? Ford was right about this one.
The film is so much more than its racial attitudes, and yet those attitudes form the loci of all points of agreement or disagreement about what this film wants to say, or says, or means.
The subject of the film is SOCIETY: the social contract, what holds it together, how an individual situates himself within a societal fabric. How important it is for a society to preserve its unique It-ness in the face of encroaching homogeneity. How all this is a balancing act, a tightrope walk. Is there such a thing as "equality", and how can one determine what that is in the face of so much DIFFERENCE? What does it mean to speak of strata - levels - different kinds of societies existing as part of one society? We encounter so many kinds of difference: Blacks, Whites, former Confederate and former Union soldiers, rich, poor, Men, Women...all living together in some kind of fractious unity.
On another level, though, the film can be read as nostalgia for a time when Blacks knew their place, and colluded in a "special relationship" where tolerant, "humanistic" Whites would recognize the vulnerability of the Blacks' social status and take on the role of "protector". Where this would require the Blacks to freely and happily participate in their infantilization, and where they would fulfill the important function of adding depth or "soul" to all rituals and celebrations. All would recognize the unique commingling of joy and sorrow in Black song, and none would try to compete, knowing full well that this was one domain where Blacks were sovereign.
We see no Blacks voting. Are they forbidden to vote? The film is very slippery on this point. When US, the Black banjo virtuoso saved from lynching tells Judge Priest he'd do anything for him, Priest replies "I know you would, son, but you're too young to vote!". Does Ford think the Blacks in 1905 Kentucky were too YOUNG to vote? Do women vote in this movie? Do you care?
Are we giving the ideas in this movie too much WEIGHT? The movie is meant as ENTERTAINMENT, isn't it? Well, let's look at the long scene of the whore's funeral - entertaining? Not really.
What is this long, mostly silent scene? Why is it so privileged formally? What does Ford want the viewer to get? Something about dignity. Something about the need for the individual to take a stand and - through ACTIONS and not through WORDS - compel a community to recognize and confront its deep - seated prejudices. Ford makes the point eloquently.
But there is something dangerous in this "cult of personality". Judge Priest wins the election by the barest of margins. He is aging and tired. Probably he'll lose the next election, if he even runs. Actual LAWS - WORDS inscribed in BOOKS - are also fragile, and can be defeated and overthrown. But they can potentially give a little more solidity to Social Change, no?
Ford waits a long time before confronting the ambiguity of the kind of personality who operates ethically while maintaining - and not in any real way challenging - the Status Quo. It's not until The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence that individual action (the Wayne character) is contrasted with a belief in the power of LAW (the Stewart character). And where does Ford leave us with this? With a lot of questions...
Ford is very sentimental. It's not very hip or cool. Everything is pushed to the point where a prostitute shows up just in time to see her abandoned daughter, right before dying. And all kinds of symbols - paintings, songs, etc. - connect to this event, gesturing towards the past, acquiring tactile significance. The stoic former Confederate leader is compelled to recognize this prostitute as the mother of his heretofore unacknowledged granddaughter. All of this generates the film's emotional high point.
Ford is often called the Poet of Lost Causes and maybe we should cut him some slack and accept that this attraction to Lost Causes explains what seems to be a preference for the Confederate characters...or maybe we shouldn't.
I love this film. I love its hermeticism. The fact that Ford is so out - of - date that he has Stepin Fetchit babble on in his insanely personal dialect when the entire civilized world was (slowly) headed in another direction. This film might be both Conservative and Radical but one thing it ISN'T is Liberal! No wonder the NYTimes hated it...
It is a work of art. No wonder Ford loved it.
Andrew Sarris questions whether it deserved the care it was given, and suggests that Ford should have treated it as one of his throwaways. Nonsense! Real artists are quixotic, never knowing which project "should" be the more loved one. That's why we need critics. But what am I saying? Ford was right about this one.