Carving Values and John Ford

Abstract

There can be no better examples of carving values in the classical period of Hollywood cinema than the films of John Ford. His reputation is secure. In recent years, a younger generation versed in issues around ethnicity and gender have enthusiastically turned to his work. Even in the 1970s ‘high theory’ period, with its anti-auteurism and fondness for modernism, Ford remained highly visible in the pages of Screen and Cahiers du Cinema.¹ But his formidable reputation rests on broader characteristics. Studlar and Bernstein speak of his ‘gift for visual composition, his ability to use film as an eloquent, often wordless means of expression, his insight into human psychology, and the vigor of his storytelling’.² But they are also quick to cite Robin Wood’s view that ‘the nature of [Ford’s] greatness has proved difficult to define’. Tag Gallagher has singled out ‘the intricate formal beauty and intelligence’ of Ford’s cinema. But it is also in the emotional resonance of his best work that Ford establishes his uniqueness. Melancholia, death and loss are confronted, rarely with despair but often by way of a broad knock-about comedy more reminiscent at times of low pantomime and commedia dell’arte; and ritual, by which there is an assuaging of loss, a means of repairing damage and a determination to insist on life and mourning proper.