1) Relate what was discussed in
class or the text to the screening.
In class, we learned
that the greatest time period for movie making in the United States was between
1939 and 1941. Not only was the studio system thriving, the movies created
during this time were both serious and ambitious. Prominent movies released at
this time include Citizen Kane, The Wizard
of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Gone With The Wind and John Ford’s
1939 film, Stagecoach.
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| The Wizard of Oz |
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| Wuthering Heights 1939 |
Ford was a renowned
director who won Academy Awards for four of his films from 1935 to 1952. His
movies were famous for being Westerns as well as using militaristic and
social/protest films. When Stagecoach was
in production, Westerns were out of favor and considered B-list entertainment.
Ford was told that the movie would ruin his career and his choice of John Wayne
to star was heavily opposed by producers. Wayne had only appeared in B-movies
up until that point. Stagecoach was
his breakout role. After starring in this film, Wayne was considered a
legitimate actor and won an Oscar years later for his performance in True Grit. Ford and Wayne worked
together 24 times. Along with propelling Wayne career forward, Stagecoach also promotes the Western
genre to A-movie status.
The film, set in 1880,
takes place on a journey from the town of Tonto to Lordsburg where the characters
encounter societal prejudice, love and suspenseful adventure in the form of an
attack by Apache Indians led by the infamous Geronimo. The titular stagecoach is
a metaphor for society. Laws must be upheld for the greater good, and yet
people exist who carry a just law within themselves.
Ford was an Irish
Catholic and often infused his values into the pictures he made. These include
admiration for family, home, law, decency, democracy and religion. While Ford
had faith in people, he did not believe in institutions, such as banks, as evidenced
by the negative portrayal of the banker in Stagecoach.
He employed visual imagery, rather than relying on a lot of dialogue and
showcased the frontier as a metaphor for human spirit.
Stagecoach
was structured to include four main action scenes, as well as four scenes of
character interaction. The characters come from vastly different social
classes, and when forced to share a small space, display or are victim to
prejudicial behavior. Recurring themes present in the film are greed, shame, alcoholism,
revenge and redemption.
Stagecoach has
had a lasting effect on Hollywood and is one of the most highly regarded and
imitated films in history. One memorable scene in particular comes when Wayne’s
character, the Ringo Kid (in this scene doubled by a stunt actor) performs the
extremely dangerous feat of jumping from horse to horse as they thunderously
gallop during the Indian attack. Orson Welles is also said to have viewed this
movie about forty times while making Citizen
Kane. Stagecoach was nominated for several Academy Awards, and won two for
Best Score and Best Supporting Actor for Thomas Mitchell who portrayed the
drunken but kindhearted Doc Meade. Despite being released seventy-five years
ago, Stagecoach has a legacy that
continues to endure. (Londino, "John
Ford & Stagecoach)
2) Find a related article and
summarize the content. (on
the film, director, studio, actor/actress, artistic content, etc.) You can
use the library or the internet. Cite
the article or copy the url to your journal entry. Summarize in your own
words the related article but do not plagiarize any content.
John Ford first came across the story for Stagecoach after reading it in a
magazine called Collier’s. Though he
felt the story wasn’t well-developed, he found the characters to be good and
bought it for around $2500. Ford tried selling the story to the film studios,
but none of them were interested as it was a Western. Eventually, Ford received
a call from producer Walter Wanger, who was contracted to make one more film
for United Artists. Wanger liked the story and envisioned it as a film starring
Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich. Ford disagreed due to the cost such
high-profile stars would demand, saying “This is the kind of picture you have
to make for peanuts.” He recommended B-movie actor John Wayne instead. Wanger
let Ford cast the picture as he pleased.
Ford was inspired to shoot in Monument Valley, Utah
after he had driven through it and thought the dry lake would be the perfect
setting for the Indian attack. Because camera cars didn’t exist yet, Ford and
his crew attached a camera to an automobile and “shot on the run” as the horses
galloped at 40 miles per hour. Though many critics have questioned why the
Indians didn’t just shoot the horses, Ford always replied the same way, that
that would have been the end of the movie.
The end shoot-out had been done by Ford previously in
some of his silent Westerns with Harry Carey and Tom Mix, but never in one of
his talkies. He was stirred by memories of his friend Wyatt Earp telling him, “I’m
not a dead shot. I always walked up pretty close to the other fellow before I
fired. I shot people in the shoulder or in the leg, but I never killed them. I
left that to my partner.” Four days worth of production was shot on location
with the rest being done on the Goldwyn lot. The film was shot as the script
was written. Ford was able to make the film for $222,000 with the end product
being $8000 under budget.
After Stagecoach
was shot, Ford himself worked with the film cutter. Once the film was cut
together, Wanger invited some of the top producers in the industry to view it.
Samuel Goldwyn recommended the film be reshot in color while Douglas Fairbanks
Jr. believed that the chase scene was far too long. Producers at RKO called it
a “B picture” and referred to it as “all right but still a Western.” Then, once
the movie was released, it was a dark horse success and ushered in a new era of
Westerns in cinema. Ford didn’t watch Westerns but loved to make them. He
enjoyed being on location with his friends who were stuntmen, eating good food
and enjoying “a great life.”
One day during production, it began to snow. Rather
than losing precious time, Ford insisted on shooting, capturing some of the most
striking visuals in the film in the process. He added in the line, “I took the
high road, because the Apaches don’t like snow,” to keep up the continuity.
There was no friction on set and the crew respected Ford because they knew he
used what he shot. Whenever Ford asked for something, no matter how impossible
it seems, the end result always worked. Actors would stay on set on their days
off just in case Ford came up with something “plum” for them to do.
Ford was protective over his crew. He didn’t abuse
stuntmen, which was common practice at the time, instead trusting their judgment
and aligning the camera with where they said they were going to fall. He would
end shooting at five or six each day and allow breaks for the actors to have
tea. He was also tough on John Wayne, despite having championed him for the
lead role, making him repeat the same scenes again and again. Because each
scene was a short fragment of the story, the actors couldn’t envision the full
dramatic effect of the story but knew that Ford had it all worked out in his
mind.
When Stagecoach
previewed at the Village Theater in Westwood, the audience reacted wildly,
screaming, standing, yelling and cheering. Only John Ford had the guts to have
the big Indian chase and follow it with Ringo’s vengeance against the men who
killed his father and brother. Every other director would have ended the movie
at the chase. Ford’s courage paid off and the rest is Hollywood history.
3) Apply the article to the film screened in
class. How did the article support or change the way you thought about
the film, director, content, etc.?
While I enjoyed watching
Stagecoach in class, this article
gave me a deeper appreciation for the film. The article featured the
perspectives of many people who had actually worked on the film, including John
Wayne, Claire Trevor and John Ford himself so it was interesting to get
firsthand accounts of what it was truly like to live through the making of one
of the most revered pictures in cinema history.
I also enjoyed learning
about how the cast and crew felt about Ford after having worked under him. Despite
having brilliant artistic visions and knowing exactly what he wanted in his
films, Ford could still be reasonable and put trust in his employees, which was
nice to hear and a bit surprising. Many of the cast and crew seemed to be somewhat
in awe of Ford, which after hearing his methods and learning of his great
success as a director, is easy to understand.
This article made me not
only value the hard work and determination that went into making Stagecoach, but also made me take into
account the genius of John Ford, especially considering he is a director I was
mostly unfamiliar with before taking this class. I now see Ford as a true
visionary and a risk-taker and I look forward to seeing more of his work.
4) Write a critical analysis of the film, including your personal opinion,
formed as a result of the screening, class discussions, text material and
the article. I am less interested in whether you liked or disliked a
film, (although that can be part of this) than I am in your understanding
of its place in film history or the contributions of the director.
John Ford’s Stagecoach has contributed to culture in
numerous ways. Not only did it revitalize interest in the at-the-time-B-movie
genre; the Western, it also it the movie that made the now iconic John Wayne a
star. Wayne’s introduction to both this film and the world is like none other
in cinema history and probably will never be matched. When the camera focuses
on him as he spins his rifle and looks to the screen, it’s almost strange to
believe that he could very be considered wrong for the part of the Ringo Kid.
Even the setting itself can
be considered a character in its own right. The harsh unyielding desert that
casts not only dust but even an unlikely fall of snow of the cast as they
traverse to Lordsburg illuminates the realities of what it really was like to
travel back in the 1880’s and paints a stunning visual for audiences who could
otherwise never have imagined such conditions.
Beyond this, the
characters themselves have left their mark on history, even if not by name. For
instance; Dallas, as the original hooker with a heart of gold, now an
often-used movie trope, Mrs. Malory as the “proper” lady who is bound by
societal expectations or even the Ringo Kid himself, who while a gunslinger and
an escapee from prison, is a heroic and even romantic figure that kids can look
up to. While some points of the film have now become cliché, Stagecoach did it first and undoubtedly,
did it better.
Stagecoach was
the dark horse when it came to films released in 939. Producers and studio
leader balked at the idea of this film doing well successfully and called it
another B-movie Western that no one would care about. They could never have
been more wrong. Not only did Stagecoach
secure seven Academy Award nominations, it won two against extremely stiff
competition. Not only that, but years later in 2008, Stagecoach was names one of the ten best Western films of all time
by the American Film Institute. Clearly, Stagecoach
has earned the adulation and respect it receives and will continue to serve
as inspiration for upcoming generations of filmmakers.
CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM
1) (x) I
have not handed in this assignment for any other class.
2) (x) If
I have reused any information from other papers I have written for other
classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.
3) (x) If
I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used
indentation and citation within the text.
4) (x) I
have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the
bibliography in the text of the paper.
5) (x) I
have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.
6) (x) I
have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in
another way. I cited the sources within the paper and in the bibliography.
7) (x) I
did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or
originality.
8) (x) I
checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the
research and ideas used in my paper.
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