I know what you mean. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon has a self-conscious but not pretentious aesethetism about it, especially in its dazzling photography, which won a well-deserved Oscar for cinematographer Winton Hoch. I love those long shots, of which there are so many, of troop movements, or of people just getting around. The scene in the Indian camp in which Red Shirt shoots an arrow literally between Wayne's legs, is tense and convincing; and the way Wayne picks up the arrow, breaks it in two, spits on it, then tosses it away, is macho acting at its best. There's humor in the film, too, none of it subtle, for sure, as with McLaglen's character, and the romantic rivalry between Carey, Jnr. and Agar, and also in Ben Johnson's droll line readings as the scout. The film has an epic sweep that makes it seem, to me, far superior to its fairly conventional story, or rather stories, as it tells quite a few. The ending of the film, with the Indians in retreat daringly runs counter to the bloodbath the viewer might have expected. I think that Ford was saying something about the passing of the Old West, of buffalo, Indian wars, Civil War vets on the frontier, that had deep down for him a sadness that's unmistakable. He didn't want the era that was passing to pass, but pass it did. It's nice that Wayne was brought back to the fort thanks to a presidential letter, and yet this part of the film seems a little tacked on. Ford just couldn't let go of Wayne's character, but in real life we know that men such as he portrayed in the film were indeed on their "way out", which is so much of what the movie is about.
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paulhilts
12 years ago
Yes, Telegonus, you and Chubbs have the essence of the matter, and the historical arguers have missed the point almost entirely. Ford's historical movies are filled with small errors that can be really annoying--as in "Ribbon", when the women are called forward to see the buffalo, and are told how long it has been since the herd has been this far *north*. Whether the action is in Utah or, as I see it, Arizona, the line should be "this far south"--they didn't go to Mexico, they went to Canada. In "Clementine" there is almost no correct history anywhere. What Ford *is* a stickler about is a feeling, an experience. He uses the finest of cinematic arts and veterans' recollections, like an Impressionist painter, to recreate the feeling of the Frontier and the Old Army. There is no finer picture of a place, a time, and a culture that had disappeared by the time Ford was around: the grandeur of the landscape; the separate worlds of officer and enlisted; the unofficial support organization of the wives; the fish-nor-fowl standing of the Indian Agents; the uneasy but respectful relations between mid-grade officers and local chiefs, and between those officers and the policy-makers; and the the rules, written and unwritten, that maintained order.
Col Thursday: It's my impression that presidential appointments are reserved for the sons of Medal of Honor winners (Freely translated--Don't you know anything, you Irish scum?) .
Sgt Maj O'Rourke: That was my impression, too, sir. (FT--Yes, I won the MOH, you horse's a$$, and though by protocol *you* should salute *me* first when we meet, for the sake of discipline and military decorum, we'll just leave it like this. But you can KMA, and don't you forget it.)
Ford is certainly one of the Old Masters of this art, and the cavalry trilogy is a masterpiece to stand for all time.
Clamhilts
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