Sunday, February 23, 2014

How the Oscar Winning Director John Ford Screwed Up My Geography...



I grew up in the West. I grew up in the West, watching Westerns, John  Ford Westerns, on top of my grandma's rag rugs, eating popcorn, next to the old stone hearth my grandpa built a bigger, nicer cabin around in the Colorado mountains.
And then I moved to the Four Corners, to where you can stick a hand, a hand, a foot and a foot in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico all at the same time on a large square monument in the Navajo Reservation, not that far from where Ford shot many of his most famous Westerns including his Cavalry Trilogy in Monument Valley...
FORT APACHE (1948)

SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949)

RIO GRANDE (1950)

He made them that fast, preferring, according to the  Ford Wikipedia Page, to "cut in the camera" and keep the control of his projects by handing over very little film to the studio to edit.  

Ford won four Best Director Oscars, but shockingly none of them were Westerns. He won for...

 THE INFORMERS (1935)  a film centered on Ford's homeland of Ireland fight for Independence.



For his adaption of the classic Amercian Novel THE GRAPES OF WRATH  in 1940. It was Ford and Henry Fonda's third movie together. The other two made in 1939...

YOUNG MR. LINCOLN

DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK
Ford's first film in color

Three years, three movies with Fonda. Ford definitely had an ensemble cast of actors he used a lot..Fonda, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Ward Bond, Ben Johnson and Harry Cary. Up at my mom's this week, I pulled out all her John Ford Westerns and joked that if you put them all together John Wayne would be commanding a regiment, be the commander of a fort and retiring all at the same time. 
On the actress side, no one was directed more by Ford then Maureen O'Hara, who starred in his last two Best Director for a Feature Oscars....

HOW GREEN IN MY VALLEY (1941)

which also won best picture the year the US went into the war. For more of that completation, go HERE
Ford used O'Hara again after the war and his work as an Oscar winning director for the Allied cause, to win his fourth Oscar for a Feature in...


 
THE QUIET MAN (1952)

The only Western Ford made that was even nominated for an Oscar was...


STAGECOACH and that had the misfortune of coming out in 1939, which was a busy year for Ford but also had very bad timing. Why, see HERE  and none of John Ford's Westerns earning him an Oscar is pretty good support for my argument.

The man could arguably be called one of Hollywood's greatest directors and I am not the only one who things so, look on his Wikipedia Page, to see all the folk in Hollywood who agree with me, including Capra, Hitchcock, Welles and Spielberg.

But that is not what this post is really about, it is about how John Ford screwed up a lot of peoples understanding of the American West!

I started to go through Ford's Filmography and realized the inaccurate material he beautiful and excitingly played out on the screen for us really could fill a whole book....hummmm, there is an idea, but until then I will just give you a few tidbits.

Two of his films center on the abduction of white women by the Indian Savages....

CHEYENNE AUTUMN (1964)

Ford was not all that keen on making the movie, did it more for money and obligation. He had covered the material very well in  THE SEARCHERS...


which did not get one major Academy nomination  in 1956, even though the film sits on the #12 spot on the AFI list of 100 greatest films ever made.... 
John Wayne returns late from the Civil War, just in time to witness the destruction of his brother's family and the abduction of his niece, played by Natalie Wood.  who he is not certain he should take home or kill when he gets her away from the Comanches...


Problem is, like most of his Westerns, Ford filmed both THE SEARCHERS and CHEYENNE AUTUMN heavily in Utah, which I know well...




Even if in THE SEARCHERS,  Olive Carey, wife to Harry Carey and mother to Harry Carey playing  Mrs. Jorgensen declares...
"It just happens we are Tex-i-cans"
I hate to break it to you....


that ain't Texas and is not the Rio Grande....

its the Colorado River and if I had to guess I would say near Moab Utah, right next to the road that still goes up to the Pot Ash pits.

watch the women of the fort in RIO GRANDE... 

down by the river washing, it is the Colorado, which flows from the West side of the Colorado Mountains and flows into Utah and Arizona. The Rio Grande starts on the East side of the Colorado Mountains and flows down through New Mexico, becoming the boundary of Texas and Old Mexico.

I have never been to Texas, but I have often been down that south in New Mexico, Arizona and into Old Mexico and Apache country looks like this...





full of yucca and many varieties of cactus. What I do not understand about Ford is this is amazing and just as desolate country as what is in Utah. Why not film down here?

Because Harry Goulding, proprietor of Gouldings Trading Post on the Utah Arizona border courted Ford to come film in Monument Valley, where Ford recruited Navajos to play the Indian.

Local story...no cition other then my grizzly cowboy father in law...

The Navajos wouldn't fall of their horses enough in the battle and chase scenes, asked why they simple declared "Navajo's don't fall off." Then they were told they were playing their ancient enemies- the  Apache, Comanches and Sioux and they all started falling off and had to be told not to fall off so much.


From a good fact website about the Tribes of the Southwest HERE you can see reality does not exactly match up with Ford's Westerns. Which could be argued is fine, cause it is just entertainment. That is until you come here, the Four Corner and both teach Native American Children and realize how little of their culture they even have to hold on to, you don't want to take any of it away from them and then you talk to people like me who has no idea where the Rio Grande or the Colorado actually flows through or what tribe actually lived where and it gets kind of sad.

I will clear up one more disconception and leave the rest for another post. Back to THE SEARCHERS...

You already know that is Utah not Texas, but note the Tepee. Forget Henry Brandon,  the actor of Americxan German descent,  who played Scarr because they couldn't find a Navajo to play a Commache.....? I'll save that for another post.

I will leave you with the Tepee- which is made of Buffalo and long poles..... There weren't very many buffalo in Utah or Texas for that matter....so the tribes in Texas and the rest of the Southwest really didn't have much need for the iconic Indian dwelling of a tepee. The Plains Indians lived in tepees because they had buffalo and access to long poles from trees.

The Tribes that lived in Utah, the Utes lived in what are called Wickups., made with what they could find...

The Navajo lived in hogans, made of what they had red dirt and rocks...



and the Pueblo tribes, lived in Pueblos....


Today, out on the Rez, they are more apt to live in a double wide, with tires on top to keep the wind from blowing the tin off and complete with a satellite dish, leaving their more traditional dwelling for special time of the year....

And they shop at Walmart but they still don't fall off their horses very much and there are some great stories to tell here, stories that really happened here in the Four Corners and some very  fine Native American actors and actress to tell them, if we only gave them a chance. Better devote a whole blog to that one as well.

But for more reading on 31 DAYS OF OSCAR BLOGATHON, go HERE.







Saturday, February 15, 2014

The Origins of Smolder...Gary Cooper and a little bit about Pitt



Not long after the first nickel was paid to go to the movies, Hollywood came to know the power of pure beauty on the screen. In fact, before "talkies" came along, that "va,va voom" of an actress or actor was all that really mattered. Most certainly residing in the eyes- sultry yet innocent, a pleasing shape to the face and having an almost Greek statute physique didn't hurt either and no one did it better then Gary Cooper, even with the addition of face powder and eye liner, like he needed it.
Copper smoldering portrayal of a World War 1 pilot....



who crashes and burns in the silent film WINGS 1927, the winner of the very first Oscar for Best Picture.
cemented him as a silent film hottie. He was probably on screen for less then five minutes.
When sound came to movies, many a Silent Film star faded away, their voices no match for their physique, the Greek God like ones, but not Cooper. Raised on a ranch in Montana, rugged and strong, he had the voice to go along with the looks and the rest is Hollywood History, which includes such accolades as he is rumored to have had a "tryst" with Every leading lady he starred with and was the reason behind a few female cat fights in Tinsel Town. I like my propagandized view of Cooper, apparently he kept the Studio "spin doctors" busy, but if you want to read more about it, below are two good biographies.


Coming full circle in Oscar history from a bit part in the first ever Best Picture winner, Cooper won his own Oscar for his portrayal of Sergeant York in 1941....


The above biography from hairpin.com does an excellent job discussing what an Oscar is really rewarding...

"Recall that most Academy Awards do not, necessarily, 
go to the best performance; rather, they often go to
 performances that best embody an ideological moment."
                                                              From Scandals of Classic Hollywood: That Divine Gary Cooper

I am beginning to wonder if that might be the answer to the question I asked on my first entry to this years Oscar Blogathon,  What do you want....Awards or Iconic?

How can we as a society or the Academy not be influenced by what is happening in our world, in any given year? Giving an Oscar nod to a film, highlighting the greatness of a soldier, who at heart, doesn't want to kill, but goes to do his duty and does it very, very well, only  three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor is not that surprising.
The fact that Gary Cooper beat out Orson Welles for CITIZEN KANE to do it ...


I find interesting as that the Best Picture Awards that year went to...


HOW GREEN IS MY VALLEY, a wonderful nostalgic movie about a way of life disappearing, but no CITIZEN KANE, considered on of the most Iconic movies of all times.

But back to smoldering Gary....

In 1941, the months leading up to the war, if we needed to put a face to the soldier hero that was going to win back our freedom and put tyranny in it's place, Cooper provide that image for many of the young man thinking of enlisting and I'm sure many a young girl or old lady were also inspired by his rugged wonderfulness.

Exhibit A...




Yeah, it's the whole hand, face thing... and the perfect jaw, the dewy eyes, the innocent demeanor. Can you say "Smolder"?

Time is not usually  kind to "Smolder", but at age 50 ish, the same age Pitt is now, Gary Cooper redefined himself, as he had from silent to talkies and won another Oscar for the very Iconic HIGH NOON (1952)...


If you're curious, the smoldering Brad Pitt has been nominated twice for Best Actor. For 12 MONKEYS in 1995 losing to Kevin Spacey for UNUSUAL SUSPECTS and then in 2008 for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON....

losing to Sean Penn in MILK....

If you, like me, are scratching your head and saying "huhhhh?", I refer you to the above quote by hairpin.com, I'll even cut and paste it here, so you don't have to scroll...

"Recall that most Academy Awards do not, necessarily, 
go to the best performance; rather, they often go to
performances that best embody an ideological moment."

Brad Pitt's performance was well pretty dam good, as a man aging backwards. Anybody re-watch MILK lately? 

My rant brings up another aspect of Iconic, I think, be it in movies or literature, or art. Those things, no matter their age, that we still have on our nightstands.... 

penned in 1960

 smack on our walls...
painted in 1889
or watch over and over again...
1994
are what is truly great, awards and accolades or not.

By the way, the name Tristan had an uptick of popularity for a boys names after LEGENDS OF THE FALL came out and well before Gary Copper, Gary was the name of a city in Indiana, which Coopers agent was from and thought it had a rugged sound to it, better then Frank, Coopers given name. How many Garys do you know now? 

FRIENDLY PERSUASION...



has to be one of my favorite Cooper movies, though he was not even nominated for an Academy Award and  there is only a little "smoldering" hinted towards when he and Dorthy McGuire "make u"p in their barn.  But, oh, what a wonderful movie, packed with all things I love about Old Hollywood-drama, romance, humor, a strong moral lesson and McGuire beating a Confederate with a broom, over a pet goose.

And supporting my rant, the screenwriter of FRIENDLY PERSUASIONS, Michael Wilson, was blacklisted from the Academy Awards that year for being a not so Friendly witness in the McCarthy trials, interrogations or what you want to call them. 

But back to Gary Cooper... again and the art of the Smolder, which he did beautiful over so many films like MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN and MEET JOHN DOE, that really beckon for a second post on the Origins of Smolder. 

For now, I leave you with this very sweet trio of pictures, that illustrates just how ageless Cooper was, playing with the wonderful Shirley Temple that  the world just lost this week at the age of 85...

from a great smoldering website....Gary Cooper Scrapbook

For more on all things Oscar be sure to visit the 31 Days of Oscars Blogathon host...



for more great posts this week on the topic of "The Actors", next week it is on to the "Directors" and then right before this years winner are reviled, "The Movies"