John Ford's 1926 film was his final western until 1939's Stagecoach. The story is about 3 outlaws taking care of a young woman after her father dies. The film has lots of corny comedy relief from the bad men but it also shows Ford's continuing development as a visual artist. One shot in particular is copied and used as the closing shot of The Searchers.
Ford is now carefully placing his characters against strong scenic backdrops to contribute to the visual flow of his films. By 1929, sound finally does away with silent film technique and it will take until 1935 for Ford to regain control of the visual aspects of his films and move away from the static early talkies.
For large scale epic film making the land rush sequence is something to see. The amount of preproduction work involved in this sequence must have been considerable. As usual this type of ambitious sequence is even more impressive when you consider that it was all actually staged without any kind of optical trickery. Stuntmen fly through the air, wagons crash and in one amazing sequence a baby is literally placed in front of a galloping row of wagons and horses. Try getting away with that today.
Ford said that silent films were much harder work than sound films and after watching something like this you can see why. An impressive achievement with efficient story telling, the film runs about 90 minutes.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment