How The West Was Won

 

I have a deep fascination with history. When I write about cinema, I always place a lot of emphasis on the historical perspectives of the film in question. In particular, I have a strong interest in the cultural and historical aspects of the late 19th and early 20th century. ‘How The West was Won’, a Western directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall, is an epic film about America in the 19th century.

The 19th century is an interesting era for human history. It is very relevant for our era because many things in our culture today have their origins and foundations from this particular century. From the modernization of our lives since the Industrial Revolution, to the imperialism and colonialism that would eventually shape our current geopolitics, we can always find the origins from this century if we want to. And don't forget the stunning intellectual development of this era. Thinkers like Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud and Marx have influenced the thoughts and opinions of the modern consciousness. The late 19th century, abound with the presence of brilliant novelists, poets and playwrights, also harbored a happy surprise - the birth of cinema. When the Lumiere brothers showed their first work to an audience – a film showing a train moving forward – the viewers were overwhelmed. Having no previous concepts of anything about motion pictures, the members of the audience were so frightened by the scene that they attempted to escape the theatre, lest the image of the ‘train’ would crash into the showing room. This incident may sound silly for today's audience, who are so well acquainted with motion pictures and television, yet it testified the excitement and fascination of a new art, and served as an anecdote for the future audience to look for the origin of the arts they love. 

John Ford was the grand master of the Western genre. With films like ‘Stagecoach’, ‘My Darling Clementine’, ‘The Searchers’, he defined the way of the traditional Western film. Ford was the master of horizontal composition, and he has adopted the painterly approach to the beautiful landscape of the American West. His classicism also included his preferred use of deep focus cinematography. He has also created the archetypal Western hero, known for his self-sufficiency and high moral standard. Ford has influenced many subsequent filmmakers: Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Kenji Mizoguchi and many more. Henry Hathaway and George Marshall, while being lesser-known filmmakers, were also skilful craftsmen of the art and experienced Western directors. ‘How The West was Won’ was a very successfully film. Not only it performed well financially, it received 3 Academy Awards. An interesting side story is that the success of this film has inspired the idea of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Originally, MGM has planned an epic taken in space, and they wanted to call it ‘How The Solar System was Won’. The project would eventually become the Stanley Kubrick masterpiece in 1968.

The story is epic in scope. It was centred around the few generations of a single family, chronicling the most salient historical events in America from the mid-19th to the late 19th century – the Gold Rush, the Civil War, the Railway and the Wild West. The film is divided into 5 segments and the three filmmakers directed different parts of the film. Since the earliest films of D. W. Griffith, the issue of family has always been a focus in American cinema, and this motif is often placed in a larger social or historical context. The approach is quite reminiscent of the Epic Cycles from ancient Greece poems, where the myth of individual families was placed in a grander historical background. 

The history of the American West has not only left a lasting impression in people’s minds, but also exerted a huge influence on the art of cinema. The cultural significance and dramatic potential of the American West has led to the ‘Western genre’ of cinema, giving the audience some of the true masters of the craft: John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, just to name a few. One can easily observe that the classic Westerns tend to be more simplistic in terms of worldview, though not necessarily inferior in terms of quality – no one would doubt John Ford’s mastery of his art form, for instance. Later revisionist Westerns are often more confronting and they explore complex issues that have been polished away by the simpler outlook. For ‘How the West was Won’, it can be considered as a culmination of the classic Western, with the trio of directors giving their best shots in the creation of an American epic.  

Rivers have been associated with human lives since the earliest civilizations. In the ancient times, the concept of a co-operative community commenced with the formation of river valley civilizations. While the fluvial environment provided conditions for the development of communal and life-sustainable activities such as agriculture, that also posed problems as humans have not fully grasped nature itself. In ‘How The West was Won’ and many more films, nature is often perceived as a formidable opponent to humans. The fact that the characters had to brave themselves through the river signified the impact of the force of nature on humanity. Having an attempt to control nature was a testament of not only of the courage of the adventurers, but also the confirmation of the curiosity of humans towards their world.

The differing perspectives of the people regarding human rights and slavery would eventually lead to the Civil War, a crisis for America in the mid-19th century. The segment was directed by Ford himself and it was of course masterful. The filmmaker was not afraid to show the contradictory perspectives inherent in the war, and the disillusionment the violence would most certainly lead to. The young son of the family wanted to escape from his mundane life as a farmer, so he joined the army for the sake of patriotism. It was when he was in the combat that he appreciated that no one really won in a war, and the illusion of ideology and beliefs have often masked the individuals behind the war, and that was so especially when the young son befriended another soldier on the enemy side. True, in a historical context President Lincoln had not much choices to engage in the Civil War, and at the end a lot of slaves were liberated, yet anyone would ask for an alternative approach to resolve conflicts rather than recourse to violence. After the Civil War the country was concentrated on setting up the telegraph lines and the building of railways. Yet the conflicts in corporate interests have led to a complex web of problems, including the threats of outlaws and exploitations of the weak.

The notion of the American West has led to the important yet controversial ‘Frontier Thesis’ by Turner, which proposed that many national values of America – like individualism, democracy, and egalitarianism – were facilitated by the people’s exploration of the Frontier through their westward movement. The thesis has been very instrumental in the formation of the orthodox American values of the 20th century, and it has achieved an idealistic and almost mythical status for the later generations, where people would view these people from the past as role models of how to lead an ethical and committed life. Yet, the thesis has led to a lot of criticism in later 20th century with a more progressive academic atmosphere. The key limitation of the Turner thesis, though it was certainly a reflection of the era it originated, is that it has undermined many complex issues, such as gender and racial inequalities, bureaucratic issues and corporate greed. Life in the West might not be as idealized and fair as it might appear: exploitation and injustice towards immigrants and certain racial groups were very noticeable issues. These issues were addressed in later Westerns films like ‘The West Bunch’, ‘McCabe and Mrs. Miller’ and ‘Heaven’s Gate’, and they often took a cynical anti-Western tone. 

These issues provide us an opportunity to appreciate the purpose of historical inquiry. One should not merely listen to one single version of history and be misled by someone’s indoctrination. An objective frame of mind has to be cast in the analysis of any historical data. There is no such thing as a perfect system in this world. Be it a concept, an opinion, or a theory, they will always be limited by their design, their circumstances, and the limits of the human mind. Every issue has its pros and cons, and mere faith in a single, authoritative version of history will undermine the critical stance humans are gifted in. To be critical is not only important for studying history in an academic setting - it is just as important for inquiries of all subjects in Humanities. 

by Ed Law 

Film Analysis

Star Wars, Part 2

I have planned to finish off my article on Star Wars with my personal view on the more dramatic and intimate issues of the story. Originally, I plan to divert the attention from another film from 1977, Steven Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ (‘CE3K’ hereafter), as both films curiously are influenced by a great film from the 1950s, John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’. Yet after some consideration, I find that are way more to be explored in CE3K and it totally deserves an article on its own. Thus, here I will only concentrate on a comparison between Star Wars and The Searchers, and there may be some overlapping points in my next article on CE3K.

John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’ (1956) is considered as one of the greatest work in the Western genre. What is interesting is that the Western film has served as a predominant influence for many American filmmakers of the New Hollywood era, especially those filmmakers active during the 1970s. I presume there are 2 key reasons for that. First, the film was shown as the time when most of these filmmakers were teenagers, so this film from the master of Western served as a good example for them. Second, the character and theme portrayed in ‘The Searchers’ seemed to resonate well with the attitude of the 1970s – the ambiguity of moral issues, the drifter, the alienation and so on. It should not be surprising that directors like Scorsese, Schrader, Milius, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola and many others have paid homage of some kind to this film. The plot and analysis are prevalent on the internet, and here we will concern with its influence on our great space opera.

There are always scores to be settled in the family, be it Darth Vader / Luke Skywalker, Anakin / Obi-Wan, or Han Solo / Kylo Ren. I believe Lucas’ original genius is to create this tension between father-son relationship, and the desperation for both parties to get a bit closer. In ‘The Searchers’, the story was about a not-so-perfect male character, Ethan Edwards, who has to redeem himself for his past mistakes and prejudices. Certainly, the two films may be different in tone and outlook, yet in the ‘Star Wars’ movies, many of the male characters have fallen into a state of redemption, as they believe they are the culprit  of ‘screwing some good things up’. They believe that they are responsible for ruining the potential of some gifted individuals (e.g. Anakin, Ren and the Jedi Order), and lead these young guys to the Dark Side and chaos. Thus, they are often consumed with guilt and regret, and in some case they attempt to turn away from the problem – which is the case for Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode 4 and Luke Skywalker. In ‘The Searchers’, Ethan was a drifter from home for many years, and he did not want to say where he has been to and what he has done. He wanted to remain anonymous and retreated from the stress he has got in life. I guess a good thing common between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Serachers’ was that, while the characters were courageous and often were willing to stand up to challenges, they were also complex and realistic characters, and reflected aspects in life that we might also identify with.

Characters who regretted their past mistakes would first tend to drift away to reduce the pressure of it. Thus, Obi-Wan Kenobi isolated himself from the Jedi clan, giving himself the new name ‘Ben’. When Luke quizzed about the name ‘Obi-Wan’, he said with a regretful tone that it was a name people has not mentioned for a very long time. He tried to run away from this identity, as much like Ethan Edwards in ‘The Searchers’. Yet, there was no way to hide, because at a certain point, they would have to confront their pasts. Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and the aged Luke Skywalker have to come face-to-face to what they have done and the dark sides that have often hidden there, and Ethan Edwards had to face his own prejudices against Indians and his irrational obsessions, towards his sister-in-law and daughter-in-law. Obi-Wan felt that it was his own fault to create Darth Vader, as Darth Vader put it succinctly when he faced Obi-Wan for the final showdown, ‘The Circle has finally come around.’ Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker could only redeem themselves while facing his mistakes – albeit through their own sacrifices. Ethan Edwards, after rescuing his daughter-in-law, finally appreciated that there would be no place for him in the community, chose to leave and drift away once more, completing his redemption.  

What ‘The Searchers’ is driving at is the fact that we are always ‘searching’ for something – our identities, our roles and how we fit into the story. As Rey, our heroine in the new trilogy, has put it in The Last Jedi – ‘I need someone to show me my place in all of this.’ You do not have to carry a lightsaber to be able to identify with this statement. It is a universal condition for anyone, and we are eternally searching for our own meanings to exist in our world. While it seems that it is a more pessimistic end for Ethan Edwards – because he was literally going in circles, searching everywhere and eventually going nowhere. It is great to see that ‘Star Wars’ placed a more optimistic outlook in this issue. If one was willing to follow a moral conscience, much like the Jedi way, and exercised with reason when making decisions, they would eventually discover the right direction and the meanings for their own lives. If you feel that something has been awoken – then it is the time to wield it!!

-End-

(2/2)

by Ed Law

18/12/2017

Film Analysis

Citizen Kane, Part 1

That is an old question, that has troubled many since the dawn of humanity. Why does a fulfillment of unlimited wants often lead to an unhappy life, or even solitude? In other words, why are rich people often unhappy? There was once a fictional character in cinema, Charles Foster Kane. He was a big brass in the newspaper industry, he had a large manor known as 'Xanadu', and he literally had everything. Yet, his end was one of lonesome and senseless existence, and with the abandonment from his wife and comrades, he died alone, in his vast ocean of automatons and possessions in his cold palace. The making, and unmaking, of Kane is certainly one of the most fascinating stories about human nature in cinema. This is the plot of probably cinema's greatest masterpiece - Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' (1941)!

What can a 25-year-old achieve? You better ask Mr. Welles for advice! At the dawn of his 25th birthday, Welles was already directing, writing, and starring in his very first film. 'Citizen Kane', his first work, was some sort of a 'Big Bang' for cinema. The film was so innovative and original that it has challenged all the perceptions about film art until that stage. 'Citizen Kane' is always the straight-A student in the world of films. It came out No. 1 in the AFI's 100 greatest films, and it was on the Sight and Sound Magazine's Critics Top 10 List for 6 consecutive times, 5 times being No. 1. It was described as a 'labyrinth of meaning', as the film was so complex that we could always come up with new insights and perspectives when we watched it every time. 'Citizen Kane' is the proudest moment of film art, as I am always captivated by the wonder that Welles can achieve so much for a single film, at such a young age? What was Welles' take on this? Well, he simply stated that the reason why he succeeded was because he knew nothing about film! Don't jump to conclusion about this statement, though. It did not mean that Orson was such a genius that he could make a masterpiece without even minimal knowledge in cinema, indeed Orson was passionate about films! As I will mention later, the birth of 'Citizen Kane' can be traced back to a number of artistic origins, for which Orson highly admired. And to be honest, it was inappropriate, or even unfair, to say that Orson has invented any new techniques in 'Citizen Kane'. Orson did not invent deep focus photography (although deep focus is almost synonymous to 'Citizen Kane'), he was not the first one to utilize montage editing style, and he was not the pioneer in expressionistic lighting. What Orson has achieved, however, was that he had the insightful vision and courage to synthesize all these ideas and techniques together, and the sophisticated applications of these approaches were way beyond mere technical achievements, it actually contributed to the narrative and set stages for modern film styles to emerge. That is why Orson is a genius!

Before we start to look at Citizen Kane, two questions have to be addressed. First, what are Welles’ influences? And second, who is really responsible for Citizen Kane’s success (the auteur theory issue)? For the first question, Welles’ style was influenced by no less than 4 famed directors – Griffith, von Stroheim, Renoir and Ford. Indeed, before the shooting of Citizen Kane, Welles has watched John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) for more than 40 times, as he wanted to be inspired by the filmmaking style. Always an admirer of Jean Renoir, he has cited ‘The Grand Illusion’ (1937) as one of his favorite. Welles was likely to be influenced by ‘The Rules of The Game’ (1939), as the 2 films were so similar in style and themes, although this could not be verified. Another key player was the famed cinematographer Gregg Toland, who has assisted Welles a lot through his first stint as a director. Toland was iconic for his extensive use of deep focus photography, and he has worked with many major America directors throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, briefly before the start of production of Citizen Kane, he has served as the photographer in John Ford’s ‘A Long Voyage Home’, and this film has since been compared to Citizen Kane, due to the observation that Toland has adapted a lot of techniques he was experimenting with in ‘Voyage’ to Citizen Kane, such as deep focus, unusual camera angles, and high-contrast lighting. So, we can see the influences are from all directions, and Orson was able to bring all the positive aspects together into Citizen Kane. In terms of style, the film was clearly inspired by German Expressionism (it did look like some sort of a Film Noir), and Modernism (the episodic, non-linear narratives and also perspectivism in the film).

The second question is more contentious, and indeed it has nursed animosities among many critics and cinephiles. The issue is, whose story is this? This is indeed embedded by 2 questions – who was / were this film based on, and who was /were ultimately responsible for its achievements? For the first question, it was widely believed that the story of Kane was ‘loosely’ based on the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (and some other influences from other big brasses). It was likely because once Hearst was aware of the existence of this film, he prohibited all his newspapers to mention or advertise about Citizen Kane. Evidently, Mr. Hearst was not too happy about a dark film based on him. Some also believed that the film was based on the personal experiences of co-writer Herman J. Mankewicz, or even Welles himself. For the later case, it was one of a tragic irony – because after ‘Citizen Kane’, Orson was marginalized and succumbed to the clutches of the Hollywood studio system, and he could never make another movie that would surpass, or at least on equal terms with his first work.  The second question is important because it very much challenges the nature of film art itself. Through the 1960s, the more radical stance by many critics (e.g. the French New Wave) was predicated on the distinction between artists / auteurs (French for ‘author’, the ‘mise-en-scene’ artist) and craftsmen (the ‘metteur-en-scene’ craftsman).   The critics championed any directors who were willing to deliver their original ideas and styles into their work, and it was not surprising that Welles were among one of the prime examples. To the critics, the success of an artistic film could be attributed to the director himself, so that he was the soul of the film. While we could in no way undermine the paramount contributions from a director, with the exception of the director-for-hire archetype, this notion was indeed one-sided. The truth is, film production is term-work, it is an engagement where different personalities contribute their expertise to generate the final product. Indeed, the famous critic Pauline Kael has disputed the ‘auteur’ idea in the 1960s, stating that Mankewicz, or even Toland, should deserve a reputation, as least as much as Welles. That is the reason why she and Andrew Sarris, another critic in favor of the French New Wave, engaged in a lot of debates and feuds on the pages of the magazines at that time. To me, the quarrels involving this ‘auteur or not’ issue are futile. We should never undermine the contributions by any individuals towards a film, even if he/she is not sitting in the director’s chair or a big Hollywood star. And, the word ‘craftsman’ should not be seen as derogatory, or inferior to ‘artist’. The two types of directors only place their focuses in different areas, and there are so many metrics to measure a film’s success! Though it would be a sweeping statement to state Orson was solely responsible for all the success, let’s be honest to note that he has contributed significantly to ‘Citizen Kane’, as an actor, a director, and a writer. This is the reason why we should admire him!  

'Rosebud.' - such was the very last word of the newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), before he lost his grip on a snow globe he was holding, and most important, his life. No one understood the meaning of this word, yet all the same, no one understood Kane. He was an enigma, which fascinated many investigative journalists after his death. So, some reporters decided to piece together the ultimate meaning of 'rosebud', and at the same time, to construct, from scratch, the personality of this 'Citizen Kane'.

The reporter came to visit many of Kane's closest associates, all under different circumstances. They each had their unique experiences and perspectives about Kane, and the audience's  perceptions of this larger-than-life character were constructed from these differing views. Kane did not have a blue-blooded birth - like any protagonist of the 'American Dream', his life began in poverty. Circumstantially, a gold mine (!!) was discovered where his family lived, so Kane's parent decided to live with a banker, Thatcher, so that Kane could have a better education and a brighter future. Yet as a child, Kane was obviously not too happy about this arrangement, and the hard feelings were pretty evident! After Kane has grown up, he began a stint in the newspaper publishing business, and he was ready to play rough in this game! He got the top journalists, wrote controversial articles about current affairs, and manipulated public consensus and opinions (that IS modern!!). He was climbing up the power ladder, and married the blue-blooded girl Emily. Soon, however, he had second thoughts. He fell to Susan Alexander, an amateur singer. This had consequences - while Citizen Kane was attempting to transform himself into 'Governator' of New York, his rivals were more than content to blackmail him with this scandal. Politically on the line, Kane married Susan anyway, and his ego pushed her to become an opera singer. She hated the idea, and she was plain bad at that. It was a total failure, and Susan was so humiliated that she attempted suicide. She was the prisoner of Xanadu, with the other dolls and possessions as her fellow inmates. She eventually had enough and abandoned Kane once and for all. Kane was furious and he in a sense destroyed every single piece of possessions of Susan's room, except one thing - the snow globe.

'Rosebud', the reporter concluded, was a word of mystery, as no one would ever walk out of the maze of Kane's inner psyche. Indeed, 'Rosebud' did have a meaning - it was the name of the sled the young Kane was playing with when his parents made the fateful arrangements (THE most iconic deep focus shot in the history of cinema). Rosebud represented Kane's lost dreams, the dreams that would never come true...

Next time, we will look at the style and theme of ‘Citizen Kane’!

(1/2)

by Ed Law

13/6/2015

Film Analysis -46