Category: 1940s

John Ford | 1hr 58min

In transplanting his usual explorations of tradition and community from America’s old West into a rural Welsh village, John Ford finds a nostalgic beauty in the Victorian-era working class ideals of ‘How Green Was My Valley’. The saccharine adoration of the “olden days” comes with the territory of Ford’s films, though as usual it is also not so straightforward. As tight-knit as this fictional coal-mining town is, judgement and gossip run rife when someone steps outside its boundaries, and there is a hypocrisy to the small-mindedness of many villagers.
 
Nevertheless, the narration of an older, wiser version of our protagonist, Huw, reminisces on the idyllic peace of his childhood in this community, and the strength of the bonds between neighbours which got him through the roughest times. In Ford’s wide establishing shots of the town, people move and act in unison, singing, working, praying, drinking, and playing games like a single, cohesive mass. When they celebrate, the air is filled with hats being waved and tossed; when they hear the mine’s emergency whistle, they rush towards the site in common concern for their neighbours; and when one person is sick, the entire village walks down the main road in quiet solemnity to wish them well.

The townscape itself is an impressive set, with smoking columns, wooden structures, and triangular roofs rising up in uniform patterns from the modest, primitive village below. Gnarled trees with twisted branches line the edges of Ford’s frames, simultaneously confining the environments within which these characters interact with each other, and unifying the townsfolk in these quaint, natural spaces.

It is once the tranquillity and closeness of this blue-collar community is set up that Ford starts to reveal the forces chipping away its prosperity bit-by-bit. The first major threat is the wage cuts of the coal miners, with the ensuing strike only settling after many of them are made redundant. The industrial revolution is well underway by this point, and managers all over the United Kingdom are realising the expendability of loyal employees who demand more money than less experienced labourers.

Paralleling the significant cultural shifts of 19th century South Wales are changes taking place within Huw’s own family. Realising the poor outlook of the industry, Huw’s father, Gwilym, pushes him away from the manual work which formed the bedrock of the Morgan family’s modest success, and down the path of formal education. Even in this polished, refined environment, Huw continues to absorb the rough, confrontational values of his village, engaging in fights with peers who ridicule him.
 
Meanwhile, Huw’s sister marries a wealthy man and moves away, one of his brothers dies in a mining accident, two others lose their jobs, and the friendly local preacher who forms the spiritual backbone of the village is driven away by the vicious gossip of his own parishioners. In a climactic final church service, he confronts those responsible for the private attacks on his reputation, addressing their selfish imitations of faith which actively erode the community’s open-hearted ideals.

“Why do you dress your hypocrisy in black and parade before your God on Sunday? From love? No. For you’ve shown your hearts are too withered to receive the love of your divine Father.”

While so many forces eat away at Huw’s innocence, he continues to persevere in his faith right up until the final, most devastating personal blow. When Gwilym doesn’t return from a cave in at the mine, Huw goes down below to investigate, journeying through the dark depths of the mine in much the same way as his father. Upon completing his mission, he rides the elevator back to the surface with his father’s body, mirroring his rise up into the role of family patriarch, and thereby effectively marking his complete loss of innocence.
 
We learn through Huw’s narration that he has spent the vast majority of his life trying to recapture the kinship that he once shared with his town, and it is only now, decades later, that he is finally leaving. “How green was my valley,” he laments, mourning the loss of an era that saw neighbours share each other’s losses and wins as a community. John Ford’s adoration of bygone eras may be considered twee or sentimental, but it doesn’t make his portrait of an idyllic childhood in Victorian-era rural Wales any less charming.

‘How Green Was My Valley’ is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.

William A. Wellman | 1hr 15min

It is a very lean 75 minutes that The Ox-Bow Incident plays out over, using the western genre as a simple framework for a self-contained moral tale warning against mob mentality. Though the artificial soundstage is obvious at times, the film is never visually flat. Much of this is thanks to William A. Wellman’s compositions of actors’ bodies, many of which are worthy of Kurosawa comparisons in their beauty, and which are made all the more impressive by the size of the ensemble he is working with.

When the small western town of Bridger’s Wells gets news of an outlaw gang killing a local rancher, the men of the community quickly form a posse hellbent on seeking vengeance for their neighbour. Caught up in the company are two travellers resisting the rancorous rage around them, one of whom is portrayed by a very well-cast Henry Fonda playing right into his kind, intelligent screen persona. 
  
Meanwhile, the rest of the ensemble is filled out by supporting and minor characters with their own motivations for retribution. While some are blinded by their own self-righteousness, others simply take delight in the prospect of violence, with one man specifically repeating the same grotesque hanging gesture as he cackles wildly to himself. The suspects can do nothing but plead their case, gradually growing more irritated with the posse’s hypocrisy. 

“What do you care about justice? You don’t even care whether you’ve got the right men or not! All you know is you’ve lost something and somebody’s got to be punished!”   

Wellman continues to layer his shots with strong attention to the character relationships all throughout, binding the accused men together in small spaces then surrounding and dwarfing them by the violent mob. His blocking most effectively works its way into the narrative when the posse take a vote on the captives’ fate, during which seven men stand together in a lonely but empowering low angle, while a reverse shot pans across the furious eyes of the company staring right down the barrel of the camera. The Ox-Bow Incident may be a simple, short morality play, but there is a lot to say about the empathy that Wellman brings to this narrative purely through his thoughtful staging.

The Ox-Bow Incident is not currently available to stream in Australia.

Michael Powell | 2hr 14min

When the much-touted Ballet of the Red Shoes finally opens for Ballet Lermontov, Michael Powell sets us a good distance back in the audience to watch the majestic red curtains slowly part. For a brief moment we might believe we are going to watch a small excerpt of this adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale play out from this angle, perhaps before fading into the bows, or the audience reaction afterwards. What we get instead is a 17-minute sequence of musical, cinematic bliss that may lay honest claim to the greatest demonstration of Technicolor on film in the 1940s. 
  
As the stage disappears, we are immersed in a vibrant, expressionist world that towers far taller than any regular theatre ceiling. The camera moves with vigour, following the young heroine as she dances through elaborate, layered compositions of carnivals, oceans, clifftops, and undefined, surreal nightmares. Forcing her to keep moving along are her magical red shoes, sold to her by a mysterious street peddler, whose long, daunting shadow later clutches at her when she tries to rid herself of the curse and return home. Canted angles, montages, visual effects which teleport the young woman from one setting to the next – Powell is throwing his full arsenal of stylistic techniques at this ballet, pulling us into the mind of both the bewitched young heroine and the woman who plays her, Vicky. Acting out this heightened, fantastical microcosm of reality, Vicky imagines the two opposing forces in her character’s life as the most important men in her own, marvellously super-imposed over their counterparts.

This extended, wordless interlude splits the film into two halves, the first of which follows Vicky and her musical collaborator, Julian, along two intertwining paths of ambition. At first they circle each other in theatres and rehearsal rooms, and then over time their innocent interactions evolve into a kind, tender love. They are still set on their careers, but the sharp words of their strict mentor, Boris Lermontov, hang over Vicky’s head as she falls prey to her romantic desires. 

“The dancer who relies on the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer.” 

Regardless of whether this is universally true, Lermontov creates a self-fulfilling prophecy merely in speaking these words, forcing a gut-wrenching choice upon Vicky. By invoking the Red Shoes in his final temptation, he comes to personify them, setting in motion the same downfall as that suffered by her character. Powell often bridges scenes with elegant long dissolves, and after one particularly warm embrace between Vicky and Julian he uses such a fade to impose the next shot of Lermontov over the top, shattering the romance with his threatening presence. 

Beyond the stage, Powell’s displays of rich colour and theatrical lighting make their way into offices, dressing rooms, and rehearsal spaces, surrounding our three leads in a world of spectacle. There is detail in the arrangement of hues as tiny as the fruits which lay across Lermontov’s desk upon his first meeting with Julian, and then on the corner of the table, our eyes are drawn to a vivid flourish of orange flowers. From here, blossoms continue to adorn almost every interior in this film, with the full spectrum of coloured petals growing in number as Vicky finds more success in her pursuit of greatness. 

As for her internal struggle between lifestyles, Powell chooses to represent this with red and white patterns, splashing these colours of passion and tranquillity across her wide-eyed, sweaty face and lavish costumes. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the same scheme is used to similar effect in Black Narcissus, or that these are two of the best displays of Technicolor in Powell’s career. His control over these very specific palettes all through The Red Shoes goes beyond the crafting of immaculate compositions, as it furthermore binds us so tightly to Vicky’s mental state, that we can’t help but be plunged right into the psychological depths of her pure, self-destructive ambition.

The Red Shoes is available to stream on SBS On Demand and The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes.