The new Sight and Sound rounds up a group of film critics who weigh in on the works of criticism that have had the greatest impact on them. Michael Atkinson picks David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film and gives an account of it that few would take exception to. He concludes, “Thomson leaves footprints on your critical faculties, whether you agree with him or not. All the same, I can hardly understand how any cinephile can still hold the view that John Ford is one of the greatest film-makers after reading this torching:”
And here’s the Thomson passage cited:
…Ford’s male chauvinism believes in uniforms, drunken candor, fresh-faced little women (though never sexuality), a gallery of supporting players bristling with tedious eccentricity and the elevation of these random prejudices into a near political attitude – thus Ford’s pioneers talk of enterprise but show narrowness and reaction. Above all, his characters are accepted on their own terms – the hope of every drunk – and never viewed critically… ‘The Quiet Man’ is an entertainment for an IRA club night, the cavalry films as much endorsements of the military as the wartime documentaries, and ‘My Darling Clementine’ nostalgia for a world and code that never existed. The Ford philosophy is a rambling apologia for unthinking violence later disguised by the sham legends of old men fuddled by drink and glory.
Since you sort-of asked, Michael, here’s how. It’s real easy.
Without even taking into account the inverted prigishness of Thomson’s faux-PC concern-trolling (“male chauvinism” is nice; “the hope of every drunk,” even nicer), his reduction of Ford’s world is both glib and inaccurate. Fort Apache neither endorses or condemns the cavalry. Ford’s pioneers “talk of enterprise”? Where, exactly? Cite me a speech about “enterprise” in any damn Ford film. Narrowness and reaction are hallmarks of a more than a few of his characters, yes…and so what? Also note the works Thomson’s writing about—or not writing about, as there are only two actually cited—could, as far as his descriptions are concerned, just as well be radio plays as films. (That invocation of the IRA is priceless, by the way. What, did Thomson let Ian Paisley make suggestions on the manuscript?)
But what’s most interesting about the passage is what it omits. Put Thomson’s dots together and what emerges is a cocktail party dilettante’s version of Ford. The Ford described by Thomson is not the Ford who made such works as The Iron Horse, Four Sons, Pilgrimage, Young Mr. Lincoln, or, for that matter, The Fucking Grapes of Wrath. I’m not suggesting that Thomson hasn’t seen those films. I am suggesting that not incorporating them into his critical, shall we say, synthesis, smacks of active malice, not to mention bad faith. So there you have it.
Here’s Atkinson’s head-smacking review of My Darling Clementine (in which he does recognize Grapes), and the reason I no longer read him: http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=182379&mainArticleId=184253. Good way for TCM to preserve classic movies…
“I’m a liberal democrat.” – John Ford, 1966.
http://books.google.com/books?id=DZpcqUIiFXMC&printsec=frontcover#PPA104,M1
In the previous interview there are mentions of Balzac and Remington, this–
“I hate the spirit of the South and I can’t talk about it…”
this–
“What do you talk about with your friends?”
“Baseball and sex. Mostly baseball.”
this–
“I hate Hemingway. Faulkner isn’t bad.”
–and so on. The later films provide an easy rebuttal too. The Horse Soldiers, Liberty Valance (which doesn’t exactly “disguise” the legend), Seven Women…How is Ethan Edwards accepted by anyone, except momentarily as a necessary evil? Hell, Ford’s characters barely accept themselves…
I’ve always resisted Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film.
More than Sarris and his “Notes on the Auteur Theory,” Thomson’s organization of Film (not movies) always struck me as so rigid that it flew in the face of critical analysis and discussion.
Sarris has always been willing to admit there are exceptions to everything. Not Thomson.
I read that passage and honestly I can refute it with two words:
“The Searchers.”
Glenn, I think you overlooked one signal of concern-troll bad faith in the quote from Thomson’s Ford entry – namely, the implication that “endorsements of the military” are enough in and of themselves to put a filmmaker beyond the pale. I think it’s unquestionable that Ford had a fascination with the military life: its codes, its protocols, its status as a subculture misunderstood by the public at large (see especially She Wore… for that). But partly because no other American filmmaker was so interested in figuring out how it worked (leaving aside the Preminger of In Harm’s Way), that’s one of the things I value in him. So sue me.
Really, I’ve never understood why anyone ever read Thomson. Just check almost whoever in his Dictionary, from Ford to Nick Ray, or whatever, old or new, American or European. At best, it’s a useless blurb.
Miguel Marías
No sexuality in Ford? Wayne’s embrace of O’Hara in the storm in QUIET MAN is one of the most erotic moments in the American films of the studio era.
Don’t forget their love scenes in RIO GRANDE either, which are about as drenched in thwarted, middle-aged marital lust as it gets. Not to mention how blatantly sexualized Ethan’s pathology is in THE SEARCHERS – maybe not a great advertisement for Eros, but not sexless by a long shot.
I like how, in bringing up The Quiet Man, Thomson avoids the actually valid complaint (it’s a rather laughably sexist retooling of Bill Shakespeare’s already-sexist Taming of the Shrew), and opts for some nonsense offhand remark about the IRA. I actually love Ford’s vision of an idyllic/cartoony Ireland that never existed, though I have to slap my forehead and tug my collar at the dated gender politics. The Quiet Man is beautiful in a number of ways but it’s the only major Ford film that, in this hot bodybuilder’s opinion, has not aged well at all.
Also, re: MDC, “nostalgia for a world and a code that never existed” … well, yes. That’s kind of the whole fucking point, ain’t it? Ford was a world-builder. If Thomson doesn’t want to hang out in those worlds, it’s his loss.
I love reading the Biographical Dictionary. Agreeing with it is entirely beside the point.