Transcript Stagecoach as a Vision and Embodiment of America

Stagecoach as a Vision and
Embodiment of America
Michael Forest
Michael Forest
• Visiting Fulbright Lecturer
2014-2015
Beijing Foreign Studies Univ.
• Associate Professor & Chair
Canisius College
Buffalo NY USA
Structure of the Presentation
I. Pre-film slides
a. Emerson’s Morality
b. Emerson’s Literary Nationalism
c. Wayne and Ford
d. Western as a Genre
e. Some Keys to Watching Stagecoach
II. Presentation of the Film (96 minutes)
III. Post-film Discussion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
• Nature (1836): emphasizes the health of an original
relationship to the natural world in language, thought,
and action.
• “The American Scholar” (1837): emphasized the
intellectual declaration of independence and the focus
on specifically American elements of experience for
literature and philosophy.
• “Self Reliance” (1841): emphasized the sufficiency of
the individual for moral excellence. Extolls the free
individual who succeeds by nonconformity to social
pressure and conventions.
Two Elements of Emerson’s Morality
• The Negative: conformity to social conventions implies
a failure of spirit and courage. Emerson is suspicious of
any attempt to use an institution to gain value. Society
represents a system of repression. Conformity, egoism,
and hierarchy are key features. In short, society
corrupts.
• The Positive: the natural man or woman generates
their power from within and through a connection to
the energy and power of the natural world. Simplicity,
nonconformity, and generosity are key virtues.
First Element of Emerson’s Literary Nationalism
• The Negative: we cannot
reproduce the works of other
nations, the “dry bones of the
past” or the “sere remains of
foreign harvests”. To adopt
another’s way is to deny my
own relation, individually and
collectively. “Imitation is
suicide.”
Second Element of Emerson’s Literary Nationalism
• The Positive: each generation (or individual) must
articulate its own unique experiences. “There are
new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us
demand our own works and laws and worship.”
• Democratic Expression: “Instead of the sublime
and beautiful, the near, the low, the common,
was explored and poetized. […] The literature of
the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy
of the street, the meaning of household life, are
the topics of the time. It is a great stride.”
“John Wayne” (1907-1979)
• Born Marion Robert Morrison
• This character represented
many different elements. One
of his early acquisitions was a
sense of the natural man.
• Since Wayne plays the Ringo
Kid, he is the hero of the film.
His identification with the
Emersonian self-reliant hero
is a major theme.
John Wayne
• This is Wayne in Raoul
Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930).
• In Walsh’s film, his character
is even more closely
identified with the natural
man – especially his close
relationship with Native
Americans (i.e., Indians).
• Wayne represented the
archetype for American
masculinity in the 20th
Century.
John Wayne as Cultural Achievement
• I want to interpret
“John Wayne” as a
constructed
character. The man
who was the actor
was different,
although he later
blurred the line
between his
screen persona
and his off-screen
life.
• A successful director from the Silent
Era onwards.
John Ford
(1894-1973)
• This is Ford’s film and project. He
found the “pulp fiction” story “Stage
to Lordsburg” and set about filming
it.
• Difficulty funding the project. Ford
was keenly aware that he was
elevating a despised genre and had
to fight to get the film made.
• Went on to make equally famous
films – The Grapes of Wrath, The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and
The Searchers.
Ford as Imagist
The Western as a Genre
Traditionally a B-movie genre,
attracting a lower cultural and
economic class, nearly exclusively
male. A “low budget” genre.
In literature, the genre had the
same status until Owen Wister’s
novel The Virginian in 1902.
Ford was attempting to elevate the
film genre as Wister had elevated
the written genre.
Western Conventions
• Opening/Closing Shots
• Indians as Threat
• The Hero as Rugged
Individualist
• The Ultimate, Violent
Confrontation
John Dewey’s Democratic Aesthetic
from Art as Experience (1934)
“So extensive and subtly pervasive are
the ideas that set Art upon a pedestal,
that many a person would be repelled
rather than pleased if told that he
enjoyed his casual recreations, in part at
least, because of their esthetic quality.
The arts which today have the most
vitality for the average person are things
he does not take to be arts: for instance,
the movie, jazzed music, the comic
strip, and, too frequently, newspaper
accounts of love-nests, murders, and
exploits of bandits. For, … what he
knows as art is relegated to the
museum and gallery” (5-6).
• Westerns had
already developed
different types,
such as the “sweet
but comic coward”.
In this film that
type is played by
the actor Andy
Devine in the role
of “Buck”.
• The lawman –
“Curly” – is played
by George
Bancroft. He is
“riding shotgun”.
Characters as Types
Women in Stagecoach
• “The Prostitute”
• Claire Trevor as Dallas
• “The Mother”
• Louise Platt as Lucy Mallory
Supporting Types for Men
• “The Drunk”
• Thomas Mitchell as Doc
Boone
• “The Wimp”
• Donald Meek as Samuel
Peacock
Supporting Types for Men
• “The Banker”
• Berton Churchill as
Henry Gatewood
• “The Southerner”
• John Carradine as
Hatfield
Moral Inversion in Stagecoach: Tonto Departure
Socially
Prominent
Social
Outcasts
Moral Inversion in Stagecoach: Lordsburg Arrival
Morally
Succeeded
Morally
Failed
The Story
• The film is dominated by the story, with two basic
narratives:
1. The Journey: like the Odyssey, they attempt to
travel through danger to safety. Each stop – or
“stage” – increases the tension until they arrive in
Lordsburg.
2. Revenge: like Renaissance Revenge Theater, this
common trope in the western will only be
resolved when Ringo Kid meets the Plummers in
Lordsburg.
Key Scene
• While all scenes from great movies are important, for
our purposes one of the most revealing scenes is the
“table scene” at the first stop in Dry Fork. Notice the
play of social order, revulsion, innocence, and
ostracism:
Themes to Consider
[We will return to this slide after the film.]
• Authority
• Geographical Identity
• Violence
• Race
• Gender
Themes to Consider
[We will return to this slide after the film.]
• Authority : how is authority recognized at different points in the
narrative?
• Geographical Identity : how are regional differences represented?
• Violence : how is violence used as a form of legitimation?
• Race : how are different races treated?
•
What does this represent about Ford? – or about America?
• Gender : how are women represented?
how are men represented?
Another Key Scene
• What do you think was happening in this scene?
What was the importance of the
delivery scene?
What happened in these scenes?