A Wild and Savage Land: John Ford Looks at the American West
In conjunction with the Clark's current exhibition, Remington Looking West, I'll present a program of John Ford films, to suggest how Ford follows in Frederic Remington's footsteps in depicting the majesty and mythos of the Wild West, transferring a shared visual style from canvas to film. All films will be shown by widescreen digital projection in the Clark auditorium on Saturdays at 2:00 p.m.
March 15: Stagecoach. (1939, 100 min.) A mythic success, this film sets the mold for the Western genre, with Ford establishing the characters, themes, and scenes he and others would return to time and again, while making a star of John Wayne. You’ve seen this story dozens of times, but see the original again or for the first time.
March 22: My Darling Clementine. (1946, 97 min.) Ford takes on another myth of the Old West, with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral. With Victor Mature as Doc Holliday and Walter Brennan as the vile patriarch of the Clanton gang, along with Ford’s standard repertory of actors.
March 29: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. (1949, 103 min.) Ford instructed his cinematographer to study Remington’s pictorial style before making his first Western in color. John Wayne is a cavalry officer who longs to retire after Custer’s defeat, but duty calls him to make a final stand against another Indian attack. Victor McLaglen is his trusty sergeant.
April 5: The Searchers. (1956, 119 min.) Ford transcends himself in this searching depiction of John Wayne as an Indian hunter and hater, who travels long and far to find a niece abducted by Indians. But when he finds her, Natalie Wood has been acculturated as a squaw herself, which creates a memorable internal conflict. Viewed by many as the greatest Western of them all.
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