The Western Films of John Ford

The Western Films of John Ford, J.A. Place, The Citadel Press, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1974

"For our purposes, suffice it to say that the concept of the West embodies conflicting ideals. On the one hand it represents essentially antisocial, individual, and solitary values through which a man can escape the implicitly corrupting influence of society. On the other, the West represents a pure, natural, fertile wilderness in which the wilderness in which the society of man can build a new community based on the cleansing, healing effects of nature." (p. 4)

Indians in Iron Horse, 1924

"The Indians who kill Brandon represent another physical hardship that must be overcome by taming the land. At a later point the men are working and singing when Indians come to attack them. The men stop for a moment, fight off the Indians, then go back to work, still singing. But the Indians who kill Brandon are more than simply another force to be overcome. Their leader is a white man who will later prove to be the villain. He is the only one who takes on a personal identity." (P. 20)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
(The Indian agent & his men are corrupt, thus providing at least some sympathy for the plight of the wronged Indians who then rebel. The concept is that older, wiser Indians desire peace but young, "wild" Indians cannot be "controlled")

"Thus the Indians in the film exist in their least complex context-they simply represent savage forces, bringing in an element of danger that remains impersonal throughout the film." (p. 157)

Two Rode Together (1961)
"Ford's own racial attitudes are made clear in the captive boy's insistence that he is an Indian and does not want to be 'rescued'. The boy's feelings question the basic assumption of white superiority. He is not like the women, who feel they have been polluted and cannot return; he wants to remain, and he cannot function in a white society that assumes the people he has known as his own are inferior. The director's feelings are made formally explicit when the boy is put in a cage. Ford cuts between a close-up of the boy, seen without the bars obstructing the view, and his point of view of the white people who, shot through the bars, seem to be imprisoned." (p. 208)

Cheyenne Autumn, 1964
Cheyenne Autumn is often described as Ford's apology to the Indians he presented so one-dimensionally in his previous films. The great nobility of the Cheyenne, the absurdly evil German camp commandant, and the film's outcome, when the U.S. government reverses its decision concerning the Cheyenne, support this idea. But for a variety of reasons, this view is not very useful in an examination of John Ford's work. First, Ford has presented us with numerous noble Indians throughout his films; indeed, in almost every film in which an Indian emerges as a personality, he has as complex and compelling a personality as do the whites. Cochise of Fort Apache is a far more honorable man than Colonel Thursday. Scar of The Searchers is a mirror image of Ethan Edwards, and the intriguing old chief, Pony That Walks, in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is as sensitive and well intentioned as Brittles, though not so capable.

Never are Ford's individual Indians presented as stereotypical savages. But in most of the films, the Indians represent a force that the farmers and settlers must overcome. Indians are presented, not as a hostile people, or even as hostile individuals, but as a mass. Any that emerge from the mass do so just as whites emerge from groups of farmers, townspeople, or settlers. " (p. 230)

"In the very simplest of terms, the innocence the Indians symbolize has become more dear to Ford than the progress that destroys the innocence." (p. 231)

This movie needs to be watched by me