MUBI

By the early 1920’s to the talkies, the western had lost an entity for sophistication becoming a second-rate B-movie genre. This was prior for western films to be inexpensively made, but also the lack cultural affairs and at the time, the Old West had been declined. The typical B-movie western often contained clichés like the expressions of the cowboy (or singing cowboy) or the simplistic tale of cowboy going after outlaws who just robbed a bank. They were mostly programmers, but during this time paths for big names that were soon to be, like actor, John Wayne, were slowly building a career. It was rare for a western to have a grand epic scope. The 1931 RKO film, Cimarron that won the Oscar for Best Picture is a good example of having a grand scale scope, but it does not fully equate to the characterization or the amount of stereotypes that nearly ruin the conceptual value of the story. It would only take one film to change the course of the western. That one film was John Ford’s masterpiece, Stagecoach.

1939 was the year that Stagecoach was released, it was also the primal year to which Hollywood had made a handful of essential classics, such as Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, but nevertheless Stagecoach broke the boundaries of the standard western to what it truly has to offer. It was the breakthrough for director, John Ford and actor, John Wayne. Wayne had stared in a number of B-movie westerns and was nowhere near the fame that he would he soon achieved before this film. Ford, even before Stagecoach, had made a number of pictures, but this was the milestone of his career. He was one the true masters of setting compositional shots to what stays in focus, thanks to his trusty cameraman, Bert Glennon who won an Oscar for this film. The landscape as I mentioned earlier becomes the glory of the setting, it is similar to what impressionism values, which is open light that gives the picture feeling. What made this film so well done that transformed the western genre were the film’s characters, it emphasized the richly-taste dialogue that focused more on each character’s personality and weaknesses becoming a psychological drama. This was the dawn of the Golden Age of the Western.

One may look at this film as an “ark film” (reminiscent to Noah’s Ark) due to an ensemble cast in this one entity, which is the stagecoach. The characters are forced together on this perilous journey across the vast open landscape. They are a mixed baggage of characters; you have the comic-relief driver, the grand U.S. Marshall, a young outlaw (who is the hero of the story), a problematic prostitute, the noble gambler, the drunken doctor, the corrupted banker, a soldier’s wife in desperate search of her husband, and the timid traveling salesman. Even though the majority of the film takes place in a confined area of space, it is this unique formation of talent that lightens the story as each character shares a hidden obligation for why they travel on the stagecoach, it builds in warm tenderness that are only human beings.

The coach itself becomes the ideal metaphor for civilized society. In some visceral sense, it is set out to conquered or tame the Wild West, especially one crucial element. Stagecoach becomes a visual poem. You see the vastness of the western landscape in subtle focus. The background as many westerns do becomes the pivotal character that ultimately reflects the theme of the story. Stagecoach enables to grab an audience’s attention effortlessly and is mounted with the composition of an orchestrated symphony. The real hero of the story is no question John’s Wayne’s breakthrough performance as the young outlaw, Ringo Kid. He does not admit his wrongdoing or never suggested that he is pessimistic character, and seems in preparation for to be taken in by the authorities. He just stays with the crowed group; perhaps this is redemption to protect the passenger’s from harm’s way. It is one of the early aspects of exploring the human heart.

For me, this is what I would consider the first western classic. It also happens to be one of the most revolutionary and influential westerns and movies period. John Ford not only brings together an action packed story with sequences that puts anything before it to shame, but he also brought timeless characters together. While it’s not his first movie, this is definitely the movie that made John Wayne the legend he is today. The Ringo Kid is a figure that will never go away, resembling the true western hero. As far as I’m concerned, this is more of a start to modern film making than Citizen Kane was, winning the hearts of millions and telling a story on a scale that had never been done before.

There had been westerns that succeeded as both art and entertainment before Stagecoach, but none had been so seamless in their melding of art and western thrills. John Ford’s first talkie was more expansive, more brilliantly structured and more entertaining than any seen before. John Wayne became a major star with his bold and confident portrayal of Johnny Ringo, one of the first outlaw anti-heroes of the genre. Stagecoach was the first western to stress character, commentary and moral complexity over the black and white themes of its predecessors. Also, the supporting cast is particularly amazing, with John Carradine and the always stellar Thomas Mitchell giving especially fine performances.

60 years before reality TV shows were throwing disparate types together and filming the resulting conflicts and interaction, Dudley Nichols and John Ford conducted their own social experiment, on wheels and at speed to boot. Coming in the middle of a Ford golden patch, it redefined an entire genre almost overnight, in a way few films (except maybe Kubrick’s 2001) get to do. The film is a masterpiece of self containment, it could almost have been a stage-play, at one level internal and claustrophobic, but counterpointed by the stunning wilderness of Monument Valley. It brings every human foible into stark relief, the petty concerns of ants across a vast, indifferent landscape.

Ford rolls out a lot of stock personalities, the heart-of-gold hooker, the raffish gambler, the timid salesman, the drunkard doctor, the loyal soldiers wife et al. The cast are more than up to the task, John Carradine’s riverboat gambler and Thomas Mitchell’s alchoholic Doctor are particular standout’s. Claire Trevor is the perfect love interest for Wayne( innocently unaware of her true profession) and being judged not on her past for once. These actors end up virtually defining most of these types for the rest of cinema history. None is more able than John Wayne. It’s surprising that Ford alledgedly said "I didn’t know the son of a bitch could act’ 10 years later, after seeing him in Hawks’ ‘Red River’, but then that was Ford being Ford. Wayne is perfectly at ease in the role, and his natural style pre-dates Brando if truth be told. He was certainly limited in a way a method actor may not be, but when used properly and directed empathetically, there was no one to touch him in the iconic roles. This was Ford’s genius, he was a bully and a poet, an artist and an arsehole. He cajoled, demanded, pushed, prodded, patted, stroked and teased a role out of an actor. If the role was well cast the results are peerless, and here he struck gold.

Ford places this disparite band in harm’s way, the route being taken under threat by Geronimo, so each passenger has a compelling reason to be on that coach. The destination is Lordsburg, and it does indeed represent salvation of sorts for some of the travellers. or release from earthly pressures for others. Balancing expertly comedy elements, drama and action Ford forges a template that is used to this day. His star making close up or The Ringo Kid was a deliberate strategy to set Wayne on to a course to the ‘A’ List, languishing as he had in B films for 10 years, as had the western genre if it comes to that. Ford uses silent techniques in framing and pacing, but not in a way that undermines the narritive, but enhances it. The scenes between Ringo and Dallas, courting in the moonlight are pure visual poetry and worthy of Murnau or Von Sternberg in their subtlety and grace. That he could then move to the Indian chase and shootout in the mainstreet finale speaks wonders of his total command of the medium.

Ford made a lot of non westerns, but like Ringo’s drums, they ‘loom large in his legend’. He defined himself jokingly in a famous Directors Guild meeting called by C B DeMille to confront the commie menace, ’I’m John Ford and I make westerns’… and then proceeded to tear C B a new one. Pretty much from that time onward westerns dominated his output, so he obviously knew a thing or two. He cut his teeth on cheap silent westerns, but here he elevated the form to serious art, utilising every trick in the book such as painterly cinematography, razor sharp editing, well written and precise dialogue. He pulled the genre out of it’s infancy and B picture status, showing that a good story is timeless, and valid in any setting. People like George Lucas would take it out into space some 40 years later.

Greatly imitated, never bettered.