Came across this reprint of an article Peter Bogdanovich (before becoming a director) wrote about John Ford, one of my favorite directors, for the April 1964 edition of Esquire.
Bogdanovich perfectly captures Jimmy Stewart's speech pattern here:
“I love ’im. That’s ... that’s first of all,” he began. “And that is, of course, intermixed with respect and….” He pursed his lips and nodded twice. “Admiration.” Stewart leaned forward in his chair. “He’s just ... he’s a genius. The way he’ll do a script. Gets it across visually. Hates talk. I just wish there were more people like him.” Stewart shook his head and pursed his lips. “Everybody’s always talkin’ about the Ford stock players, y’know.... I think it’s a helluva good idea! Wish everybody’d do it. The people know how to work together. They don’t have to … each film doesn’t have to be the first time. And a lotta directors … y’know … it’s a barrel a laughs on the set and ya have fun and … and then you see the picture and you say, ‘Where is it? Where’s the….’ But Ford gets it on the screen. And he’s a real leader. I think he is the best man doing the job.” He nodded vehemently.
Some other excerpts:
Monument Valley lies within the Navajo Indian Reservation, straddling the Arizona-Utah state line. The red cathedral-like buttes and mesas that form its landscape were created by erosion and are named for their shapes: The Mittens, The Big Hogan, Three Sisters; from minute to minute the shadows change their appearance. There is a timelessness to the country that makes it as remarkable a natural wonder as the Grand Canyon, but far more dramatic. John Ford has made several movies there, the most recent of which is Cheyenne Autumn, which tells a true story of the heroic flight of three hundred Cheyenne men, women and children from an Oklahoma reservation (where, because of neglect, they faced death from starvation and disease) to their native Yellowstone country, some fifteen hundred miles away. Pursued all the way by the Cavalry, only eighty survived to see their homeland.
Harry Goulding, the tall, aging Westerner who owns the lodge in Monument Valley, was standing nearby, watching. He shook his head once and spoke with a deep Western twang. “Certainly is somethin’, isn’t it,” he said quietly. Goulding was the person who first introduced John Ford to the valley, in 1938 when the director was searching for a location on which to film Stagecoach. “I didn’t know if I was goin’ inta the studio or inta the jail,” he said, grinning shyly. “The Navajos’d been hit pretty bad by the Depression an’, by God, if an Indian’d walked into our store an’ put a dollar on the counter, why Mrs. Goulding an’ I’d a fainted.” He shook his head. “So I got inta the studio and I showed a whole stack a pictures to Mr. Ford an’ three days later there was a score a jobs for the Navajos and a lotta lives was saved.” He took off his hat, ran his hand over his head, and replaced the hat. “Then you heard ’bout the Hay Lift,” Goulding went on. “In 1949, just after Mr. Ford’d finished shootin’ She Wore a Yellow Ribbon here, we had a blizzard that left the valley covered with ’bout twelve feet a snow. Army planes dropped food in. Thanks to that an’ the hundred fifty-two hundred thousand dollars he’d left behind, why, another tragedy was prevented.” Goulding looked off across the river. “An’ this year, he heard his friends was gonna have too little t’eat, an’ here he is again.”
“Now this thing,” he said, nodding at the script of Cheyenne Autumn lying on the table. “I’ve wanted to make this for a long time. Y’know. I’ve killed more Indians than Custer, Beecher and Chivington put together.” He raised his arm and pulled the sleeve down again. “People in Europe always wanta know about the Indians. They just see them ride by, or they’re heavies. I wanted to show what they were like. I like Indians very much,” he said warmly. “They’re ... they’re a very moral people. They have a literature. Not written. But spoken. They’re very kindhearted. They love their children and their animals. And I wanted to show their point of view for a change.” Ford pulled down on his cheeks. “S’amazing....” He paused. “It is amazing, working with them, how quickly they catch on despite the language barrier.” He rubbed his mouth with the handkerchief.
The article is packed with captivating stories about a talented man who liked to make things difficult and enjoyed it all the while.
No comments:
Post a Comment