Stagecoach as a Vision and Embodiment of America Michael Forest.

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 StagecoachII. 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.

John Ford (1894-1973)

• A successful director from the Silent Era onwards.

• 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 Aestheticfrom 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).

Characters as Types• 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”.

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

Moral Inversion in Stagecoach: Lordsburg Arrival

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?