John Ford as an Auteur in Valley and Searchers

                  According to Andrew Sarris, There are three tiers necessary for a director to become a true auteur. The first is technique, the second is a distinct personal style, and the third is a deep layer of psychological significance common throughout his body of works. John Ford, the director behind such classics as The Grapes of Wrath, Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Stagecoach is a textbook example (literally) of an auteur during Hollywood’s golden age. Comparing two of his greatest films, The Searchers and How Green Was My Valley, these conditions are easily met.

                  The first, technological, is easily fulfilled by John Ford.  The recipient of seven academy awards, four for directing, Ford knows what he’s doing. He started off as an actor working for his older brother as well as the pioneers of film such as Thomas Edison and Georges Méliès. He and the art of cinema grew and evolved together. His expertise with story, acting, cinematography, and all other aspects of filmmaking come together in Searchers and Valley. Both films flow beautifully with a convenient bookending both narrative-ly and physically, as well as complex characters that experience legitimate growth. The importance of every aspect of the film was not lost on him, proving that the technicalities of creating a film were firmly rooted in his mind.

                  Secondly, a striking, distinct, and reoccurring style is obvious in Ford’s work. His roots in silent filmmaking never really left him and tend to peek through in all of his films. His camera work tended to stay wide and stagnant. Far from being boring, it allows the viewer to see everything that is happening, giving them a sense of what daily life for these families or characters must be like. Known for his wide, landscape shots in westerns, he manages to use that same style in Valley. The beginning shows Huw and his father, walking up the side of a hill as his sister sings a call of hello. Although not shot in Wales, Ford was still able to create a beautiful landscape and feature it prominently throughout the story. There are also fewer close-ups than some of his contemporaries used. His obvious favor towards the long shots seem to have kept him from getting too close to his characters. In Searchers, dramatic close ups weren’t needed to portray emotion or realization. Even in Valley, the immediate attraction between Angharad and Mr. Gruffyd didn’t need a softly blurred close up to be obvious to the audience. They were simply standing close to each other, both in the same shot, as Gruffyd sang a boisterous song. Ford used body language rather than arbitrary codes of filmmaking (shot-reverse-shot, swell of music, blurry close-up) to create depth of character.

                  He also uses, quite nicely, framing. Physically, his characters find themselves confined to natural boxes or areas within a shot. Arguably the most famous scene of any of his works is Ethan standing in the doorway of his brother’s house. Representing the confinement a social life would warrant him, he rejects it in the end. A similar scene is shown in Valley. After the unhappy wedding of Angharad to the mine-owner’s son, Gruffyd is seen standing outside the church, framed by the chapel and the trees, reflecting on the limits his chosen lifestyle has enforced on him. Ford also tends to frame his films in their entirety. In Searchers, that famous doorframe scene happens once at the very beginning and once at the very end. By repeating this visual motif, he creates a cyclical story giving the protagonist a choice to redeem himself or make another choice. In the beginning Ethan comes in. In the end, he realizes that he’s not fit for the civilized life and chooses, instead, to leave. Similarly in Valley, the striking visual motif is the mine lift coming up with coughing workers time and time again until it finally, and slowly, ascends with Mr. Morgan cradling his dead son. In the end, the exact same scene happens, this time with young Huw cradling his dead father. The similar yet distinctly unique circumstances surrounding the family at the times of death signify an evolution of the family, as it did a maturing of Ethan.

                  This leads nicely to the third, final, and most important aspect of a true auteur (according to Sarris): interior meaning. It’s easy to see common themes amongst all of Ford’s films. Many were westerns, shot in the same location in Utah, depicting the conflict between Native and Whiteman, civilization and the freedom of the unexplored. More so than these common points of tension, Ford often has characters that display a deep fear of change. For Ethan, the Native proved just as frightening to him as the civilized whiteman. Being changed to conform to any identity other than the one he’d been living with for 50 years was his greatest fear. When his niece indicates that she had assimilated to the Native lifestyle he would rather kill her than accept such a drastically different family member. Four of Mr. Morgan’s sons immigrate to America (or at least leave Wales), which is very difficult for him to accept. So much so that they tend to sneak out behind their parents’ backs. When the mine is in trouble and his boys form a union, Mr. Morgan is against it strictly because it’s not the way things have been done. It takes Gruffyd telling them outright of the benefits of a union to begin to soften his mind to it. Although he never truly resigns to the change, he does accept that it’s a fact of life.

                  Ford’s films also tend to feature a deeply flawed protagonist. Gruffyd is a man of God who has committed himself to the bettering of this small village. What’s flawed about that? His sometimes blind faith leads him to neglect the needs and desires of Angharad as well as turn a blind eye to the verbal abuse of some of those in the town whose sins are a little more visible. Ethan has so many flaws they hardy seem worth noting. Neither Gruffyd nor Ethan are truly redeemed from their flaws. Ethan is still a hateful spiteful man who doesn’t deserve to be amongst these people. Gruffyd is still blind righteousness, all the way to the end, subconsciously taunting Angharad with his presence.

A point heavily stressed in our reading is the importance of tension between a director and the work. Only those who are operating within the Hollywood structure (not writing their own scripts) are truly capable of letting their voice outshine the others. In a 1973 interview with Burt Kennedy, John Ford said, “I don't give 'em [the editors] a lot of film to play with. In fact, Eastman used to complain that I exposed so little film. I do cut in the camera. Otherwise, if you give them a lot of film 'the committee' takes over. They start juggling scenes around and taking out this and putting in that. They can't do it with my pictures. I cut in the camera and that's it. There's not a lot of film left on the floor when I'm finished.” Ford demanded that his voice be heard over the others using all three tiers to establish himself as one of the greatest auteurs of all time.