On 3 Godfathers, Mr Ford and Mr Peckinpah… July 13, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, About John Ford, Westerns , trackbackPike Bishop: It’s his word.
Dutch Engstrom: That ain’t what counts! It’s who you give it to!Don Jose: We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all.
It’s very nearly a record for me; shedding a tear before the film’s started. But the dedication at the start of John Ford’s 3 Godfathers (1948) does it to me every time - ‘To Harry Carey; Bright Star of the Early Western Sky’.
In long shot, a cowboy pulls his horse up and for a moment, in post-war movie houses across the world, millions of silent western fans rub their eyes in disbelief as the rider strikes three familiar trademark poses; clutching his arm, lifting his stetson before resting it high on his forehead, settling back on his horse in an easy fashion. John Ford is saying his farewells to the man who he helped to stardom and in return made him a much sought after director. Harry Carey, a huge star of silent westerns, had died the previous year.
Isn’t 3 Godfathers a peach? It’s a remake of Ford’s Marked Men, made nearly three decades previously (just think on that for a moment), and while Ford brought all the virtues of his silent cinema career to the sound era, this is possibly the perfect example of ’silent’ sound film. I’ll explain. Well, I’ll try.
3 Godfathers is gorgeous to look at, the combination of Winton Hoch’s cinematography, Ford’s unique genius for composition and that spectral Mojave Desert locale make for a film that is just full of beautiful images - lots of shots into the sun, the eponymous ‘godfathers’ silhouetted against honeyed sand dunes. On the current R1 DVD (part of the recently released John Ford / John Wayne Collection) it’s not a perfect transfer from Warners, but it’s damn near.
I don’t quite know what it is, but I can almost ’see’ the intertitles. Maybe it’s because I know the film’s back story, possibly - and I think this more likely - it’s a deliberate stylistic decision by Ford. That opening dedication is not just mere words, this whole production, script, cinematography, score, the whole darned shooting match, is Carey’s epitaph. This is a genuine heartfelt homage to Harry Carey and an era of movies that have passed into the maw of history. Joe McBride, author of the epic, essential Searching For John Ford, says 3 Godfathers has been ‘…brushed aside by most critics as minor Ford… (but) the simplicity of the film’s sentiment is balanced by the sophistication of its visual style.’
I’ll go a few steps further - I think it’s nigh on a bloody masterpiece, a stylistic triumph with a deliberate childlike simplicity to the narrative, an unashamed love letter - as can also be argued about the very different The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - to a cinema that had long gone, but a cinema that nurtured and formed one of the great, perhaps the greatest of, American directors.
McBride adds that he watched The Searchers with Hoch and ‘…the cameraman called attention to a group composition of the family moving onto the porch in the opening scene, taking their places with effortlessly fluid and beautiful movement. He exclaimed: “There’s Ford’s genius - right there.”‘
It’s almost balletic isn’t it? Makes me want to ’stand up and cheer…’
Those quotes at the beginning of this post? Well, for a while, I’ve been resisting the notion, postulated by some, that Peckinpah was a sort of anti-Ford, the antithesis of all the old man stood for and created. I think that’s pure nonsense. I reckon Sam is Ford’s natural successor in many ways - those lines, from The Wild Bunch, kind of sum up 3 Godfathers, and the richness, the depth of Peckinpah’s work emulates Fords (I may be struggling, but I also think there’s a link with the repeated use of ‘Let’s go!’ in the ‘Bunch’ with The Searchers; go on, mark me as a fool).
Mr Ford a true giant of American Cinema? I reckon…
Comments»
For years, “3 Godfathers” was considered a failure both by Ford fans and the general critical community - Leslie Halliwell, who one would have expected to be generous to a film of this period, calls it Ford’s worst film. But I think it’s quite charming. Not perhaps a masterpiece but a fascinating fable which looks quite stunning.
I’ve always thought of the Ford/Peckinpah relationship as similar to that found in music. Look at Elvis and then the Rolling Stones, the Stones weren’t anti Elvis, they had great respect for him and his music, but were just taking it to another, more extreme level. Without The Searchers there wouldn’t have been a Wild Bunch, Peckinpah was a director who drew from the roots of the western to create something new and original. There’s no better example of his respect for the westerns of the past than the casting of Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in Ride the High Country.
As for 3 Godfathers I’d have said it was middle of the road Ford but certainly not his worst (that would be Donavan’s Reef and even that is deeply enjoyable for any Wayne fan) although I’ll have to reassess it after watching the new DVD release.
That’s my favourite scene (and line) from The Wild Bunch by the way.
(Almost) completely unrelated but having watched Assault on Precinct 13 again recently I couldn’t help but wonder is Austin Stoker’s character Ethan Bishop was named after Ethan Edwards and Pike Bishop. It’s hard to believe it’s a coincidence.
Indeed.
Watch ‘3 Godfathers’ again, from the perspective I suggested, and then come back and tell me what you think?