I watched Stagecoach for the first time about three weeks ago and found it to be an absolutely spectacular film. Much of what makes the film great has become passé or cliche now, unfortunately. Just briefly, some elements that makes it great: complex character interaction between the ensemble cast, it's an action movie with very little real action--the focus is on the characters instead, the cinematography is brilliant and iconic, there's a real sense of danger, the acting is very good (much better than many would probably give it credit).
Some examples of these:
1. Just the way each character is introduced to all of us, Ford doesn't use fancy camera work, but he tracks along the town and gives us a sense of its space, as well as the interaction they have with the town. Very briefly and extremely elegantly we're shown all the unique characters (save John Wayne) that the film will focus on for the rest of the film, and we have a very good idea already about how these characters will act and react to each other. To put it bluntly, the opening sequence of Stagecoach seems to have had an absolutely enormous impact on Akira Kurasawa, and while he perfected the recruitment-of-a-team sequence in Seven Samurai, Ford did it earlier, nearly as well, and kept it from seeming like a recruitment sequence. Later on the full dynamics of the group first explods brilliantly (this is the scene when The Kid says "I guess you can't break out of prison and into society in the same week", the interpersonal dynamics of this scene is only surpassed by the sequence at the second stop where the child is born and many other things happen, characters are more fully developed here, people that had only been comic relief show a surprising amount of depth beneath a gruff exterior for instance.
2. this was undoubtably sold as a John Ford Western shootemup, but the final attack on the stagecoach is a seven minute sequence at best, the final showdown/shootout of the film is cut away from to get the reactions of other towns people, quite anticlimatic. During the actual stagecoach attack, however, it should be noted that this sort of sequence was probalby never done better before or since, the stunt work, tension, and excitement of this scene is nearly unparalled, To see this on the big screen would truly be something, I'd probably place this up there with Ben-Hur as a film with a truly legendary set piece of action.
3. The Cinematography, oh the cinematography. I remember reading somewhere that Orson Welles watched Stagecoach more than any other movie in preparing for Citizen Kane. I can't remember where I read that, but I could see the similarities. The landscapes are breathtaking, and the night scenes especially breathtaking in their lighting, shadows and staging--especially the night scenes in the final sequence. Then there's the initial shot of John Wayne or "How to create a legend in just three seconds" I'm beginning to consider that shot one of the greates entrances ever, it's the shot that created the greatest screen legend of all time (Another similarity to Seven Samurai would be John Wayne/Toshiro Mifune). I could go on and on, but that would just cause me to want very badly to go watch the film again.
4. I myself experienced a strong sense of danger in the final half of the film, especially the traveling scenes of the film. The creation of this tension and suspense necessitates a delicate and skilled hand in the film's production and editing, and while none have done it better than Hitchcock, Ford did a very good job with what he was working with.
5. I personally think the acting is very good, the characters seem real and tangible, they display complexities and layers that are revealed approriately as the film unfolds. If perhaps the characters seem too ordinary, I would suggest that one of the hardest acting feats to pull off is an ordinary character (which is part of why I think Dicaprio did a much better job of acting in Gangs of New York than in Catch me if You Can). Certainly some of the characters seem to be cliche or stereotype, but those stereotypes are pretty much shattered by the end of the film, after we've come to realize there is much more to all of these characters than meets the eye.
whew!
I'll be sort of participating in this challenge, I'll post later tonight with a count of what I've seen (I bet it's much less than thirty), however my main focus will still be on the 1930's challenge for now, so where these two happily overlap (such as with L'Âge d'Or) Í'll post in both threads.
Adam
