Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
Walsh didn't believe in many close-ups, did he? There are only a few instances where we get close to the principal actors in any given scene. At the very end there is a tight shot of Wayne with Marguerite Churchill which is one of the few instances in which we really get to see details of the actress' face.
|
Quite so (and quite Fordian
), but what is remarkable is that Walsh is so assured with Grandeur; the framing is so, well, modern; as someone says in the doco, it's sometimes like looking at a Remington painting. And I'm looking for mattes where there are none; look in the backgrounds and mostly what you see is real - the town, the wagon train, the indian village and as you say that incredible scene where they're lowering the wagons over the cliffs.
The narrative is almost incidental as one sumptuous vista is topped by the next.