Cinema Studies: Fords Western and Leones Western - Movie Review Example

Cinema Studies: Ford's Western and Leone's Western "Mise-en-scene" is an original French word applied to the theatre, and it referred to any materialcomponent added to the choreographic composition of the stage including the actors and their performances. In filmmaking the word has been expertly applied to the criticism of movies by the renowned critic and theorist Andr Bazin (1918-1958), co-founder of the popular film journal Cahiers du (Cristiano 2006). As a creative concept, Mise-en scene has evolved through the years in parallel with the evolution of film techniques and procedures, but particularly with the emergence of new filmic visions (Cristiano 2006). Mise-en scene then is encompassing in that it involves almost all that a film is about. This paper looks into two films individually: The Searcher, directed by John Ford (1956), and Once upon a time in the west, directed by Sergio Leone (1968). It describes their mise-en scene and beyond, introduced first by their corresponding synopsis. A comparison is made at the end. The Searcher, directed by John Ford (1956) Synopsis. Although filmed on Navajo land in northern Arizona, The Searchers, begins in 1868 Texas. Ethan Edwards (played by John Wayne), a soldier, returns to his brother's farm after the end of the Civil War where he fought for the Confederacy. It has taken Ethan three years to come home, after fighting on the losing side of the Civil War. Ethan is in love with his brother's wife, Martha, but unlike his brother, he is not the man to settle down and raise a family. In this film, Ethan Edwards is seeking the two nieces who were abducted during a Comanche raid, in which his brother's family is murdered. Finding the mutilated bodies of his family, Ethan is guilt-ridden, feeling he was not there when he was needed. He thus becomes obsessed with recovering his two nieces and seeking revenge on the Comanche. This fanatic search provides the only rationale for Ethan's life, and he is determined to succeed. "We'll fin'em just as sure as the turning of the earth," he says. Ethan is a bitter and lonely man. He's spent a good deal of time obsessing over his lost love, and now he shifts that obsession to both a hatred of Indians and a yearning to find his niece. After the body of one niece is found, the search for the remaining niece, Debbie, continues for five years. Ethan becomes more concerned with executing vengeance than with finding her. During the search, when Ethan is asked, "You wanna quit" he angrily replies, "That'll be the day!" and he repeats this phrase many times in the course of the film. Theme. Based on a screenplay by Frank S. Nugent from the novel by Alan Le May, "The Searchers" deals with the winning of the West, the struggles between the invading White Man and the Native Americans, the Western Code of Honor, and old-fashioned determination vs. selfish, vengeful spite (Puccio, 2006). Ethan embodies the most important attributes of the Westerner: individualism, self-sufficiency, strength, non-conformity, and loneliness. In this movie, Ethan's solitariness is stressed visually. The film opens with a magnificent inside framing shot of a cabin door, opening up to high desert red sandstone formations and turquoise sky. Ethan appears out of nowhere, from the desert, and, at the end, after his mission is accomplished, Ethan returns to the desert. In the film's last shot, Wayne stands alone, silhouetted in the door's frame, while other people pass around, ignoring his presence. A shot similar at the beginning bookends the film. In this film, Ford illustrates the outcomes of racism and Indian hating, a seeming eloquent statement in support of the Civil Rights movement (Puccio, 2006). Consider the following conversation - Brad (to Ethan, as they follow the Comanche): They gotta stop sometime; if they're human men at all, they've gotta stop. Ethan: A human rides a horse until it dies, and then goes on afoot. Comanch' comes along, gets that horse up, rides him twenty more miles ... then eats him. Techniques. In the story, drawn away by a cattle raid, Ethan and Martin Pawley aren't around for the family slaughter and kidnapping. Without showing any graphic violence, Ford expertly creates suspense through a good montage that includes: 1) An eerie silence to accompany the reddish sunset; 2) A covey of quail taking flight from a clump of sagebrush; 3) Flashing lights; 4) The family dog nervously barking on the porch; 5) Aaron nervously maintaining his composure, telling his anxious wife that he is taking his gun to look for sage hens; 6) Martha cautioning against lighting the kerosene lamps; and 7) Lucy realizing the Indian raid is approaching (Nesbit, 2002). Only ten-year old Debbie is away from the cabin, as she crouches by her grandmother's grave. On the gravestone lies the film's only clue to Ethan's intense hatred of Comanches: HERE LIES MARY JANE EDWARDS KILLED BY COMANCHES MAY 12, 1852 A GOOD WIFE AND MOTHER IN HER 41st YEAR. Ethan's racism is blatant and troubling, becoming a crucial plot point - after years of relentless pursuit of Comanche renegade Scar (played by Anglo Henry Brandon) and the kidnapped Debbie, whom the audience is not sure if he'll rescue her or kill her. He states that she'd be better off dead after living as a Comanche and later writes her off as a blood relative. Juxtaposition. The film is grand with juxtapositions made of Ethan's charismatic leadership with two different kinds of men. First, there is a contrast between Ethan and his brother, the domestic man who has neither strength nor authority. In fact, both Aaron's wife and their children rely more on Ethan's power than on their father. From the start, it is clear that Ethan is tougher than his brother Aaron, and is admired by the latter's children. Facing an Indian raid, the son says, "I wish uncle Ethan were here, don't you maam" They feel they can rely on Ethan's strength more than on their father's. The second contrast is between Ethan's charismatic power and the authority of Reverend Captain Samuel Clayton (Ward Bond), which is a mixture of two types. Functioning as the community chaplain as well as its military leader, the Reverend is endowed with qualities that Ethan lacks - respect for tradition and law, religious duty, and the strong wish to stabilize the community's life. However, the Reverend is not an effective leader when it comes to protecting the community from the Indians. On the part of Ethan, he derives authority not from an official position he maintains, but from his charisma based on his extraordinary moral and physical strength. When Ethan finds the mutilated bodies of his family, he absorbs the pain alone and quietly, with no outlet for his grief. By contrast, Martin Pawley, is distraught even without seeing them. Later, when Wayne finds his elder niece's (Lucy) body, he buries her in his army coat, keeping the whole incident to himself - until Jurgensen asks him about it. In contrast to Ethan, Jurgensen cannot face the truth and, losing self-control, he charges into the Indians' camp and loses his life. Photography. Noteworthy is Ford's framing of each scene and the photography of Winton Hoch, both exemplified by the opening and closing daylight shots, the bright outdoors framed by the dark interior walls. They were common shots Ford often used - to highlight a bright area of the screen with darkness around it. The movie ends with the door closing into complete darkness. A number of medium and long shots were used by Ford as compared to the relatively few times he actually closes in on an object or a face. This is in contrast to Leone's style of using many close-ups. He uses close-ups sparingly, to emphasize a point, and when he does, he makes the point all the more dramatically. Ford was able to imply that things are more dynamic by our not seeing them. Just as he used close-ups infrequently, so did he use violence in moderation - against in contrast to the raw violence used by Leone. Some of the most intense acts in the movie - murder, scalping, rape - the director only suggests, never shows. He let the audience use their imagination, and the movie is all the more powerful for it. Ford uses his favorite location for shooting, Monument Valley, the beauty of the landscape making a fascinating contrast with the brutality of the plot. Sounds. The Searchers fails in its sloppy use of music and childish attempts at humor. The director's insistence on a romantic angle for young Martin Pawley, one-eighth Indian, rather diminishes the movie's overall friction. During one scene at a trading post, he finds himself married to a short, fat Indian woman who follows him and Ethan around, much to the delight of Ethan. She's relentlessly made fun of, and even abused as Martin kicks her down a hill after she lays down to sleep. Sounds get much attention in this Ford's movie as much as image does. As earlier discussed in techniques, Ford is also adept at handling sounds - in contrasting and blending them for effective use. This is clearly seen in the opening of the movie. Once upon a time in the west, directed by Sergio Leone (1968) Synopsis. The story concerns two strangers in town. The first is Jill McBain, who misses being massacred with the rest of her family by virtue of a late train. The other is only known by the harmonica he wears around his neck and announces his arrival by gunning down three thugs at a train station. Both are connected to Henry Fonda's Frank, who was in charge of the McBain massacre, and who Harmonica has a vendetta against. Also caught in the mix is the outlaw leader Cheyenne, a half breed that Frank pins the murders on. The four are entangled in a mystery involving land rights and the ever encroaching civilization represented by the Railroads for whom Frank is an Enforcer. Theme. The movie tells a most intriguing story of greed and the change of the West as a result of the industrial revolution. The train is a key in the film, as it is a symbol of the dawning of a new America, one that will bring on a birth of technology and the expansion of a new frontier. But with birth, the old must die. With progress, the coal-devouring locomotives also bring death - death for the American West's unspoiled beauty, death for an uncomplicated rugged individualism, and death to the cowboy, who has no place in the new modern world of corporate villainy and commerce(Schager 2003). Techniques. The plot twists over and over again, and there are original gunfights. This film is fueled by hidden pasts, and characterization. Harmonica's (Bronson's) identity remains a secret until the end, in a dazzling duel between him and Frank (Fonda). Leone combines artistic camera angles, extension of time and raw and explosive violence in this film. Gradually the story unfolds as people's ideals and motivations unravel. The viewer is always involved in a guessing game to figure out why certain people behaved the way they did and how it will affect the overall story. The way Leone orchestrates the waiting game, however, is something like the way Beethoven arranged his symphonies. Using a mixture of intense close-ups and painterly long shots, and casting the scene in almost complete silence, Leone comes up with a grand turnout. Juxtaposition. The new west (Morton) versus the old west (Frank). The story conveys an overriding tone of sad acceptance over the land barons' arrival in the West. The sickly railroad tycoon Mr. Morton, who wants McBain's plot of land that was strategically-situated, pays the treacherous coward in Frank to do his dirty work. Morton is shown as the first in what will be a long line of industrialists plundering the land, bringing what might be slightly more tolerable, than the ugliness, corruption, and immorality of the old world embodied by Frank. Leone now and then compares and contrasts the "man" with the "businessman." As the crippled businessman suggests, the only thing more powerful than a man with a gun is a man with money. His money gives him the power to purchase not only land, but people as well. His kind comes with civilization and Leone reminds us just how similar the capitalist is to a man with a gun. Sounds and images. Photography to Leone is not taken as a separate unit from sounds. The director harmoniously links disparate sounds and images: the buzz of a fly or a gunshot proceeds into the howling whistle of a train and the squeaking of a weathervane becomes the plaintive whine of a harmonica. Leone similarly uses the sounds of the natural world as a means of slowly revealing information. For example, when the crickets stop chirping while McBain and his kids prepare for Mrs. McBain's welcoming feast, it is clear that trouble is brewing. Comparison John Ford's The Searchers (1956). The Searchers is a critique of the racism at the heart of frontier ideology. The movie expressed sympathy for the Native American side, advancing a liberal critique of white racism. For this reason, the movie may not play well with Native American audiences or with people sensitive to its racism. Ford makes use of a good story. John Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, is often considered the first decisively flawed western hero: corrupt, consumed by vengeance, and filled with hatred for Native Americans, even as he continues to exhibit qualities like strength, courage, grit and determination. According to Nesbit (2002), no one has crafted a western character more complex than Ford's Ethan Edwards. The time covered in the movie takes a longer time. Searching for the lost daughters itself takes five years. Before this, Ethan arrives three years after the war. There is death involved in the story - n fact, in the very beginning. The Indians had slaughtered a whole family, minus the father on account of a late train. It is the story of revenge. Photography is excellent as Ford is a top-notch photographer. Ford thinks first as a cameraman as pictures to him, not words, should tell the story. No one has ever photographed Monument Valley as beautifully as John Ford. Ford makes much use of contrasts as in light against the dark, bright tones against lighter ones. A number of medium and long shots have made this movie escape from being boring. Ford used close-ups infrequently, as he did use violence in moderation. This is in contrast to Leone whose shots were often of big size. The dialogues in Ford's movie also are much supportive to the theme. In juxtaposition, Ford amusingly contrasts married life against solitary life, the strong bachelorhood against weak father figure, charismatic power against authority .He uses dialogue to show contrasts in strength of character regarding death. If there is something to be faulted in The Searchers, it is in where humor also appears childish as in the abusive treatment to the short and fat wife of Martin. Sergio Leone's Once upon a time in the West (1968). The theme is that of technology and the inherent changes that it brings. In the new West, capitalists come, thereby shifting the power from the pistol packing cowboy to the greedy industrialist. The time involved is shorter. It doesn't take as long as five to eight years, in contrast to Ford's story. The story carries also greed in its theme. There is death involved, which death is more in the abstract. It is the death of individualism, of the old west, of the cowboy as industrialization sets in. It emphasizes the effects of the passage of time. Death in this story is more of the spirit in contrast to the physical death observed in Ford's story. The film is rich in style, with its intense close-ups, sweeping panoramas of the Old West. Utah and Arizona landscapes were mixed with Spanish and Italian scenery in this movie. Photography is excellent as Leone is a photographer plus. Leone, however, goes beyond mere photography and marries sound and images. He takes patience in capturing every moment of time and he makes use of silence effectively so that when he uses sound at the right time, the impact is stronger. In the same vein, music or sound is given much importance in Leone's movies. It forms part and parcel of this work. His action goes with the sound. In short, Leone uses a combination of artistic camera angles, the extension of time and raw violence. He lets his story unfold as he involves the viewer in guessing what would happen next and why. As he does so, he carefully arranges them as in a symphony. Leone also comes on strong in juxtaposition. The way he made the cripple moneyed Morton to represent the new West (focus on the paycheck as power), he effectively does so with the devious Frank to represent the old West (focus on the gun as power). In this movie, size is highlighted. Every bullet has the destructive force of an atomic bomb, the gun barrels are as big as ballistic missiles, the landscapes and buildings would seem to loom quite large, the lines on every face is dry river bed, and in one breathtaking close up, Bronson's eyes appear to comprise the universe. However, the far and narrow view, and the soft sound are also respected and used to contrast. This movie is great. The film makes brilliant use of Ennio Morricone's inventive score, with Leone pacing his action to the music. Overall, Leone's direction can make any story outstanding. The story is not as excellent as that of Ford's The Searchers, but Leone has done much magic with it. One thing can be said of this movie. There is a disastrous miscasting of Claudia Cardinale as the ex-whore who becomes a farmer's widow, and the center of attention. With her flowing wig, deep cleavage and false eyelashes, she looks like she belongs in the 1960s rather than of the 1860s. Cardinale maybe gorgeous, but she is a terrible actress. In sum, Ford's and Leone's westerns are both brilliant. The key to differentiating them may be found in the director who can work on the story according to his genius. In terms of directing, if I were to choose between the two, I would prefer Ford's The Searchers. There was only the problem in the way humor was used in a rather racist manner - on a woman. In Leone's Once upon a time in the West (1968), I would find fault in the miscasting of Claudia Cardinale, a beautiful but poor actress. She was made the center of attention. In terms of themes, I would choose Leone's Once upon a time in the West (1968). The problem that technology brings to the life of man is great. I like the fact that it talks about death on a much higher plane. It talked of the death of what life was once pure and simple and innocent. With technology and industrialization came the destruction of morals replaced by greed. Works Cited Cristiano, Anthony. 'A Self-conscious Mise-en-scene' a filmmaking experience. Filmmaking.net. 5 Mar. 2006. 10 Oct 2007. Nesbit, John. Classic, but not for Navajos. The Searchers. CultureCartel.com. 19 Jan 2002. 11 Oct 2007 . Puccio, John J. The Searchers. [Special Edition]. DVD Review. DVD/APPROX. 119 MINS./1956/US NR. First published 28 May 2006. 8 Oct. 2007 . Schager, Nick. Once Upon a Time in the West. Slant Magazine, 2003. 10 Oct 2007 . Read More