1948 Poll

[sally]

i also put it in the thing.

(along with a second plea for the camerini)

[Lencho of the Apes]

Fort Apache is... complicated.

[rischka]

Fort Apache is... complicated.

too complicated for me. so far can't bring myself to watch it

[---]

JOHN FORD - SEXIST AND RACIST?

my all-time fav mubi thread

[rischka]

i hadn't thought of damian in such a long time

[---]

Oh shit was that thread him? I didn't really know who he was until scfz

[...]

Fort Apache is... complicated.

Definitely more interesting as a movie within Ford's body of work than as a stand alone sorta movie. The "complications" take on added resonance when viewed from that angle with an eye on when the movie was made and how Ford works. I'm not sure it summarizes nearly as well taken on its own. Whether or not that makes it "good" is a separate thing, but I think it's fascinating, and after watching Fort Graveyard it is even more so.

[thoxans]

wait... what's wrong with fort apache? it's been a while since i saw it. i just remember it being great (my fav of the cavalry trilogy). also, was damian one of those mubi peeps who had opinions (and made excessive posts) on every single thing ever, but never ever seemed to take any time to watch any actual movies...? my head is fuzzy this morning

[...]

Depends I suppose on what you take from it or think Ford meant by it.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

One of my favourite movies. I think it contains some still powerful critiques of US policy against Indigenous nations (I definitely read Fonda's character as a purposeful stand-in for Custer, and definitely read the epilogue as a denunciation, in the form of irony, of Custer's subsequent mythologization) and I find all the Irish drinking dancing Ford Cavalry Community stuff pretty charming, funny, and heartstoppingly beautiful. All that said, it has big problems, which is no surprise. Especially no surprise given that the next films in the Cavalry trilogy are unmistakably, sickeningly jingoistic with few if any redeeming qualities, a sign that any movie Ford makes that can be read as politically critical is (probably) only just a critique of specific instantiations or institutional features of American empire and not a critique of U.S. empire in general. It would be a major reach to see Fort Apache as opposed to the U.S. cavalry as such or opposed to U.S. settler colonialism as such, it (probably) only wants a more humane, better led version of them. (I say 'probably' because I'd have to think more about it to be sure, but I mean, it's very unlikely indeed.) Which isn't nearly good enough, but in 1948 in Hollywood it stands out as far better and more reflection-inducing than most of the westerns around it, for what that's worth. And I love the Shirley Temple stuff, the music, John Wayne, the cinematography, et cetera. All this to say that I think the reaction "Fort Apache is... complicated." is le mot juste and my own reaction as well. For me its complicatedness translates into a rich complexity I find fascinating, engaging, and moving, but I can totally understand why the cookie would crumble the other way for other viewers.

[...]

I see it as part of Ford's long attempt to reconcile his feelings on US ideals vs US history, where those two value sets frequently clash and Ford tries to draw fine lines around blame and celebration as they seem to be almost inseparable to his attitude towards the US. That's understandable to some extent, I mean if you really believe deeply in the values the US was alleged to be established on, but doesn't always follow, then trying to celebrate those ideals while recognizing the failures is at least an honest attempt to respond. That Ford's movies increasingly put the history before the ideals as he aged shows, I think, his growing disillusionment with the prospect of the ideals. That matches how the country itself changed during his life too, in so many ways, so that's part of what makes his movies so vital. Not the answers, but the struggle to reconcile.

I also think Fort Apache has to be viewed through Ford's, and the nation's, experience in WWII, where it isn't just addressing the "old west" but the way war is conducted and the importance of the soldier. I don't think that's necessarily an explicit aim of Ford's in terms of it meant to be picked up as direct comment, but Fort Apache coming so soon after the war and also the Nuremberg trials makes the question of Superior Orders and the role of the soldier one of pressing interest at the time the movie was made. Complicated is right.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Those are insightful observations, and very well put! I hadn't quite framed it that way before, in terms of US ideals vs. US history, and that seems to be a persuasive interpretative lens for understanding what Ford is up to, in Fort Apache and elsewhere in his career, especially post-WWII. I definitely agree: if Ford is one of my all-time favourite directors it's not because of his film's answers but because of his film's questions, that struggle to reconcile, a struggle his best films invite the viewer to enter into with them.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Nice work, Greg and Evelyn! For me the central 'complication' was that Ford (always... generally...) seemed to believe that the system was inherently just but required just men to administer it... but the narrative that he gave us tilted way far toward showing us the opposite, where the presence of unjust men like Fonda and Beardo from the general store is an inevitable feature of that system and even conscientious "just" men like John wayne are forced into acquiescence with their political vision.

That idea seems -- to me -- to be so contrary to Ford's own beliefs that I can't help imagining that he was telling us more than he realized, rather than encoding those complexities into his narrative on purpose. People who "want to believe" in Ford's vision are likely to reach the opposite conclusion.

[rischka]

to be clear, i love ford but i live near fort apache lol. i know that's dumb but i have a tendency to take things literally. i will watch one day when i can be totally open minded

many natives i know love westerns. only seen 'she wore a yellow ribbon' of the cavalry trilogy and i didn't like it much. still think ford probably the finest hollywood director

dunno if you ever notice but i think a bit 'differently' lol

[...]

For me the central 'complication' was that Ford (always... generally...) seemed to believe that the system was inherently just but required just men to administer it... but the narrative that he gave us tilted way far toward showing us the opposite, where the presence of unjust men like Fonda and Beardo from the general store is an inevitable feature of that system and even conscientious "just" men like John wayne are forced into acquiescence with their political vision.

I think that's more or less right, if by "the system was inherently just" one takes it as the genius of the system lends itself to justice or that the foundation of the system is just and good will prevail by looking to that foundation and holding to it, which they ultimately will because the roots of the system speak to the desires of the many versus the few. Ford's movies seem to constantly but that belief to the test and, as he aged, kept pushing the base of the foundation deeper making it more difficult to see, but still there, buried beneath the desires of the few to dominate. In Liberty Valance the working system is almost rendered completely invisible, unable to be applied in proper working order, but the values of the system are still remembered, leading to an uneasy ending where the system of justice is perverted for the ideal of justice that created it. It's the most complex balancing of the concept versus the application I think Ford showed, but he kept questioning the application of justice by the system in movies like Cheyenne Autumn, Sargent Rutledge and others, trying to maintain, I think, less his belief in the foundational values than his belief in the desires of the many for that foundation.

[sally]

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

banketten. if there's a more intense s&m relationship in 1948 please direct me to it. excuse me now whilst i go have odd thoughts about a parrot. (and hasse ekman)

[sally]

i just found this on banketten.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/icheckm ... t3272.html

trite melodrama? oh yeah, all that soppy relationship stuff as she moans whilst getting punishment-fucked. it was in all the movies back then. mental.

i also watched arch of triumph. i like lewis milestone, the messier the better, but coming after that (ahem)...........it seemed so shiny & squeamishly hollywood-slick that bergman almost bounced into the role of being dead+added meaning.

[rischka]

i just found this on banketten.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/icheckm ... t3272.html

trite melodrama? oh yeah, all that soppy relationship stuff as she moans whilst getting punishment-fucked. it was in all the movies back then. mental.

that's monty, icm's most renowned troll! watched most of the last stage but kept falling asleep which was annoying as it was quite harrowing







the decision to film it at auschwitz with actual inmates is sort of mind boggling

[sally]

too harrowing for me...i'm a coward. even the misery of the sorrow-of-the-poor films i've watched for the poll has been too much. and yet i baulk at kautner's comedy....you'd think that narrows my range too much but i've still got hundreds to watch for 48....


that guy might be icm's worst troll (any women there? & such an immense focus on stats and numbers and ordering) but i wandered into the british politics section and i am never going back to even the remotest vicinity. ugh

[rischka]

v few women and yeah the politics trolls are the worst. i had to have myself blocked from that entire section

but i'm better now

[sally]

right today is hide under the table day

slightly astonished that in a film in 1948 there is an unrepentantly evil hook-nosed money lender. (in an otherwise enjoyable gothic & recognisably czech film - podobizna/the portrait)

also cringed at a certain song in all the rainbow balm of romance on the high seas..but after days of black and white all that colour is so nice. need more (though never judy garland)

any other technicolor lovelies from 48 that anyone recommends? (i've seen the red shoes). am going to watch scott of the antarctic &



despite stewart granger

[mesnalty]

slightly astonished that in a film in 1948 there is an unrepentantly evil hook-nosed money lender. (in an otherwise enjoyable gothic & recognisably czech film - podobizna/the portrait)

This one sounds far worse, but Alec Guinness as Fagin's from 1948 too.

[sally]

i'm beginning to think i need a history lesson - i know fagin has always been problematic, and podobizna is also literature-based (gogol) so maybe it's a question to do with adaptations. but was the holocaust not a big thing in 48? had they moved on, or hadn't the immensity hit yet or was it being ignored? (i know it was downplayed in the soviet regions but sir alec was nowhere there) or were the old caricatures just seen as quaint comical relics that had no relation to the present? i haven't seen ostatni etap so don't know how that figures into it

for the czech film you could argue that since the jewish 'demon' doesn't actually do anything himself, & it's just the perception of him that causes the evil, and the whole film is about seeing the value beyond the superficial, that it's a plea for re-assessment of such perceptions....but the trope is deployed with such relish that, i don't know, just wasn't expecting it for this year. i wonder if that's why the film is so obscure, because otherwise it could easily slot into 'classic czech film' territory.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

i know fagin has always been problematic, but was the holocaust not a big thing in 48? had they moved on, or hadn't the immensity hit yet or was it being ignored? or were the old caricatures just seen as quaint comical relics that had no relation to the present?

I was interested to look it up, and it's quite interesting indeed! Alec's Fagin was very controversial at the time! Protests in Berlin! And Jewish protests prevented the film's release in the US (until 1951, with severe cuts). Lean defended himself on grounds of fidelity to Dickens, but LIFE mag points out that that means fidelity to Dickens's anti-Judaism, and with horribly insensitive timing too. Quote from LIFE: "But between Dickens and Director Lean history had interposed the ghosts of six million murdered Jews and the specter of genocide. It was hard to see why the producers of Oliver Twist had insisted on such complete fidelity and it was harder still to guess why the authorities had not only permitted exhibition of the picture in Germany but refused to withdraw it immediately after the inevitable reaction came."

[rischka]

watched the auschwitz film again -- it's certainly a powerful document

[thoxans]

geez whatever happened to watching it's a wonderful life around christmastime? seriously tho, i'm in the middle of pitfall and it's really good! def had my eye on a few screenshotable comps

[rischka]

i know right. i felt compelled

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I needed something light, so I'm finally watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Abbott and Costello are not funny, but it's enough of a legit light horror flick to be enjoyable anyway. And, best of all, there's my beloved Bela

[sally]

random announcement: 1948 was the year that both doris day and klaus kinski made their first screen appearances. does not compute.

also i don't know if it's the films i'm choosing to watch but there seems to be more than usual that have really low view counts on letterboxd. don't know if that's due to availability or inclination but 48 doesn't seem to be a popular year

[...]

random announcement: 1948 was the year that both doris day and klaus kinski made their first screen appearances. does not compute.

Heh. That's the funniest juxtaposition of events I've seen in a long while.