Binging on John Ford, Part 7: The Civil War, Will Rogers and Stepin Fetchit

Stepin Fetchit and Will Rogers in
Judge Priest

A recurrent theme in many of Ford's early sound pictures is the Lost Cause syndrome of the Civil War which portrays those who fought for the Confederacy as noble, rough-hewn gentlemen fighting for a legitimate, almost holy way of life rather than insurrectionists battling for the right to hold slaves. I recently acquired a box set of DVDs called Ford at Fox: John Ford' American Comedies from eBay for $16. The set contains three 1930s films starring popular American humorist Will Rogers, two of which rely heavily on the Lost Cause mythos. These two--Judge Priest and Steamboat Round the Bend also star Stepin Fetchit, the African-American actor (real name Lincoln Perry) who perpetuated the stereotype of a lazy, subservient black man (More on that later.) I also caught up with Rio Grande (also from eBay in an individual DVD), the third of Ford's Cavalry trilogy, also replete with Civil War themes.

Rogers was an immensely popular entertainer who rose to prominence by performing fancy rope tricks while cracking wise on current events. He started in vaudeville and then was featured in the Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to feature films. He always played a variation on himself, the relaxed, lovable wise rube dispensing front-porch wisdom. In his three films directed by Ford, Rogers doesn't even seem to be acting, but reacting to the situation while most of his co-stars gave stagey performances. According to the commentary by Ford biographer Scott Eyman (Print the Legend), Ford would give Rogers the script, but told him not to memorize any lines because they would come out phony. He should just get the sense of the scene and say the lines in his own way. Rogers is charming and relaxed in all three Ford comedies which do convey a rustic, warm mood. But they also reflect the prejudices of their time. According to Ford, the Civil War was a tragic conflict between equally well-intended adversaries and the slavery issue was just a minor footnote producing comic relief characters. (You can also see this in the obscure Prisoner of Shark Island.)

Thoughts on Civil War and Trump Conviction

Caellie Spaeny and Kirsten Dunst in
Civil War (A24)

I was going to write something about Alex Garland's Civil War film which we saw last weekend at Regal Kaufman-Astoria, but then Trump's 34-count guilty conviction erupted all over the news. The two events seem connected. Civil War imagines a dystopian near-future of America at war with itself and the jury verdict demonstrates our actual internal cold cultural-political war. 

Civil War is an effective action thriller with thematic overtones of the role of photojournalism, but wants to have it both ways politically so as not to offend either side of the spectrum and thus alienate a potential audience. We're in some future time where 31 states have seceded. It's never explained why. Most of the action follows a group of journalists driving to Washington DC from NYC to interview the beleaguered President (Parks and Recreations' Nick Offerman) before he is captured by the insurrectionist Western Forces of Texas and California. Director-screenwriter Garland deliberately confuses us as to who is on which side and whom we should sympathize with. The traveling reporters and photogs encounter brutal racists and incredible violence without identifying whether the combatants are with or against the authorities. The subtext of this part of the film focuses on the status of the neutrality of the journalists. They are just there to record the facts and images and let their public decide. The main character Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleague reporter (Wagner Moura) work for Reuters and  make no statements of allegiance to either side.

Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo

Bought at the Strand (I think): Purchased several weeks ago to read while on a ten-day cruise in Greece and Turkey, so I can't recall exactly where I got this poetic bizarre novel. After reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The Lovely Bones, it seemed natural to follow up with a depiction of the journey of Abraham Lincoln's little boy Willie in the after life. Saunders imagines a nebulous in-between land as a bridge from life to death. Willie Lincoln perishes of typhoid in the White House while his parents host an elaborate ball and the Civil War rages. Willie's spirit is ensnared by souls of the damned as other departed spirits try to wrest him free. Saunders employs a strange technique--each short chapter is composed of quotes and sources as if this were an historical document. Sections pertaining to events on earth use excerpts from memoirs and histories while those dealing with events in the spirit realm are attributed to the ghosts who speak them. A slew of characters come to life (or death) as Saunders depicts how they passed and their limbo-like status as they await a final judgment. A hunter must spend eternity comforting each animal he mercilessly slaughtered. An African-American enslaved woman repeatedly raped while alive can no longer speak. A repressed gay man is all noses, mouths and eyes since he pushed down his senses in life. Much spookier and more frightening than either of the previously mentioned books on heaven. Fascinating view of 19th century American life as well as a thoughtful fantasy of death and redemption and a searing portrait of Lincoln and his troubled state of mind during the worst part of the war.