High and Low (1963)

QFS No. 139 - The invitation for May 8, 2024
It’s been entirely too long since we’ve selected an Akira Kurosawa film here at Quarantine Film Society. It was way back in July 2020 when we were young and terrified, but watched the masterpiece Yojimo (1961, QFS No. 13). The offending parties to this nearly four-year gap have been reassigned to new minor roles within The Society.

High and Low has been on my list for a long time and I’m a little upset I haven’t seen it yet. Several months ago, I finally saw Ikiru (1952) in the theater at the New Beverly and though it instantly became one of my favorite films, I was simultaneously upset that it had taken so long before watching such a gem.

And so, lo and behold, the New Beverly just screened High and Low to come to my rescue. I was about to select it anyway (seriously – I have notes to prove it!) and so once again the stars align. I have not seen many of Kurosawa’s non-samurai period films, so it’ll be excellent to finally get a chance to see this one.

But also, excellent to watch at home! Then join the discussion of High and Low below if you can!

High and Low (1963) Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Reactions and Analyses:
High and Low (1960) has two halves, almost two separate movies. This has long been discussed over the years and by our QFS discussion tackled this as well. But one of our members, a cinematographer, picked up on something I hadn’t noticed – a slight but deliberate change in camera use between the halves.

The first half deals with the kidnapping of Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), mistaken for the wealthy child of Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), and Gondo’s decision whether or not to pay a huge sum to this mysterious kidnapper. Shinichi is Aoki’s son, played with excruciating grief and torment by Yutaka Sada. This half of the film takes place all in Gondo’s home, with everyone awaiting the kidnapper’s next call and us as the audience, trying to determine what Gondo will decide.

The first half of High and Low (1963) showcases director Akira Kurosawa’s mastery of staging - wide frames and compositions with deliberate camera moves when necessary, and takes place entirely in the Gondos’ home. Body language becomes an important aspect of the storytelling when using wide frames.

The camerawork in the first half is composed as if on a stage, with actors blocked in ways where sometimes someone’s back is to us, but their body language speaks volumes. The camera moves, when they happen, are also steady, composed, operated on a gear head for smooth and precise movements. 

The second half – the camera is freed. We’re out in the world, on the case, trying to find the kidnapper and also Gondo’s money. It’s likely Kurosawa had seen many of the films of the burgeoning French New Wave movement where the camera is liberated from the tripod and thrust into the dirty, complex world. Kurosawa’s version is still precise and deliberate, but there’s a greater urgency and rapid movement that evokes a handheld style, if not deliberately handheld.

Kurosawa throws the camera into the world as the hunt for the kidnappers unfolds. The camera, too, is free - some handheld, moving camera that hand off from one detective to another in pursuit.

High and Low becomes an elevated police procedural.

Detectives stuck watching from the car as the suspect encounters Mr. Gondo in person.

Following the suspect through the seedy underbelly of Yokohama. The heroin den sequence evokes the imagery now found in modern post-apocalyptic movies and dramas.

These two styles mimic the change in style, change in movie, change in tone and the change in focus. The drama in the first half of the film is almost entirely internal, just as it is internal in this house. It’s Gondo’s furrowed self-exploration of what to do, whether to give in to the demands and destroy the career and life he’s built for one his personal staff members. It’s the visible anguish on Aoki’s face, at first pleading and then prepared to sacrifice his son in order to save his boss’s livelihood (and, also, his own). There’s his wife Reiko (Kyoko Kagawa) who acts as the moral compass, pleading with Gondo to save the child, that she doesn’t need this home and this wealth.

Reiko pleads with Gondo, and she’s ultimately proved right - even though it costs them both in the end.

But is that true? Gondo reminds her that she was born into wealth and has never had to live as he had to growing up so she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Which then in turn a revelation – that Gondo got a boost early in his career from a dowry from Reiko’s wealthy family.

All of these internal struggles mirror the setting and pace and blocking of the first half perfectly. Kurosawa exhibits his mastery of composition, placing some people in the frame looking towards us and others looking away to enhance their position. Or to have a small sliver of light come through the curtains to bring our focus to a certain place. Kurosawa places Gondo in foreground on the phone, for example, when in the background Aoki anguishes alone and small in the frame. Another moment, when Aoki pleads with Gondo, the two are on opposite sides of the frame – Gondo barely able to look at him.

Gondo, tormented, only his face is in darkness in this shot - a way to use light to tell the story of an internal struggle.

This deliberate staging allows Kurosawa to play with power dynamics – who is big in the frame, who is small? Who is forced at the edge and who is covered in darkness. It’s brilliant and textbook and requires care to execute. (Of course it doesn’t hurt to have the extraordinary Mifune as one of your chess pieces to play on the board.)

Gondo deciding not to pay the ransom. Body language, choice of staging, attention still brought to the center. Mastery in blocking for the camera.

High and Low goes from a story about executive-level business intrigue, to a hostage thriller, to a story exploring social dynamics and issues of wealth, power and poverty before becoming a detective and police procedural with stunning set pieces including the seedy underbelly of 1960s Yokohama.

Kurosawa somehow pulls all of this off without any sense of whiplash or asymmetry. The master clearly at the top of his game is able to balance all of these elements in just about the most seamless way a bifurcated story could be crafted. And he doesn’t abandon elements from first half into the second half – we are reminded of Gondo’s sacrifice when later we see him mowing the lawn. Or when Aoki takes Shinichi back on the path to find the kidnappers’ lair – the detectives catch up with him and Aoki reveals that Gondo told him they won’t need to drive to Gondo’s shoe factory any more, having been forced out as they all knew he would be. We are given glimpses into Gondo’s life changing, even though he barely appears in the second half and we’re more interested in hunt and pursuit of the wrongdoers.

Kurosawa uses this efficiency in his story telling throughout. For example, the bald, sweaty detective Bos’n Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama) – he’s the detective who is rough around the edges but a joking, committed bloodhound. But he’s on the screen so little, how do we know that? Just in a few words, we learn he disdains the wealthy so when Gondo sacrifices we see Bos’n’s admiration. And in behavior – he’s always sweaty and rubbing his head – Kurosawa is a master of tagging a character with a physical tic (see Mifune as “Sanjuro” with the shoulder twitch in Yojimbo, 1961 QFS No. 13). So when this hardened detective breaks down when Aoki and Shinichi reunite, we understand this man and he, in some ways, is a stand in for us as the audience. It’s incredibly moving.

That scene in particular contains another example of Kurosawa’s brilliance. The detectives are in the foreground, their backs to the camera as Aoki runs full speed away from us, towards Shinichi in the distance who runs as well. But the camera stays with the detectives – we see Bos’n holding back tears as he turns towards profile, and Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai) gives the command that kicks off the second half: “For Mr. Gondo’s sake, be bloodhounds!”

Father and son reunited and moments before Detective Tokura says “For Mr. Gondo’s sake, be bloodhounds!”

And so the second half they’re off, trying to get the kidnapper and recover Gondo’s money.

There are so many points of entry into this film that it’s almost overwhelming to analyze. The bullet train sequence is a masterpiece in suspense. Gondo’s secretary Kwanishi (Tatsuya Mihashi) and his double cross that backfires give us a sense that Gondo is right that his stature is perilous – and Reiko is right ultimately that Gondo’s sacrifice is the correct action ultimately. We also see Kurosawa’s version of a zombie apocalypse film as we explore a heroin den – dreary, seemingly dangerous, the shuffling feet of the addicted clinking on unseen glass vials and bottles. And the plot itself, the suspense and the central question of who is the kidnapper?

He must be the kidnapper! Who else would wear mirrored glasses indoors?!

Several of the QFS discussion members, myself included, were certain that the other board members of the National Shoe Company arranged for this attempted kidnapping of Gondo’s son. The beginning of the film sets up that premise, which is a great narrative device to send us down that path. But ultimately, it’s a psychopath (but is he a psychopath?), a poor medical intern who looks up at Gondos’ castle above his poor slum. The explanation is that it drove him crazy to see that every day, looking down on them, and that he wanted to teach the man a lesson.

This final scene in the prison between Gondo and Takeuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki in the only scene where he speaks) gives the kidnapper a chance to explain to Gondo and to us the why. I asked our group the question is this scene necessary. Without it, the scene ends with Mr. and Mrs. Gondo in their emptying house, the auctioneers measuring the furniture for their upcoming auction. For me, that felt like the appropriate conclusion to Gondo’s story and several felt similarly.

However, we would be left wondering why and missing out on any sort of explanation. And though Taekuchi’s motives felt thin – how could he be driven so far when there are probably a couple thousand people in the same situation who saw that same house and lived all around him – who didn’t think kidnap and murder were the solutions. So we’re left with psychosis, something that’s born out by the final images of the film as he’s dragged away, the security gate comes down, and Gondo’s image reflected in the mirror of both lives forever torn.

Gondo meets the kidnapper face-to-face a second time.

The final image in the movie in a scene that arguably did not have to be in the film. Up for debate!

While I personally would have preferred a stronger rationale for the film’s antagonist, this is a minor story objection to what is one of the greatest films by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Much of Kurosawa’s work should be essential viewing for filmmakers, but High and Low contains it all – blocking, camerawork, pacing, framing, character development, performance, to name a few. It’s clear to me now that the master’s masterclass for all of us is High and Low.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

QFS No. 127 - The invitation from November 8, 2023
Sweden’s legendary director Ingmar Bergman is one of those essential filmmakers whose work you’re required to familiarize yourself with if you go to film school and intend to be a director. And with good reason. His films are deeply empathetic and explore what it means to be human in a style that I would characterize as part of the Neorealist movement that swept through post-war Europe. But Bergman’s films have something even deeper and more meditative, a true journey into the soul that grapples with questions of morality and spirituality at their core. 

Incredibly influential to filmmakers after him, Bergman wrote most of his own work and was a true auteur in film and television. Just look at some of his accolades – it’s pretty impressive to be Oscar-nominated five times for Best Original Screenplay when you’re not writing in the English language. To me, that’s astonishing. It’s a high bar for Academy members to look past the language barrier and to nominate a film for its written work - and Bergman did it five times over several decades! 

For me, I’m still making my way through Bergman’s work – especially Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972) and Fanny and Alexander (1983) which are high on my list of movies to see. His Wild Strawberries (1957), however, is a film I’ve seen in the theater and is a true masterpiece in its structure, style, pacing and exploration of a complex life lived. And, amazingly, he made it in the same year as he made this week’s selection The Seventh Seal. Two classics released in the same year has to be up there as one of the greatest single-year outputs by a filmmaker, rivaling Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 (The Godfather Part II and The Conversation) and Steven Spielberg’s 1993 (Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park).  

As for The Seventh Seal – I’ve seen it once before but never in a theater so I’m looking forward to catching it at The New Beverly. I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t yet seen it, but it’s probably the best Swedish movie to be spoofed in one of the films in the Bill and Ted’s Adventure Trilogy.  

The Seventh Seal is an iconic, classic film and I’m excited to watch it again and discuss with you.

The Seventh Seal (1957) Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Reactions and Analyses:
Volumes have been written about The Seventh Seal and it has inspired a generation of filmmakers after it. The film comes out in 1957 and is perhaps one of the first instances in the West where the main thrust of the film is a philosophical one - is there a God and if there is, why is He/She/It silent? Not that a philosophical question hadn’t been posed in a film before, but here the film openly debates in both dialogue and in metaphoric action the philosophical question of whtehter or not there is a higher purpose. The knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) spends the entire time literally dealing with Death - an embodied death (Bengt Ekerot) in the form of a grim reaper with whom he plays chess. So the existential question of what comes after death is more than just an undercurrent - it is the current. Philosophizing about the existence of a higher power is not just theme it’s also plot in The Seventh Seal.

As someone who was not raised in the Christian tradition but grew up in a mostly Catholic neighborhood, some of the symbolism was familiar to me but there is a lot that I missed. So I turned to members of our group who had that religious background to fill in some details. One idea that came up was - is the knight dead the entire time? The film opens on the shoreline and the squire Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) lies facedown - dead? Sleeping? Even the knight is lying on his side when he sees Death approaching. Is it possible that he, like Christ, is close to death and dying himself and actually on a metaphoric cross contemplating the existence of God, begging for an answer? It might not be as straightforward as that, but there are definitely nods to this aspect of Christ’s divinity and story throughout.

The knight played by Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal (1957), showing reverence towards Death.

Examples abound. There’s Jof (or “Joseph” played by Nils Poppe) and Mia (which is a Swedish abbreviation of “Maria,” played by Bibi Andersson) - Jof literally sees visions of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, of ghosts, of Death at the end, and Mia has an infant son Mikael (reference to the Archangel Michael?) with whom they travel around as itinerant performers. They gather a band of misfits and travel a ravaged, doomed countryside, rife with sinners and stricken by the plague at the end of the Crusades. The parallels to the life of Christ are easy to find if you just scratch the surface.

Aside from the symbolism, the central question Ingmar Bergman asks: with all this evil and destruction in the world, how is it possible there’s a benevolent God out there? From interviews, we know that Bergman was raised in a religious family and was terrified by death, seeing Albuertus Pictor’s church paintings depicting death playing chess against a knight. He says he wrote the film “to conjure up on his fear of death.” In the film we see a woman burned alive, a parade of people self-flagellating, people who died and just rotted away in place, others consumed by the plague. An entire village is empty. The group felt clear that Bergman answered the question, that the silence from heaven is what he fears - we are alone in a cruel world.

Parade of the flagellants from The Seventh Seal (1957) Directed by Ingmar Bergman.

And yet, there’s the one scene where he is picnicking with Jof and their family. In the idyllic setting, with a slow pullback as he talks to reveal more of the setting, the knight says he’s truly happy. He’s saying that life is worth living here and now, and not for the afterlife because who knows whether there is one or not. For me, this scene is the one that gives me hope for the film. That there is beauty in the world, and that it lies in friendship and moments of sublimity. QFSers in the discussion pointed out that Bergman provides an answer of what to do if there is indeed no higher being - do good acts. “One meaningful deed” as the knight strives to do.

A film is not the same thing as an essay, and except for the most experimental films, generally speaking a film needs a plot. So aside from a parallel Christ story, Bergan borrows from other familiar literary traditions of the knight returning home, his squire at his side. There are echoes of Don Quixote and Sanch Panza, but without the fool’s errand aspect. Here in The Seventh Seal, the knight is the serious, questioning soul and the squire is the cynic, who says, for example, “Our crusade was so stupid that only a true idealist could have thought it up.” This is quite an indictment of someone who was part of waging a literal holy war. Although lightly plotted, the knight has a mission to ensure the life of that family - his one meaningful deed - all while keeping Death at bay. It’s this adventure tale, interwoven with the mystical, that keeps the film moving through the more philosophical aspects. And, for me at least, herein lies Bergman’s genius - you’re pulled in by the intriguing plot device and narrative, and you’re led to contemplate the meaning of something bigger as the story unfolds. Bergman asks: Are we alone? Bergman also answers: If we are, let’s do something righteous and live for the here and the now.

Rocco and His Brothers (1960)

QFS No. 122 - The invitation for September 27, 2023
Another Italian* film, you say? Well, you longtime members of QFS will remember that Sharat is making his way through the film requirements he was supposed to be have finished before beginning as a grad student at the American Film Institute. We previously watched A Man Escaped (1956, QFS No. 9), Burnt by the Sun (1994, QFS No. 58) and Swept Away (1974, QFS No. 82). Rocco and His Brothers is another one of those films** that Sharat needs to complete 22 years ago.  

Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti is a favorite of Martin Scorsese, calling him “one of the greatest artists in the history of cinema.” Scorsese listed Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) as one of his favorite films from the Criterion Collection, and I was lucky enough to catch The Leopard at the Aero Theater recently in Santa Monica. The Leopard is a lush production with a great cast unfolding a story over nearly three hours.

 I can’t say if Rocco and His Brothers will be the same, but the length sure is. I really enjoyed The Leopard and need to expand my knowledge of Visconti more in order to be a more effective filmmaker at the AFI Conservatory circa 2001. So thank you for helping me complete my AFI coursework! Join me to discuss.

*With this selection, Italy vaults back into the lead with most QFS films from a single country with six, over taking India’s five. Related, the best restaurant in Los Angeles is Pijja Palace in Echo Park which is an Indian-Italian fusion sports bar. Pijja Palace is No. 1 on the QFS Restaurant Critic’s list of Best Places for Sharat to Attempt to Eat More Food Than He Can Physically Consume list.

**The remaining, since you asked: Intimate Lighting (1966) directed by Ivan Passer; Les Enfants Du Paradis (1945) directed by Marcel Carne; Blue (1993) directed by Krzysztog Kieslowski and part of his “Colors” trilogy; La Guerre Est Finie (1959) directed by Alain Resnais; Vagabond (1985) directed by Agnes Varda. Either my final boss to defeat in this game will be La Guerre Est Finie – not available online and French – or Les Enfants Du Paradis, which clocks in at more than three hours long and is also French. Stay tuned!

Rocco and his Brothers (1960) Directed by Luchino Visconti

Reactions and Analyses:
Early in the film, when the family has moved into their basement dwelling in Milan fresh their migration from the south, Nadia (Annie Girardot) seeks refuge in their home. We’ve barely met the brothers and they all are somewhat indistinguishable from each other. Each handsome in different ways, a couple of them seem a little younger. But they feel somewhat broadly drawn.

As the film unfolds, we get a gradual fleshing out of each brother, as if from a fog with a detail of one becoming clearer. And then another and another as the film evolves. This continues, interwoven, as each “chapter” introduces a brother one-by-one. But the narrative continues forwards as well and at some point, perhaps halfway through the film, I felt as if I knew each of these brothers intimately. I did, because Luchino Visconti makes sure of it.

This is a remarkable feat for a film that has five main male leads in it, a mother, a female lead, and a few supporting characters as well. Rocco and His Brothers (1960) is a thoroughly rich world created by a director who's known for creating rich worlds (case in point: The Leopard, 1963). If I hadn’t already known it going in, I would’ve guessed this influenced the likes of Francis Ford Coppola (his inspiration for the brothers in The Godfather, 1972) and Martin Scorsese. Scorsese in particular - the boxing sequences in Rocco and His Brothers are incredibly intimate, with the camera inside the ring right next to Rocco (Alain Delon) in his fight enhancing its intimacy. Scorsese goes even further in Raging Bull (1980) with his use of speeds and cutting. But in Rocco and His Brothers - the use of the crowd, the black and white cinematography, the lighting on the boxing ring, the cutting to the crowd - all of it feels like an origin story for Scorsese. For Coppola, it’s been well documented how he fashioned the Corleone brothers after the Parondi brothers. Not to mention hiring Nino Rota to create the score for The Godfather (1972). The Rocco and His Brothers score definitely gives birth to The Godfather’s.

Boxing sequences in Rocco and His Brothers (1960) Directed by Luchino Visconti. Twenty years later, Martin Scorsese makes Raging Bull (1980), influenced by Visconti’s work here.

What’s additionally fascinating for a film so long and sprawling is that Rocco and His Brothers has no central narrative. It is the tale of a family, an “immigrant” tale, and how a family evolves, fractures, and attempts to survive in the city. To tell a story about without a gripping plot, you need to have fully realistic characters - people who feel like real humans who you care about or at the very least are curious about.

Simone (Renato Salvatori) starts as sort of a lovable brute with base instincts, undisciplined, but when driven by jealousy or shame, he drops the “lovable” almost entirely - and yet, you understand him. Or at least, I feel like I’ve known “Simones” in my life. Rocco (Alain Delon) is selfless, blinded by loving his brother but also genuinely in love with Nadia. And Nadia genuinely falls in love with Rocco as opposed to using Simone. And she gets revenge on Simone by dragging him down by using his obsession against him - but it kills her too. It’s all sordid and when written out like that seems more like a soap opera. And yet, Rocco and His Brothers rarely feels overly melodramatic (caveat: this is a film from Italy; some melodrama can be excused).

The film, of course, takes an incredibly dark turn and features what is probably one of the most disturbing rape scenes in cinema history. Not the most graphic, but definitely among the most disturbing. And, I’d argue, perhaps one of the most disturbing knife killing in cinema history.

A QFS member brought up that this felt like a dark Grapes of Wrath. Which is a pretty spot on way to look at it. A family, driven by poverty, forced to migrate within their country and find shelter, comfort, and a living in a strange place.

I’ve noticed a common thread I’ve noticed in many QFS selections, that of this immigrant or migrant story. Human migration is a source of so much drama, such fascinating stories - and it spans eras and nations. Our most recent selection, How Green Was My Valley (1941, QFS No. 121), is in part about the causes of migration. America America (1963, QFS No. 87), directed by Elia Kazan only three years after Rocco and His Brothers, tells that tale from Turkey through poor Greeks leaving their homes. Apur Sansar (1959, QFS No. 16) is in many ways a story about what happens when a migrant from the impoverished countryside tries to make it in the city. And even L’Avventura (1960, QFS No. 116), made in a vastly different style by fellow Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni in the same year - there’s an undercurrent of class. The protagonists are wealthy but there are plenty of interactions with the poorer class and there an undercurrent of post-war Italy that both L’Avventura and Rocco and His Brothers portray in their own ways.

Close up of Alain Delon (“Rocco”) in Rocco and His Brothers (1960).

Rocco and His Brothers is a textbook in character portrayal, but it’s also a textbook in cinematography. The night work in this film are astonishing with big broad light and sharp shadows thrown against buildings. The close-ups are gorgeous (Pauline Kael criticized the lighting on Alain Delon: “who at times seems to be lighted as if he were Hedy Lamarr”) and the cathedral rooftop scene in particular could be a masterclass in blocking for actors and the camera. Rocco turns into a close up and a tear falls from his eye perfectly. I loved it - a QFSer who is an actor felt it was a little too much. He also felt that everyone in Parondi family needs therapy. Absolutely true, and yet it would’ve been a much shorter film had they done so.

As mentioned in the QFS invitation above, Rocco and His Brothers was on my list of films to see before starting at AFI. I’m more than a little upset it took me so long to finally see it. Not only is it historically important given how many filmmakers it influenced, but it is truly a spectacular film in all aspects - performance, cinematography, music, storytelling. One that AFI is right to require its incoming directors to watch. Rocco and His Brothers is, for me, an ideal balance of realism and artistry to tell a very true, human story of a family struggling to stay together.

How Green Was My Valley (1941)

QFS No. 121 - The invitation for September 6, 2023
We return to legendary John Ford, last seen in 2020 for QFS No. 26 with his Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), a film he made two years earlier than this week’s selection. The great American filmmaker turns his gaze outside the US in a film that won five Academy Awards including Best Picture. But to me it has always been known as “the film that beat out Citizen Kane (1941).”

Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me so long to actually sit down and watch this movie. I’m sure I’ll be upset that How Green Was My Valley is inferior in its filmmaking to Orson Welles’ masterpiece, right? Citizen Kane has endured the test of time, gathering momentum over the 20th Century as arguably the greatest film ever made. Or at least one of them. Whereas How Green Was My Valley is probably most remembered for beating out Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture and for being one of John Ford’s 10 best films.

But Ford’s film batting average puts him in the directing hall of fame. He has a very very high percentage of excellence in his moviemaking, so I’m quite certain this will live up to expectations of a John Ford film. Also – and this is perhaps the best part of this week’s selection – the star of How Green Was My Valley is Walter Pidgeon, who was last seen in the 23rd Century as Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet (1956, QFS No. 119). So I’m going into this film considering it a Dr. Morbius origin story, before his brain capacity was expanded.

Join us in honoring the labor movement by seeing How Green Was My Valley over Labor Day weekend. See you then, comrade!

How Green Was My Valley (1941) Directed by John Ford

Reactions and Analyses:
How Green Was My Valley (1941) is the origin point of the immigrant journey. The village, provincial with generation after generation living in the same place, are dependent on a coal mine. The fate of that coal mine determines the fate of the people who live there. Eventually, men and women become faced with a choice - live as their ancestors have in a valley that’s steadily dying, or leave to greener pastures. (Note - “greener.”)

I was struck while I was watching How Green Was My Valley that this film could very easily have been adapted to India, from where my parents immigrated. I know others in the QFS group felt that it could’ve been from where their family original came from as well. There’s a universality to it that endures even now.

It’s a wonder how this film has been lost among John Ford’s others and has been overshadowed by Citizen Kane (1941). As mentioned above, I went into this film with the knowledge that it beat Orson Welles’ masterpiece for Best Picture at the Oscars. So comparing the two is inevitable so let’s take a moment to do so.

Why has Citizen Kane endured while How Green Was My Valley has less so? The group discussed this at length, but let me start with my takeaway between the two. How Green Was My Valley is beautiful, emotional and sentimental. It’s a story that feels specific to the characters but also universal in its emotional appeal, doing what cinema does best. Citizen Kane feels more intellectual, an exploration into the meaning of one specific life of fame, prestige and meaning. It’s perhaps deeper into its dive into the human condition in a way. It’s easy for me to see how Citizen Kane would influence the next generation of auteurs; Welles’ directing is the hand of an artist, using the cinematic tools to push the visual image and storytelling techniques to new places.

The steel mill looms over everything in How Green Was My Valley (1941) Directed by John Ford.

Ford’s hand in How Green Was My Valley is characteristically invisible - you don’t feel the overt hand of the director. It’s there, for sure - Ford is using all his skill to tell this story in the way he knows how. But his way is less overt, letting the characters, the story, and the more traditional cinematography doing the talking.

Other QFSers in the group felt like Citizen Kane is complicated and feels “important” in a way that you’re told something is important. Whereas How Green Was My Valley is just a good, solid story created in a way that you’re guided along the narrative and live with the people in this town as if you’re one of them. Citizen Kane - you’re kept at arm’s length. And this is, in part, Welles’ design - Charles Kane is an enigma that we’re unravelling in the film. Ford has us as a member of this village, rooted in Huw’s story (played by Roddy McDowell). We don’t even go up into the mine atop the hill until Huw does very late in the film.

How Green Was My Valley stands on its own as opposed to being the historic foil to Citizen Kane at the Oscars. In many ways, the bigger upset at those Oscars was that Gregg Toland’s astonishing and groundbreaking cinematography from Citizen Kane lost to Arthur C. Miller’s in this film.

In any event, How Green Was My Valley should instead be compared to Ford’s other films. There is no one like Ford in placing humans against vast landscapes. From the very opening, you see humans set against the large world around them, the hills rolling in the distance. Wide vistas with men in foregrounds and mid-grounds. The looming presence of the mill always hovering about the town, a clear symbol of dominance told visually.

Coal miners hoping for work in How Green Was My Valley (1941).

Echoes of Ford’s word abound in How Green Was My Valley. Stagecoach (1939), Rio Grande (1950) and The Searchers (1956) come to mind seeing these Welsh landscapes. The Searchers in particular. Ford uses dark interiors with low ceilings that open up into the vastness of the exteriors - that’s done here throughout, but is of course legendary in the opening shot from The Searchers. Then for the story, you can see The Grapes of Wrath (1940) clearly in the pathos of the characters, their circumstances and being at the mercy of a faceless industry or corporation. Even Ma Joad (Jane Darwell) is analogous to Mrs. Morgan (Sara Allgood), long-suffering but spirited mothers trying to keep the family afloat. You can even find a man walking along the horizon in How Green Was My Valley in the way Ford shows Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln - where the preacher Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon) has the nearly identical righteousness as Fonda’s Lincoln.

Similar use of horizon and vistas across John Ford’s films - left to right: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Stagecoach (1939).

(Brief pause here to point out that Ford made from 1939-1941 - Young Mr. Lincoln, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, AND How Green Was My Valley?! That’s utterly incredible. I’ve left out Drums Along the Mohawk, 1939, The Long Voyage Home, 1940 and Tobacco Road, 1941 which are lesser films for Ford - all made before he left to serve and make films for the US Navy in World War II.)

A QFSer brought up that the film is a remembrance of the experience rather than the experience itself. The narration looks back at the events of the film with fondness but there’s tragedy and heartbreak in this old town. So the question is - why does Huw stay? He gets a scholarship to study in the city after doing well at school and even his father wants him to take that opportunity. After all, his brother died in the mine, people are dying all the time there. He likes school - but yet he decides to stay. We know he does because in the narration at the very opening he says he stayed in the valley for fifty years. Still, the allure of staying and working in a very dangerous industry is not clear to me other than he’s attracted to the widow Bronwyn - who is of course far older than him. I understand this is what his family has done for generations. But Huw has a ticket out. I guess that’s a sign of good filmmaking in that this decision frustrated me, which then led to the somewhat tragedy of his father dying in the coal mines.

We watched this film in the thick of the Writers’ Guild strike against the studios, right as Labor Day was approaching. The images in How Green Was My Valley of the strike stretching into the winter definitely hit close to home. Ford portrays the despair of this labor dispute with the coldness of the season and shows the desperation but determination of the workers. It’s easy to see the parallel between this and The Grapes of Wrath, how something wrought by a faceless entity, outside of one’s control - drought, bank failures, coal-mining greed - can decimate the working class and their families. It’s not exactly the same for us in the film industry, but I definitely feel some aspect of how Ford shows us this struggle.

Strike stretches into the winter?! This hits a little too close to home - from How Green Was My Valley (1941).

How Green Was My Valley may not have endured the test of time in the minds of filmmakers or people who study cinema, but it’s not because of lack of merit. Perhaps just circumstance or timing or the fact that Ford’s work is so vast and so full of hits that this one just has fallen by the wayside. It’s no small feat to tell this tale - even though it has periodic narration from an older Huw, he’s not necessarily the main character. There is no one protagonist - it’s a story of a family and a village, featuring a truly excellent drunken party scene where people are literally drinking out of hats. To tell a sprawling tale like this is no small feat and can only be done if you care deeply about the characters, their story, and their struggle. It’s no secret that Ford is one of the all-time masters of this, and How Green Was My Valley is one of the many examples of why one must continue to study his filmmaking - even in some of his less remembered films.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943)

QFS No. 3 - The invitation for May 13, 2020
Preston Sturges is one of my favorite American filmmakers of the pre- and early post-war era. His Sullivan’s Travels (1941) and Hail The Conquering Hero (1944) are exceptional works of writing and subtle-to-overt social criticism through satire – especially during the studio system era. A handful of us were fortunate to catch Hail The Conquering Hero in the theater here in LA for our predecessor Wednesday Night Film Society get together at the New Beverly Cinema several years ago.

The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek has been on my “to watch” list for some time, so I figured let me use this opportunity in quarantine to encourage everyone to embrace their primal love of black and white cinema. Also this is probably the exact opposite type of film than the previous week. (We’re going to swing back and forth a lot with these selections!)

Join us if you can – details to follow.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) Directed by Preston Sturges

Reactions and Analyses:
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) is a surprisingly subversive film. At the center of the story is Trudy (Betty Hutton) who is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. But she knows it’s a soldier because she was at a wild farewell party for a group of soldiers heading off to fight in World War II and had hit her head on a chandelier. She believes she married a soldier but doesn’t even know his last name for sure so they can’t find him.

Just stopping there - this is extraordinary. Think about 1943 and 1944 when this film is released by Paramount Pictures. How could a major movie studio release a film with this borderline blasphemous plot during the height of World War II when the nation was mobilized in unwavering support for the war effort and American soldiers conscripted to fight overseas? The premise suggests that a woman was so blackout drunk at a party with soldiers, enjoying the company of one or more of them, then got pregnant and has to figure out what to do now.

Throw in the hapless Norval (Eddie Bracken) who throws on a uniform as if to solve the problem as they fake a marriage, where things continue to go awry, and you take it from tragedy to comedy really quickly, with moral questions at its center.

The only filmmaker of that time - especially for a comedy - who could credibly pull this off is Preston Sturges. A true auteur before the word ever came into being even in France, Sturges was writing and directing his own films with his own unique voice. You can look no further than the terrific Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) from this same year (also starring Eddie Bracken) which skewers the idea of war heroism. There, Eddie Bracken’s “Woodrow” is discharged from the military after only a month, but a small lie - that he fought abroad - spirals out of control as everyone treats him as a returning hero. He’s suddenly the toast of his home town, rekindling an old love, even picked to run for mayor.

Here, in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, there’s a similar theme - this idea that soldiers are unassailable demigods and not fallible humans. That war and military service is the measure of greatness.

By the end of the film, Trudy gives birth to six boys in a truly wild delivery room sequence that features a harried Norval and a frantic doctor. The news makes it around the world - both the fact that someone gave birth to six children but also that they were all, miraculously, boys. This is portrayed as a sign of American virility and prowess, of American might and righteousness. It’s wacky, it’s nonsensical, and the time frame of it all makes no sense. But it’s the perfect conclusion to a Sturges film.

One QFSer brought up that this is all tongue-in-cheek. Sturges is saying that all of this American moral superiority is nonsense and deserving of ridicule. Or at the very least, deserving of at least a mirror to show ourselves how shallow and self-delusional it all really is. Sturges’ tone borders on sarcastic, but it’s not sarcasm exactly. It’s farce - social criticism covered up by farce. Whether it worked on that level for audiences at the time is perhaps unclear now, but it certainly clear upon watching in 2020. The brilliance of Sturges here, and in all his work, is how it endures even though it was meant to probe the cultural and social norms of the time.