Naw, He ain't so great: a Defense of John Ford's Auteurship in "How Green was my Valley"

      Establishing a criteria for what defines a good film is perhaps simplified by deciding what makes a great director.  Though it has been said that great directors make great films, what qualifies one as a great director is a matter of dispute.  Some may look to the glut of awards a director garners but that would exclude some of the highly regarded directors such as Hitchcock or Kubrick, neither of whom ever won the coveted Best Director Oscar.  Some look at box office receipts, those who make the most money, yet that seems a spurious criterion as many talented and effective directors have never been big box office draws, while films whose directors names are nary recognizable pack them in.  There have been many theorists who have posited criteria for judging a director’s quality but few have been so well known and readily embraced as the Auteur Theory.  In Sarris’ “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962” he defines a fairly simple, though somewhat vague set of qualifications of the Auteur Theory, assuming that an auteur is indeed a ‘good’ director.  He indicates that to be an auteur a director must first have technical capacity, the ability to manage the mechanics of film-making in order to make a movie that works.  This excludes a number of directors whose films are largely incoherent messes (e.g. Ed Wood).  Next, he declares that they must have a signature that comes through.  This is the sense of style recognized by repeated motifs (visual and textual) that appear in the director’s body of work.  This eliminates most directors as so many are workhorses simply making what the producers wants them to.  The final and most elusive qualifier is the “élan of the soul”.  This is something that is difficult to explain as it is something that is purely cinematic and therefore virtually impossible to describe in words.  I would proffer that it is what Michael Shurtleff describes in his actor’s textbook “Audition” as the X factor or mystery.  It is that quality that speaks to the soul that connects people to their humanity.  This is not to be equated with emotional manipulation or maudlin sentimentalism, it is honest and connects with that which is true of all humanity.  Even so, as Sarris describes, it is difficult to define in words.

     Both Sarris and Peter Wollen identify John Ford as an auteur, though not necessarily with the same qualifiers.  With an enormous body of work in various genres he provides plenty of media texts to analyze for the purpose of defining how well he fulfills the criteria established by Sarris.  In looking primarily at his critically lauded work “How Green was my Valley” and comparing it to “The Searchers”  we can determine that he does indeed fulfill the criteria and place himself within the pantheon of great directors known as auteurs.

     The first criteria is the most facile to fulfill.  John Ford’s film represents a clear understanding of the techniques of film and he utilizes them adroitly.  Referring back to the IMR and comparing the film with that system of film we see that he certainly has the capacity to tell a clear, understandable story through this visual medium.  There is a unity to the elements that work together to portray the plot, character, theme etc.  Aside from the fact that he continually had work and his work was very well received by audiences, critics, and producers alike indicates that he was effective.  It is not likely that there will be much argument on this point.  John Ford was a master of technique.

     The signature on the film requires more clear discussion.  We must look at specific examples of stylistic choices that are repeated to support his fulfillment of this requirement for auteurship.  In his film “The Searchers”  he utilizes deep focus to great effect in both the opening and closing shots of the film.  We see Ethan from inside a house through the door, the door being placed in the center of the shot.  The repetition of that shot as a bookend to the film is a clear stylistic choice within the film.  That deep focus repeated in “How Green was my Valley” indicates a motif that reaches beyond the bounds of a single film.  An example of this use occurs after the marriage of the oldest daughter to the son of Mr. Evans, owner of the coal mine.  This marriage is against her own will and that of the Mr. Griffith (the preacher) who are in love.  As we see the marriage party in the foreground the focus instead is on the silhouette of Mr. Griffith up on the hill near the church.  This indicates that Mr. Griffith is being left on the outside.  Similar to Ethan in the bookends of “The Searchers”, he is a shadow in deep focus.  This commonality of visual imagery in both films to express the repeated theme of being left on the outside is a manifestation of the author’s signature.  This is something that John Ford does in his films to talk about a common theme.  By doing so Ford has fulfilled the requirement of the auteur’s signature.

     The final criterion is the élan of the soul.  While Ford has the technical prowess and the stylistic utterances, it is his ability to give us those moments of soul-piercing humanity that firmly establish him within that pantheon of auteurship.  The moment that best represents this concept within “How Green was my Valley” is near the end.  The whistle sounds telling of an accident in the mine.  The families of the miners rush to the mine to ascertain the safety of their beloved.  The elevator rises with the miners but the father is not seen, in fact we see several tiers of the elevator pass with miners and the last is empty.  It is clear that the father is still trapped in the mine.  There is a shot of the mother’s face.  The camera holds on her while there is much movement in the background.  She leans softly on a beam for support.  The camera holds.  That moment is able to capture the weight of grief, uncertainty, anger, fear, love, and life that falls upon that woman.  There is no affectation.  No slowing of the movement, no swelling score.  Just a pure, honest moment of the tragedy of all life.  While much of the credit goes to the actress, it bespeaks also of the ability Ford to make that moment happen as it did.  The coaching of the actress, the framing of the shot, the length of the shot before cutting, the choice of diagetic sound, the lighting, the movement; all of these things come from Ford bringing out that élan of the soul.  The same is seen in “The Searchers” when we seen Ethan’s face after scalping Scar.  A similar use of all his skill to bring us into touch with that which is greater than ourselves.  These two together cement Ford’s status as an auteur as one who fulfills all the requirement as established by Sarris.

     It is interesting that we would read about Auteur theory and death of the author in the same week.  Auteur theory smacks of elitism and exclusionary politics.  Barthes and Foucault tore down that elitism with their critique of the author and the role that it plays in oppressing the reader, that it is representative of the oppressive structures that encumber societal life.  But such is the nature of the beast.  As soon as one starts to develop a criteria for what is “good” in art, one is creating an oppressive structure and sliding over to elitism.  One could argue that this elitism works to Ford’s advantage.  His legacy continues because he belongs to an elite class and regardless of whether or not this structure is oppressive, it is remarkable effective in connecting audiences with the material.  John Ford was really good at that and within the studio system, perhaps that was the point.

Extrinsic Subversion in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

     There is a dialectical tension in the capitalist economic system.  The system is the most efficient economic system so far in history and has led to remarkable discoveries and ease of life for many.  However, it also perpetrates injustices on many that are not easily reconciled.  The primary injustice is often identified as the exploitation of the worker by the ruling class.  In the context of media markets there is an occluded exploitation, that the laborers in broadcast media are the audience not the creators of the art.  According to Dallas Smythe in his seminal work On Audience Commodity and Work he posits that the work of the audience is to purchase the products advertised during the broadcast program.  In effect, the audience is then sold as exploitable laborers to the advertisers.  The great inequality is that the laborers (audience) are not aware that they are being sold.  Without recognizing that they are being exploited the audience goes on their merry way watching and purchasing without the knowledge that they are being oppressed.  The audience loses their identity as individuals and are commodified as market shares or ratings which are then sold off.  This insidious relationship is occasionally subverted through the media itself.  There are those in the media, the artists, that plant subversive texts in the media that reveals and mocks the oppressive structure.  The producers allow the program to continue long enough to give the audience the illusion of emancipation and then cut it to satiate the corporate advertisers.  Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is indicative of this type of experience.  Through means both overt and covert, extrinsic and intrinsic it represents the exploitative power structure that commodifies the audience as labor for the corporate advertisers.

     Most apparently in the cold open of Studio 60, Wes Mendell ,the director of the fictional Studio 60, interrupts a skit to rant about the sad state of the programming on his network.  After likening the content of the programs to pornography and snuff films he admonishes us to “Turn the T.V. off!”  This is a moment that functions of both an intrinsic and and extrinsic level. Because character has two audiences, the fictional in the context of the show and the real outside that context, the line functions in that duality.  He is telling his fictional audience to turn off the TV, to unplug themselves from the oppressive structure, to quit their night job.  Additionally he is telling us to quit watching.  This is a subversive act.  Sorkin is flirting with the cutting of his show.  Like the live studio audience on screen, initially we laugh at Wes’ antics.  Then he repeatedly says that “This is not a skit.” The audience ceases to laugh and so do we.  This is for real.  His extended rant on the nature of television and its relationship to its audience bespeaks that terrifying reality of our oppressive relationship.  The terrifying reality that we do not turn it off.  We stay plugged in and absorb the advertising and go buy those products like good little workers.

      Perhaps the most powerful moment is not this, but the moment that it leads to.  In the booth, during Wes’s rant, the producer and the head tech have a stand-off.  The producer wants Wes‘ rant cut.  The Tech holds it for a full 53 seconds.  He doesn’t turn off the show.  Once again the show functions in that duality.  He leaves the show on so that the director can say his piece and so do we.  While the great victory would be if we had turned off the TV when he told us to, perhaps there was more subversion in what he had to say after.  So then comes a contradiction.  We can emancipate ourselves from the broadcast or we can remain plugged in and the makers of the show get to subvert the system and still the system is maintained, the marketing money is coming in and the makers can assuage their conscience that they are doing something about the problem.  But in reality we are all just coping.

Then there is the remarkable moment.  Finally the tech cuts the rant and they go to the opening of their program.  We see, as the imaginary audience sees, the logo for the show.  The shot appears as if we are looking at a screen on our screen.  Then it fades into our screen alone and then cut to commercial.  That moment of transition is what tells us that we are the real audience that Wes was speaking to.  There is no fictional audience.  It is us.  In that sense then we are being asked to subvert the system together with the Sorkin and his crew.  But in order to do so we have to abandon him and the subversive means.  Ironically we so much enjoy that subversion that we continue to watch and the status quo is maintained and there is no emancipation and we merely cope with the oppressive circumstances in which we find ourselves.  

     What ultimately occurred is that Sorkin’s show was cancelled after one season.  They had their 53 seconds and ultimately we cut. The ratings dropped by half over the course of the season.  The sad reality is that the ratings did not drop because people emancipated themselves from the system.  They just changed the channel and watched something else, something that was less subversive and better at helping them cope.  

     Nicholas Garham indicates that that popular culture being represented to subvert the system only leads to coping without critical inquiry.  Those who watched the show in its original run enjoyed the subversion and consumed the advertisements and continued in the system.  The inquiry, however, was missing.  The series has now been released on DVD.  This is provided without commercials and we can practice critical inquiry regarding the subversive elements of the program without supporting the system with our labor seeing as how nobody in the room paid for the DVD and there were no advertisements to lure us into that commodified relationship.  So the show has moved into its extrinsic purpose and through the critical inquiry now available to the viewers of the recording emancipation is possible.