It is not one of Ford's best films, but it's a beautiful masterpiece nonetheless. That tells you how much better Ford was to any other director on this planet. About that time he also did 'Tobacco Road', which I like even better, and it's about country folk too. The interest of this story is obviously centered in one character, Lincoln, played by Henry ford. So you notice that to build up that first ingredient into a fully fledged movie is going to be a challenge. Well, Ford succeeds wonderfully. We get to love his characters, even the mean type, the murderer in the story gets some pity from us. That's how wonderful Ford was, he hated sin but not the sinner. The story is all about young man Lincoln at the time he decides to take up law, and his first steps in this business, which get him into a case. The case, a murder, takes three quarters of the film, and the success of Ford was that he lifted the story -dignifying it- even above the main character, Lincoln; he made the story shine by itself, gloriously, so Lincoln works around the story and its other characters and not the other way round. The folk are treated respectfully, as I said, which doesn't mean there's no humor, of course there is, and plenty. As much as there is tenderness, love, family ties, friendship... It's a cocktail of emotions. Ford is about humanity, which includes the bad and the good within it, one cannot be blamed without blaming the other, as they are both part of the same human heart. Ford just encourages us to realize this inner battle, to discern what is good from what is evil within us. Ford is not like the rich city dweller teaching country folk how to be civic and liberal; he is one of us, no better and no worse. Like Jesus, he doesn't throw the first stone either. So why should anybody else?
I love Ford's films. They are so rich in humanity, so unpretentious, so close to the real people, the working people, to the humble. His films are so often called poetic because simply no one can show hope, love, tenderness, friendship, loyalty, honor, courage, mercy and kindness better than him. He is no Pharisee, Ford.
Take the scene of the lynching for instance. Is Ford spiteful of the wild crowd? In that scene I saw myself portrayed as one of the crowd, just as Ford meant it to be. Only Lincoln stands up to the occasion and brings the mirror to our faces. Any one who would consider himself better than any in the lynching crowd is worse than the murder in the story himself, that's my consideration. Because his pride and self-righteousness will never let him see his own sin and repent.
The second disc has some interesting things. I'll just mention the interview made by the British to Henry Fonda -I think it was in the 1980's. It was both sad and illustrative to see and hear Mr Fonda talk about himself and how he got into the movie business. When he talked about a lynching crowd he once witnessed, he let out his hatred and despising for those people, the '[........]', he called them. If not hatred, at least his despising was noticeable when referring to the majority of voters in Nebraska who still vote Republican. I continued listening, though already disappointed by the self-righteousness of this unchristian preacher talk, when he revealed another gem of his characterization: his aversion for horses, riding, guns, and all things country-like. Oh, boy! I'd exchange my European passport for his 'execrable' American one w/o blinking. As Jim Goad says in his 'Redneck Manifesto': "The 'nice' kids with nice teeth from the nice side of town, have no solid explanation for white trash's existence beyond the purely behavioral. They just shake their heads ... wondering how anyone could act that way."
Both sentiments of sympathy for the great actor and of pity for the man's soul mingled in my heart. If there is one thing I can't cope with is self-righteousness and loftiness. Why is it so hard for some people to put themselves in the skin of others? And why is it so easy to judge those whose circumstances you have never known, nor cared to? Jesus called this type of people hypocrites. Perhaps Fonda thinks he's better than Jesus too.
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2009
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Larry the WestReviewed in Italy on May 29, 2024
ALBA DI GLORIA.
Film storico per “fordiani incalliti” come il sottoscritto. La vita in tribunale del giovane avvocato Lincoln nell’Illinois degli anni ’30 dell’Ottocento narrata dal “Grande Maestro” Il barile di libri che esce dal carro Conestoga mi ha colpito molto; d’altronde Lincoln era un intellettuale, nonostante fosse un campagnolo, autodidatta. Ci sono anche Marjorie Weaver (Mary Todd) e Milburn Stone (Stephen A. 'Steve' Douglas). Le “storielle” che raccontava sono famose. Un capolavoro da vedere e collezionare.Larry the WestALBA DI GLORIA.
Reviewed in Italy on May 29, 2024
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