Of course, filmmakers barely seemed to notice which tribe was which. We look at how repeated shots and camera placement became shorthand in Ford’s movies, as with a certain formation, known as the Totem Pole, which would signify the point at which white pioneers crossed into tribal lands. After a biographer explains how his Irish heritage inspired an affinity for landscape, we see how his use of this terrain changed over time: Used for scenic rear projection in Stagecoach, it took on threatening overtones in My Darling Clementine, only to later become “a jolly place” by the time of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Ford was shooting in Technicolor and could make even the valley’s sky play a role in the drama, with colors that changed to suit the action. The film is much more specific in its discussion of John Ford, who shot so many films here there’s an outcropping named for him today. When set in stark contrast with tiny homesteads in a shot’s foreground, they also might remind us of the vast challenge nature presented to those attempting to live there. If the heroes of those films are seekers, dreamers who don’t fit into more civilized communities back east, perhaps these lonely, massive rocks assure us of the misfit’s strength and capacity for endurance.

Things begin with some general talk about what those distinctive formations have come to mean in the context of Hollywood Westerns.

As much an essay on national identity as a dive into film-buff lore, it should be an easy sell on the fest circuit before winding up as go-to viewing for college courses in a number of disciplines.ĭirector-screenwriter: Alexandre O. George Lucas), sci-fi ( Memory: The Origins of Alien) and Alfred Hitchcock ( 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene). Philippe’s The Taking, a surprisingly thorny doc by a filmmaker whose work usually tackles easier pop culture subjects like George Lucas ( The People vs.

But few will have thought about those buttes anywhere near as deeply as the interviewees in Alexandre O. Their silhouettes, and images inspired by them, are as embedded in myths of the American West as cowboy hats and six-shooters. Even those who’ve never heard its name know Monument Valley, that collection of stunning sandstone features rising out of the desert where Utah meets Arizona.

Affinity photo review