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Takashi Fujimura's Essay: Hitchcock-Hawksism
Here, we examine "Rear Window." James Stewart, a news photographer living in an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York, is confined to a wheelchair due to a broken bone on a hot and humid summer day. He glances into the apartment across the street and, from what he sees, suspects a murder is taking place. He continues to peek, and in "Rear Window," in the sense that "a news photographer is pursuing a murder," if we consider that the profession of a photographer inherently contains a strong element of secretly photographing subjects as objects, then his act of peeking can be seen as a professional movement underpinned by his skills as a photographer. But is he even a photographer in the first place? He continues to peek using a camera with a telephoto lens from the middle of the film, but if his actions were directed towards "being" a news cameraman, then, having witnessed a social event like a murder, it would be natural for him to take photographic evidence, and any director would have James Stewart press the shutter first. However, James Stewart, who is supposed to be a news cameraman, does not press the shutter even once throughout the film. Even when he is spying using the camera, there is no gesture of James Stewart pressing the shutter, nor is there any "click!" sound of a shutter heard in the film. There is no optical processing to give the appearance that a photograph has been taken. Moreover, in many cases, James Stewart chooses binoculars or, even when he chooses the camera, his fingers do not even touch the shutter, and his actions are concentrated not on "being" a news cameraman, but solely on "doing" to peek. Midway through the film, when Raymond Burr from the apartment across the street tries to move a large trunk, Stewart panics, saying, "If Doyle (his friend, Inspector Wendell Corley) doesn't come quickly, the evidence will disappear!" However, there is a complete lack of professional ethics as a news photographer, such as "taking photographic evidence with the camera." This is truly a frightening situation. There is one scene where he compares a negative of a photograph of the flowerbed in the garden of the apartment across the street with the current state of the flowerbed to deduce the truth, but as Stewart says, this negative was taken two weeks earlier, before the incident occurred—before the film even began. After the incident occurred—after the film started—James Stewart's act of "pressing the shutter" is carefully removed from the screen. James Stewart, who never once attempts to "press the shutter," which is the most important skill for a cameraman, can hardly be called a cameraman. This bizarre situation suggests how far removed Hitchcockian involvement is from "being," and in doing so, Stewart's movement of "investigating a murder" moves away from the social responsibility of a cameraman—the "public"—and approaches a private act of proof of "I definitely saw it!" similar to Margaret Lockwood in "The Lady Vanishes." As the film approaches "doing"—the movement—unusual events such as a news cameraman witnessing the incident not pressing the shutter are scattered throughout the screen.
★Tools
●In "Rear Window," it's not just the protagonist's "being" that's separated. Even the tools are separated from their "being." In the middle of the film, when the housekeeper, Thelma Ritter, tries to borrow the camera Stewart is using, she doesn't say, "Lend me your camera." She says, "Lend me your portable keyhole." What James Stewart has isn't a camera. It's a portable keyhole, and since a portable keyhole doesn't have a shutter, James Stewart can't press the shutter. Here, not only is James Stewart stripped away from "being" a cameraman, but even the camera itself is stripped away from its social function as a camera and into the realm of "doing." The camera is not a camera. It's a portable keyhole. The metaphysical immobility of "being" a camera is dismantled, and even the object itself is purified into the movement of "seeing" that is currently being done—the process of "doing." With this inclination, the "Rear Window" naturally develops into using the flash, which is meant to illuminate a subject and take a photograph, as a blinding tool by specializing it into the raw movement of "shining." It extracts only the movement from the function and purifies it into "doing."
★Reverse Grip
The phenomenon of extracting movement from function capabilities also applies to weapons such as knives and kitchen knives. ●In "BLACKMAIL," when Annie Ondra is attacked by the painter, the knife is initially held in an overhand grip in Ondra's hand as she emerges from behind the curtain, but when Ondra comes out again, the knife is held in a reverse grip. ●In "TORN CURTAIN," the farmer's wife initially holds the kitchen knife in an overhand grip, but deliberately switches to a reverse grip before slashing at German intelligence agent Wolfgang Keeling. ●In "THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1956), the man who stabs Daniel Gélin in the back also holds the knife in a reverse grip. ●In "SYCHO," when Janet Leigh is attacked with a kitchen knife, and again when Vera Miles is attacked towards the end, the kitchen knife is held in the attacker's hand in a reverse grip. ●In "Dial M for Murder," when Grace Kelly stabs Anthony Dawson in the back with scissors, she is holding them in a reverse grip. ●In "North by Northwest," the knife pulled out by Cary Grant as he catches the man stabbed in the back at the UN building is also held in a reverse grip, and what's more, a cameraman who happened to be there took a picture of him holding the knife in a reverse grip, which was then featured prominently in the newspaper. Later, when Adam Williams, the knife expert who attacks Cary Grant on the cliffs of Mount Rushmore, attacks him, he is also holding his knife in a reverse grip. As James Dean demonstrated in Nicholas Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause" (October 26, 1955), when stabbing someone, from a functional standpoint of "successfully stabbing," a knife or kitchen knife held in an overhand grip should be easier to use than one held in a reverse grip. However, in Hitchcock films, the weapon used to stab someone is often held in a reverse grip. An object swung down with a reverse grip exposes an inexplicable and bizarre "doing" that is stripped away from its functional "being."
★Function-Movement Relationship Chart
This is the "Hitchcock Function-Movement Relationship Chart" It's a list of "strange" things where the "doing" (movement) is extracted from the "function" (being). These often overlap and cannot be strictly classified, but for now, we'll divide them into tools, places, people/animals, events, and sounds, and begin by examining each with two or three examples.
Tools
① "THE 39 STEPS": A pipe in a pocket is thrust at the victim, making them believe it's a gun and threatening them. The pipe is separated from its original function of smoking ("being") and transformed into the "doing" of a gun.
② "Susption": A chair passed down through generations is displayed in a shop window. The chair appears not as its original function of "sitting" ("being"), but as an "doing"—displayed in a tool shop's window.
③ "SYCHO": A stack of banknotes is sunk along with a car without being used. The focus has shifted from the "being" of the banknotes being used as exchange currency to the "doing" of them being sunk in a swamp. This highlights the abnormality of the crime.
Location
① "Notorious": A wine cellar is used as a hiding place for uranium. The wine cellar is transformed from its "being" as a place to store wine to its "doing" as a place to store uranium.
② "NORTH BY NORTHWEST": The man disrupts the auction at the auction house, attracting the police and having himself arrested. The auction house is transformed from its "being" as a place for auctions to transform into its "doing" as a place to have a man surrounded by spies arrested and escaped by the police.
③ "THE BIRDS": A bird lands on the school's jungle gym. The jungle gym is transformed from its "being" as equipment for children to play on to its "doing" as a place where a bird lands. This reveals its strangeness.
People/Animals
① "THE 39 STEPS": A milkman lends a man his uniform, allowing him to disguise himself as a milkman and escape from the apartment. The milkman exists not for his "being" as a milkman, but for his "doing" of helping the man escape.
② "THE 39 STEPS" A man being pursued by the police kisses a stranger sitting in a train compartment and pretends to be his lover to shake off his pursuers. From the perspective of the events, the "being" of kissing out of love is transformed into the "doing" that causes the event of shaking off the pursuers. Moreover, the very existence of the woman who happens to be there is transformed from "being" as a "person" to "doing" to "kiss" and "let the man escape." First of all, the man doesn't kiss her because she's there; rather, the woman is there in order to kiss him and let him escape—this is a reversal of thinking.
Audio
① "THE 39 STEPS": The maid's scream upon discovering a body in the room is drowned out by a train whistle. The "being" of a scream of surprise is transformed into the "doing" of a train whistle.
② "THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1934) (1956): The sound of cymbals drowns out gunshots. The sound of cymbals, which "is" a musical performance, is transformed into the "doing" of drowning out gunshots. A woman's scream diverts the assassin's aim. The "being" of a scream of surprise is transformed into the "doing" of diverting the gun's aim.
③ "ROPE": A gun is fired outside the apartment to call the police. The gun, which "is" killing people, is transformed into the "doing" of calling for help.
Events
① "FRENZY": A bartender drinks the bar's liquor, gets reprimanded by the owner, is fired, has to repay his advance on his salary and is penniless, gets information on a winning horse racing ticket but has no money to buy it, and is forced to go and see his ex-wife to borrow money. The event of drinking the bar's liquor is separated from the "being" of tasting the alcohol and is revealed as a trigger = "doing" that leads to a series of subsequent events: repaying the advance → being penniless → not being able to buy a horse racing ticket → going to see his ex-wife.
② "Shadow of a doubt": While the murderer leaves home to give a lecture, his daughter, who is left behind, searches for the ring that is the evidence. The event of giving a lecture is transformed from the "being" of giving a lecture into a trigger = "doing" that leads to the subsequent event of searching for the ring. Furthermore, here the event of "the daughter being left alone at home" stems from the event of "feeling sick after inhaling exhaust fumes in the garage." Therefore, the event of "feeling sick from inhaling exhaust fumes in the garage" is also detached from its function and transformed into an action that triggers the subsequent event of "staying home alone." Here, the two events are separated from their function and proceed in reverse order.
③ "Rear Window" Miss Lonely Heart, who lives on the first floor of the apartment building across the street, appears to be about to commit suicide, so a man who has been secretly watching her calls the police and waits for the line to connect. The suicide does not occur, and just as he feels relieved, his lover, who has sneaked into the second floor of the apartment building across the street, is about to be attacked, so he calls the police using the phone that has just connected. The phone call, made for the purpose of "being"—to report Miss Lonely Heart's suicide attempt—is transformed into an doing—to report his lover's danger.
Events ~ Climate
① "SYCHO" A woman is driving when it starts raining, the sun sets, and visibility becomes poor, so she turns off onto a side road and ends up at the Bates Motel. The events of rain and sunset are separated from the "being" of climatic phenomena and transformed into the "doing" of "dragging the woman to the Bates Motel."
② "Rear Window" On a hot and humid summer day, a man begins peeping into the apartment across the street. The "being" of high temperature and humidity is transformed into the "doing" that causes the man to peep.
★Turning Point
Looking at Hitchcock's 'Function-Movement Relationship Chart,' the separation of "being" from "doing," which was fairly common in the silent film era, drastically decreased after the advent of sound films, and then gradually increased again starting with ●"Rich and Strange)" (1931.12.10), and began to appear with increasing accelerating pace in ●"The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934) and ●"The 39 Steps." In ●"The 39 Steps," the hymnbook exists not for singing hymns but to stop bullets, the pipe is not for smoking but to be concealed in a pocket and disguised as a pistol, the Salvation Army parade is for people to hide, political rallies are also for people to hide, and the waterfall is for people to hide behind... In this way, not only tools but also places and situations are separated from their original function = "being" and transformed into "doing." Under this phenomenon of extracting only movement from function, the kiss in the compartment is also detached from its original "being" of love and transformed into a raw "doing" of "escaping from the police." Moreover, the milkman is not doing his job but helping Robert Donat escape the apartment, the farmer's wife is helping Robert Donat, and the flock of sheep is obstructing the car. Humans and animals are also transformed into raw "doings." Furthermore, the apartment manager's scream becomes a train whistle, the bleating of sheep drowns out the footsteps of the two escaping, and the cold binds the man and woman together. Sounds and weather are also separated from "being" to "doing." "THE 39 STEPS" definitively established this separation from "being" to "doing" in Hitchcock's films, and this work marks a decisive turning point in Hitchcock's shift from "being" to "doing" not only in terms of characters and collaborators but also in terms of tools, places, and other elements.
★Memories of Guns
●The final scene of "ROPE," where James Stewart fires three gunshots into the air to attract people, is more memorable to us than the scene where a misfired gun hits Stewart and injures him. ●In "NORTH BY NORTHWEST," the scene where Martin Landau is shot by the sheriff is not memorable to us, but the scene where Cary Grant is shot with a blank using the same gun is memorable. Also, ●In "THE 39 STEPS," the scene at the beginning where the female spy uses gunshots to surprise the audience and escape with them is memorable, but the scene at the end where Mr. Memory is shot is not. Also, ●In "Foreign Correspondent," the scene where Albert Basserman is shot by a man disguised as a cameraman remains in our memory because the gun is fired as if pressing the shutter of a camera. Details that are removed from the association with the tool are more likely to remain in our memory than if they were absent. ● In the final scene of "NORTH BY NORTHWEST," James Mason, upon seeing the sheriff shoot Martin Landau on Mount Rushmore, exclaims, "Using live ammunition is tasteless," a humorous jab at the use of live ammunition in a shooting that deviates from Hitchcock's usual style, reaching its ultimate limits. ● In the final scene of "NORTH BY NORTHWEST," the train that plunges into the tunnel is, according to Hitchcock, "a symbol of the phallus!" ("The Art of Film," p. 137).
★The Curtain
In Hitchcock films, whether various phenomena exist as "beings" or are stripped down to "doing" is a major indicator of the nature of the work. Even the event of "the curtain rising" is vastly different in nature between "STAGE FRIGHT," where a real stage curtain rises to begin the film, and "Rear Window," where a window blind is used as a curtain to begin the film. "STAGE FRIGHT," which begins by relying on the external "being" of a "real curtain," continues to take on a sense of agency at various points, with Jane Wyman breaking down in tears over her guilt as the film progresses. In contrast, "Rear Window," which begins by tearing the blinds away from their "being" and transforming them into a "doing" of a curtain, progresses through the power of "doing" that separate everything internally from "being," such as the camera becoming a "portable peephole." These seemingly trivial differences in detail determine the nature of the films. In the context of "an actor playing a role"—a theme also shared with *Stage Fright*—it is certainly no coincidence that in *Murder!*, the protagonist, Herbert Marshall, consistently takes proactive action, and that the film concludes with the curtain falling on an actual stage.
→ "The Wrong Man" and the Overhand Grip of the Brush
In "The Wrong Man," the only Hitchcock film based on a true story, the separation of movement from "being" is dramatically reduced (see the "Function-Movement Relationship Chart"). Since true stories represent a functional civilized world, a world of "being" rather than "doing," it's natural that the separation from "being" to "doing" is drastically reduced in works based on true stories. In the scene where Vera Miles, the mentally unstable wife, hits Henry Fonda with a brush, the brush is used as an object detached from its association with the act of "hitting," yet the fact that it is held in an overhand grip reveals its functional aspect. Similarly, in the final act, the knife held by the owner of the general store that the real culprit breaks into is also held in an overhand grip. While it's certainly impossible to hit someone with a brush held in an Reverse Grip, the very fact that a tool that can only be held in an overhand grip is being used as a weapon reveals the proactive of the work itself. In Hitchcock films, the only weapons held in an overhand grip are Miles Mander's saber in "The Pleasure Garden," Sylvia Sidney's knife in "Sabotage," the knife held by the magician who attacks in the cargo hold in "The Lady Vanishes," the knives held by Walter Schlesak and John Bodorak in "Lifeboat," the razor held by Gregory Peck in "Spellbound," and the wrench used by the assailant when he attacks Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief." Attacks using an overhand grip are rather exceptional (in "Sabotage," to diminish the effect of Sylvia Sidney actively stabbing, her husband Oscar Homolka voluntarily goes and gets stabbed by the knife she is holding, and this scene would be impossible if the knife were held in a reverse grip, so it had to be held in an overhand grip). ●In "THE WRONG MAN," the fact that all locations such as police stations, interrogation rooms, courtrooms, prisons, insurance companies, restaurants, law offices, and resorts are used functionally for "being" and never for any other purpose—for "doing"—is a highly suggestive manifestation for understanding the relationship between function and movement. The functional world of "being" in a true story is a world of "truth" and a world that is "Psychological Authenticity," and therefore, "doing" which is free from "Psychological Authenticity" recedes into the background.
→ "TOPAZ"
We examined the spy film "TOPAZ" as a very proactive "First-Time Offenders," where cameras are hidden in sandwiches, guardrails, and roasted chickens, typewriters are used to conceal information, and film is hidden in razors and books. Since things are frequently hidden in objects that don't inherently function to "hide," these objects seem to be separated from "being" to "doing." However, the tools like cameras and film hidden in sandwiches are all used functionally, and opening the first "being" reveals a second "being" like a nesting box, preventing the "doing" from ever being retrieved. ●In "STEAMBOAT BILL, JR." (1927/May 12, 1928), there is a scene where Keaton tries to help his imprisoned father escape by hiding tools in a loaf of bread and bringing it to him. However, the tools fall out of the bread and are never used, and the escape is unsuccessful. In the end, the tools do not serve any purpose in "opening the prison," but are instead absorbed into the process of "falling." In contrast, in a proactive space of "being" like in "TOPAZ," the tools are also trapped in "being" and do not try to "do" anything.
★Location
●"VERTIGO"
In this film, James Stewart, who is tailing Kim Novak, is led to various places such as roads, flower shops, cemeteries, museums, inns, the sea, churches and their steps, but most of these places are disguised. The cemetery is not a place for visiting graves, the museum is not a place for appreciating art, the inn is not a place to stay, the church is not a place of faith, and the roads are labyrinthine. Everything appears as a space of "doing" that has been stripped of its function of "being," in order to deceive James Stewart. When we recall iconic scenes from Hitchcock films, what often leaves a lasting impression are the places of "doing" stripped away from "being," such as: ● Behind the waterfall in "The Thirty-Nine Nights," ● The watermill and train crossing in "Young and Innocent," ● The dining car in "The Lady Vanishes," ● Manderley in "Revecca," ● The stairs Cary Grant climbs with the white milk in "Suspension," ● The outdoor stairs and garage in "Shadow of a Doubt," ● The amusement park in "Strangers on a Train," ● The wine cellar in "Notorious," ● The farm roads and cornfields, the auction house, and Mount Rushmore in "North by Northwest," ● The Bates Motel in "Sycho," ● "The The lake and jungle gym in "BIRDS," the potato truck in "FRENZY"—these are all memorable because they are stripped of their function and remain exposed as raw, unadorned spaces. Even within the same racecourse, "Notorious" is a place for exchanging information without betting, while "MANIE" is a place where people bet and win, making them completely different in terms of the film's proactivity. In the silent film era, the auction house in "THE SKIN GAME" was filmed solely as an "auction house" where people bid to see who would win the land, but in "NORTH BY NORTHWEST," the auction house is transformed from a function of bidding into an "doing" where Cary Grant, surrounded by enemy spies and in a desperate situation, "is trying to escape." From "THE 39 STEPS" onward, Hitchcock's films, even in terms of location, are transformed into movements directed towards "doing."
★The Courtroom
Being arrested by the authorities not only brings you closer to proactive individuals pursuing the truth—detectives, judges, and lawyers—but also leads you further back to the truth of the past, to the very concept of "being." Therefore, the protagonists in Hitchcock films must never be arrested, and when they are about to be arrested, they must escape by smashing a window, like Robert Donat in "The 39 Steps." Before "The Man Who Knows Too Much" (1934), in films like "Easy Virtue," "The Manxman," and "Murder!", courtroom scenes where the protagonist appears as a defendant or juror were commonplace, but after "The Man Who Knows Too Much" (1934), such scenes drastically decreased. If we narrow down the list of films where the protagonist has committed a crime or is suspected of committing a crime to those released after "THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1934), we find: Robert Donat in "THE 39 STEPS", Oscar Homolka and Sylvia Sidney in "SABOTAGE", Derrick De Marney in "Young and Innocent", Laurence Olivier in "Revecca", Robert Cummings in "Saboteur", Gregory Peck in "SPELLBOUND", Alida Valli in "THE PARADINE CASE", John Dall and Farley Granger in "ROPE", Farley Granger in "STRANGERS ON A TRAIN", Montgomery Clift in "I Confess", Grace Kelly in "DIAL M FOR MURDER" and "Rear Window", and "TO CATCH A There are many actors who have been arrested by the authorities, including Cary Grant in "THIFE", the main characters of "THE WRONG MAN", Henry Fonda in "THE WRONG MAN", James Stewart in "VERTIGO", Cary Grant in "NORTH BY NORTHWEST", Tippi Hedren in "MANIE", Paul Newman in "TORN CURTAIN", John Finch and Barry Foster in "FRENZY", but among them, those who were arrested by the authorities were Derrick De Marney in "Young and Innocent", Gregory Peck in "SPELLBOUND", Alida Valli in "THE PARADINE CASE", Grace Kelly in "DIAL M FOR MURDER" and "Rear Window", Cary Grant in "TO CATCH A THIEF", Montgomery Clift in "I Confess", and "THE WRONG These include Henry Fonda in "MAN," James Stewart in "VERTIGO," Cary Grant in "NORTH BY NORTHWEST," and John Finch in "FRENZY." Among them, Derrick De Marney in "Young and Innocent" escapes court immediately wearing thick glasses, Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" is released on bail immediately, Cary Grant in "TO CATCH A THIEF" is also released on bail on the condition that he submits evidence of the culprit to the court within 10 days, and Cary Grant in "NORTH BY NORTHWEST" willingly allows himself to be arrested in order to escape from an auction house, but he is immediately released by FBI agent Leo G. Carroll, and after being shot with a blank and imprisoned in a hotel by the FBI, he quickly escapes by climbing through a window. ● In "SPELLBOUND," Gregory Peck is neither on bail nor escaped, yet not a single shot of him being interrogated in the interrogation room or in court is filmed. Further on, only eight films feature actual courtroom trials: ● "Notorious" ● "THE PARADINE CASE" ● "I Confess" ● "DIAL M FOR MURDER" ● "THE WRONG MAN" ● "VERTIGO" ● "NORTH BY NORTHWEST" ● "FRENZY." However, ● the trial scene in "Notorious" is merely a fragmentary glimpse of Bergman's father's courtroom trial, filmed through a half-open door (the fact that Bergman's father's face is never shown is evidence that he is merely a MacGuffin to set up the case). ● The trial scene in "DIAL M FOR MURDER" is also only a one-minute-long image of a trial scene, filmed in close-up of Grace Kelly. ● "NORTH BY NORTHWEST" In "The Northwest," the courtroom scene of Cary Grant, who is arrested for drunk driving, ends in an instant before he is released on bail. In "Frenzy," the courtroom scene is filmed from outside the courtroom through a glass door, and the moment the verdict is delivered is not heard because the door is closed. After the verdict, John Finch's shout of "Rusk is the killer! Not me!" can be heard through the door, and only a brief shot of John Finch being led out of the courtroom when a security guard, startled by the shout, opens the door. The courtroom scene as a depiction of "being" is intentionally avoided. Such omissions can also be seen in "Murder!" (1930), in which Herbert Marshall served as a juror, but there, although the verdict is only heard off-screen, the moment the verdict is delivered can be heard, and courtroom scenes and jury room discussions are filmed at length. It can be seen that in this period before "The 39 Steps," the idea of omitting "being" was not yet fully intended by Hitchcock himself.
★ "VERTIGO" and the Courtroom
● In "VERTIGO," James Stewart, who was unable to prevent Kim Novak's "suicide," is subsequently put on trial. However, upon closer inspection, this location is not a courtroom. In the middle of the film, the sequence in which the woman falls from the church's spire begins with a shot of the church's white pillars, then panning to the right to capture the stables where the carriage is parked. This courtroom sequence begins with the exact same composition and camera movement, indicating that the location is not a courtroom. Judging from the position of the cars of those involved and the zooming-in of the screen, it is clear that the location is the second floor of a two-story building located to the left of the stables across from the church where the crime took place. In this way, the public space of the courtroom, representing "being," is transformed into a private space of "doing," which resonates with the fact that the interrogation in "Revecca" takes place at a boarding school labeled "KERRITH BOARD SCHOOL." ● In the film "VERTIGO," just as the unique hills of San Francisco become a labyrinth, every place that appears—flower shops, cemeteries, churches, museums, the sea, etc.—is photographed as a disguised space stripped away from its "being," and this is scattered throughout as a detail that draws James Stewart into the film.
★Turning oneself in
●Since "THE 39 STEPS," the only films in which the protagonist is suspected of a crime that actively feature the courtroom setting are: ●"I Confess", ●"THE WRONG MAN", and ●"THE PARADINE CASE". It is no coincidence that all of these films, as examined so far, are works with many proactive details. In the first two films, the protagonists are either released on bail or acquitted, but this is merely an event that takes place after the lengthy courtroom scenes have been filmed. In either case, the arrested protagonist should do everything in their power to escape in order to avoid the proactive actions that will take place in the highly proactive setting of the courtroom. However, the suspects in these three films (even though one is based on a true story) show neither any intention nor any inclination to escape. Moreover, Montgomery Clift in "I Confess" even turns himself in to the police of his own volition, without being summoned, and by doing so, he attracts the proactive space of the courtroom, where the "truth" is sought, in addition to the proactive, performance-oriented detective Karl Malden. In Hitchcock's films, the only protagonist to turn herself in is Annie Ondra in "Blackmail," aside from "I Confess," and even then, she avoids arrest and is released thanks to the intervention of her lover, Detective John Longden. Furthermore, in "Sabotage," Sylvia Sidney, who murdered her husband, tries to turn herself in but is prevented from doing so by Detective John Longden. In this context, the proactivity in "I Confess" stands out. Hitchcock's films, which began to be made with a focus on "being," draw attention to "being" in every detail.
★Fictional City
●From "THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1934) to "THE 39 STEPS," Hitchcock's movement intensifies towards "doing," and in his final work, "FAMILY PLOT," all information indicating the city's existence, from the car's license plate number to everything else, is removed, and the "doing" of nameless lovers who possess neither credit, honor, nor wealth is enveloped in the anonymity of the fictional city and takes flight.
★Church
In the silent era, the church used for a wedding in "The Ring" becomes the hideout of an assassination squad in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934) and its remake, "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956). In "Secret Agent," it becomes a morgue with eerie organ sounds. In "Vertigo," it becomes a dizzying staircase and a staged murder scene. In "Family Plat," it becomes the scene of a kidnapping. Thus, the church, as a place, becomes increasingly detached from its "being" after "The Assassin's House." On the other hand, in the proactive film "I Confess," the church is consistently portrayed as a church. Here again, we can see the phenomenon in Hitchcock's works that are directed towards "being" where the details become thoroughly proactive.
★Fireplaces
●In silent films such as "The Farmer's Wife" (March 2, 1928) and "Juno and the Paycock" (June 29, 1930), fireplaces are used as fireplaces, ●In "Jamaica Inn," a fireplace warms Maureen O'Hara's body after she gets wet at the beach, ●In "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," Carol Lombard warms herself by the fireplace after getting soaked in the rain on a Ferris wheel at an amusement park, and ●In "The Trouble with Harry," the clothes of a dead person are dried by the fireplace. However, rather than fireplaces that are solely focused on the function of providing warmth, ●As in "The 39 Steps," the fireplace and flames are lit to bring together Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll, who are handcuffed together, or to hang Madeline Carroll's stockings from the mantelpiece, and are exposed in a raw, detached manner from their "being." ●In "VERTIGO," after Kim Novak jumps into the sea and is cared for at James Stewart's house, she sits wrapped in a red gown on a pillow on the carpet in front of the fireplace. If the fireplace were to function as such, it should first be used to dry Kim Novak's wet clothes. However, the wet clothes are dried in the kitchen, a space that is not normally used for drying clothes, which subtly and erotically indicates that they were taken off by James Stewart. The flames of the fireplace, rising from bottom to top in an endless loop behind Kim Novak, are revealed as "red," detached from their function of warming Kim Novak's body.
★Separating sound from meaning
The phenomenon of extracting movement from function is also valid in sound. In Hitchcock's first talkie, "Blackmail," Annie Ondra's scream when she sees a vagrant's hand in the street is superimposed on the scream of the caretaker who discovers the body. In the murder scene, screams and groans are only heard from behind a curtain. Furthermore, at breakfast, the talkative woman Phyllis Konstam repeatedly shouts "Knife!" in an inexplicable context, and in the final scene, the eerie laughter of the policemen rings out dissonantly. Thus, the film makes extensive use of sounds that are "heard" rather than "readed," such as screams, groans, and the repetition of the same word. However, since then, in "Juno and the Paycock," while there is certainly a technique of "hearing" the sounds of footsteps and gunshots in the off-screen space, audio has also begun to be used to "read" the meaning of the voices coming from the off-screen space. ● In "MURDER!", the dissonant voices of the jurors demanding a guilty verdict from Herbert Marshall in the jury room are overlaid to create a sense of "hearing," but the content of the verdict is also "read" in off-screen voices. ● In "THE SKIN GAME," the entire content of a one-minute-long conversation between Edmund Gwain and a farming couple demanding they leave is heard off-screen, and his daughter-in-law, Phyllis Konstam, eavesdrops on a conversation between C.V. France and his daughter, Gilles Esmond, from behind a curtain. After the advent of talkies, Hitchcock frequently used techniques to separate sound from its subject and let us hear "only the voice," but these techniques, which focus on the content of the words—"being"—rather than the separated voice, ultimately amount to nothing more than "reading" the content of the words, thus reducing the complexity of the movement. However, Hitchcock gradually increased his tendency to separate "doing" ＝ "listening," ending the film with the dissonant sound of a marital argument in the final scene of "Rich and Strange," where the couple simultaneously say what they want to say, and in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934), the sound of cymbals drowns out gunshots, and a woman's scream throws the gunman off balance. In "The 39 Steps," he not only overlays the sound of a train whistle on the scream of a maid who discovers a body, but also overlays the laughter of a judge in a completely different location on the scream of Peggy Ashcroft, a farmer's wife who has been beaten by her husband, and in a political rally, he makes the presenter on stage speak in a faint, almost inaudible voice, and in the final London theater sequence, he simultaneously overlays the sound of tap dancing shoes on stage with the sound of police officers' shoes going up the stairs. ●In "SECRET AGENT," the dissonant chords of a church organ evoke the image of a corpse. ●In the word game in "Suspension," the word "MURDER" appears, evoking the image of Cary Grant's murder, just as Nigel Bruce's eerie laughter is overlaid. This shows how the film extracts only the "doing" of the sound itself, rather than the "being" of the sound's meaning, and transforms the sound into something entirely different from its original function (meaning). This is a shift in sound from "reading" to "listening" in Hitchcock's films, and this tendency was already seen in the first talkie film, ●"BLACKMAIL," with repeated shouts of "Knife!", but it receded afterward, only to reappear as a prominent trend around ●"Rich and Strange."
★Climate Phenomena ~ Seasons
●In "SYCHO," the film begins at 2:43 p.m. on Friday, December 11th, in Phoenix, Arizona, yet in the real estate office, client Simon Oakland says, "It's a steam bath. Turn on the air conditioner." The lyrical division of seasons into spring, summer, autumn, and winter, common in Japanese films, does not exist in Hitchcock films. The seasons are neutral and difficult to discern, and the weather progresses moderately between sunny and cloudy, neither being bathed in intense sunlight nor enveloped in a gloomy, overcast sky. In Hitchcock films, when seasons or weather stand out, it is an exceptional event, and there is always a reason for it. ●The heat in "SYCHO" is a MacGuffin to draw Janet Leigh into the crime. ●The heat and humidity in "Rear Window" also exist as MacGuffins to lead James Stewart into the act of voyeurism. ● In "To Catch a Thief," the summer Riviera serves as a way to get Grace Kelly and Bridget Aubert into their swimsuits, and also as a MacGuffin for Cary Grant and Grace Kelly to kiss against a backdrop of fireworks.
★Rain and Umbrellas – "STAGE FRIGHT"
Rain falls with a fair amount of frequency in Hitchcock's films. As early as his debut film, "THE PLEASURE GARDEN," we can see rain falling outside the window of Virginia Valli's house on the day of her honeymoon. In "Young and Innocent," rain falls in the background of "The Blinking Man" after the couple's argument ends at the beginning of the film. In "Suspension," rain falls outside the marriage registry office. The rain that falls on the protagonists is often not rain as a weather phenomenon, but rather a harbinger of something ominous or other MacGuffin, and therefore the protagonists in Hitchcock's films never use umbrellas even when it rains. "Rain" is detached from "being rain" and indicates something else—"doing"—and even if you are struck by "rain," it is not rain, so the protagonists who are caught in the "rain" do not use umbrellas. Herein lies the "humor" that arises from the demands of the movement of events in film. ●In "Foreign Correspondent," it is pouring rain during the sequence of Albert Bassermann's assassination on the steps of Amsterdam, and while the surrounding crowd and Albert Bassermann walking up the steps are using umbrellas, the protagonist Joel McCrea is standing there with his raincoat soaked. ●In "Revecca," when it rains on the open car on the way to Manderlay, Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine get drenched but don't use umbrellas, at most Fontaine just puts her raincoat over her head, and even after arriving in Manderlay, they share an umbrella offered by a servant but never use an umbrella themselves. ●In "Saboteur," Robert Cummings, on the run, arrives at a house in the woods soaked in a downpour without an umbrella, and Priscilla Lane, who arrives later, also doesn't have an umbrella. Similarly, in the comedy film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," Carol Lombard and Jean Raymond, who are left suspended in mid-air when the Ferris wheel at an amusement park breaks down, are drenched in the rain without umbrellas. While being tossed about in a lifeboat, in "LIFEBOAT," no one uses an umbrella even when caught in a downpour. In "THE PARADINE CASE," Gregory Peck returns home soaking wet and his wife, Ann Todd, dries his hair with a towel, saying, "You didn't even use an umbrella." Raymond Burr in "Rear Window" sneaks out in his raincoat, getting drenched in the night rain. In "SYCHO," Janet Leigh arrives at the Bates Motel in the pouring rain and runs to the front desk without an umbrella, getting completely soaked, and Anthony Perkins, the innkeeper, runs over with an umbrella but then decides not to use it. The "rain" is not just rain, but it falls to expose other "doing" that the characters are doing, so it's only natural that the protagonists don't use umbrellas.
→ "Rich and Strange" (1932)
I wrote that the separation of "being" from "doing" in Hitchcock's films began around "Rich and Strange," and in this film, in which a couple in a rut rekindles their relationship by going on a world trip, something very interesting happens at the beginning. The film begins with a scene of the end of the workday at the company, and as other employees leave the company one after another with their umbrellas open, the only umbrella that the protagonist, Henry Kendall, has is broken and won't open. He is forced to get wet and ride the subway, and his umbrella, with its unusually extended handle, no longer looks like an umbrella, and when he finally opens it by the time he gets home, the rain has already stopped, rendering it useless. Here, the umbrella is completely denied its function of "sheltering from the rain" and appears as an unknown object. Even in the silent film era, there was a scene in "DOWMHILL" (1927) where Iva Novello gets soaked while being driven to the bus stop by Isabel Jeans, but he doesn't use an umbrella. However, the strangeness of the umbrella scene in "Rich and Strange" stands out. The rain in the Amsterdam assassination scene in "Foreign Correspondent" is extremely memorable because it's not rain that fell because water vapor turned into clouds and grew, but "rain" that fell so that the crowd could use umbrellas. The countless umbrellas seen from above are also impressive because they are not umbrellas that were opened because it rained, but "umbrellas" that were opened for the sake of "umbrellas." Both "rain" and "umbrellas" are exposed as "doing" detached from "being," and that's why they leave such a lasting impression on us viewers. Thus, in Hitchcock films, "rain" is not rain, but something else entirely. Unless it's rain specifically designed to make the characters use umbrellas, it's basically impossible for the protagonists in Hitchcock films to use umbrellas. Despite the abundance of rain in Hitchcock's works, the only protagonist who uses an umbrella is Jane Wyman in "Stage Fright." Here, she holds her umbrella firmly beside the tent at the theater's garden party, but it's neither the umbrella that's particularly striking nor the rain that's memorable. This indicates that the umbrella is being used purely for its functional purpose of "sheltering from the rain," and such a phenomenon is only possible in a proactive film like "Stage Fright." ●In works that focus on "doing," such as "Rear Window" and ●"VERTIGO," the act of "putting up an umbrella to shelter from the rain" is fundamentally impossible. Every detail is interconnected.
★The Unused Pipe and "THE 39 STEPS"
●The scene in "THE 39 STEPS" where Robert Donat puts his hand in his pocket, pulls out a "gun," and threatens Madeline Carroll, saying, "I'll kill you if you don't do as I say!", and then when Madeline Carroll searches Robert Donat's pocket while he's asleep at the inn, she finds not a gun but a pipe. This scene remains very memorable. This is because the rawness of "doing" resulting from the deviation from the instrumental connection of "being a pipe" and its use as a functionally different "gun," surprises us. However, this deviation from "doing" is not a one-off phenomenon but persists as "humor" throughout the film. While the newspaper bought at the station by the underwear salesman who sits next to Robert Donat on the train does indeed feature a wanted poster of him smoking a pipe, early in the film, when Robert Donat returns to his London apartment with the female spy Lucy Mannheim, he is smoking a cigarette, not a pipe, and he is also smoking a cigarette, not a pipe, at the home of the Scottish professor Godfrey Thiall, who is missing a little finger. If he quit smoking a pipe and switched to cigarettes because his wanted poster showed him smoking, then it would be strange if he wasn't smoking a pipe at his London apartment. However, in this film, the only people smoking pipes are the man sitting opposite him in the train compartment and the innkeeper, and Robert Donat is not smoking a pipe even once, nor does he even hold one. His pipe is only shown in a shot in the film when Madeleine Carroll takes it out of his pocket, which is utterly ridiculous. The absurdity of a man who is wanted for smoking a pipe but never smokes it, never touches it in public, and only later is it revealed that the pipe was used as a "gun" in his pocket—this is the grotesque nature of Hitchcock's "doing" films, and it is vastly different in terms of its dynamism from "The Paradine Case," in which Gregory Peck functionally smokes a pipe from beginning to end. Hitchcock's thrillers are surprisingly functional in their anti-functionality. There are countless other "unused stories" in Hitchcock's films as well.
★Unused Stories
● In "Vertigo," there's a scene where James Stewart pours hot coffee for Kim Novak, who is warming herself by the fireplace after falling into the sea. Functionally, the coffee was made to warm her up, so it should have been drunk by Kim Novak. A typical movie would have her drink the coffee and the audience would have shared in the external relief of "getting warm." However, as you watch the screen, the coffee cup is never once brought to Kim Novak's lips. Functionally, this is "strange," but the coffee wasn't meant to be drunk to warm her up, but rather to bring their hands together, and that's why it's never drunk. By separating it from its function, the "doing" is revealed. ● At a party in "Notorious," Cary Grant sneaks into the underground wine cellar to gather information, but the party is so successful that there's only a little wine left, and the owner, Claude Rains, comes into the cellar to replenish the wine. Cary Grant is in danger! However, after this suspense ends, Claude Rains tells his butler, "It doesn't have to be wine... other alcohol will do," and quickly goes back. The functional circuit of wine shortage → replenishing wine is transformed into a completely different "doing" of replenishing wine → generating suspense. Therefore, once that action is over, the former becomes irrelevant, and in fact, clinging to it too much would destroy the suspense, so it is discarded. This is a "story that is never used," and the fact that Miss Lonelyheart's suicide in "Rear Window" ends as an "attempt" basically stems from this circuit. The circuit of "extracting movement from function" follows the same qualitative flow as a MacGuffin. For example, the MacGuffin of "state secrets" is the trigger that activates the event of involvement, and in extracting the function of "state secrets" into a completely different "action" of "activating involvement," it is fundamentally connected to "extracting movement from function." The reason why people don't use umbrellas even when they're being rained on is because "rain" isn't really rain. These "strange" events are the result of extracting (separating) movement from function, which exposes the raw "doing," and Hitchcock simply names these events that initiate movement from "extracting movement from function" as "MacGuffins."
★Slapstick Comedy - "DYEVUSHKA S KOROBKOI" (1927) - Boris Barnet
In this film, a country girl hatmaker delivers hats she has made to the city in a round hatbox, which leads to a series of incidents. The "hatbox" prop is trampled on, thrown around, stacked and dropped, dropped and rolled around, beaten like a drum, and used as a screen to separate people. However, the hats inside the hatbox have no actual significance. Therefore, the "hatbox" is not there to hold and transport hats, but becomes an antifunctional object that is completely different from a hatbox. Slapstick comedy is fundamentally a culmination of this, a "comedy far removed from function," and what is revealed is the "humor" that comes from the fear and discomfort of being detached from function. As movies gained sound and became more narrative films, slapstick comedy declined because of its "fear" of being so far removed from function.
★From "MANIE" (1964) to "PIERROT LE FOU" (August 29, 1965).
Tippi Hedren's character is traumatized by a childhood incident where she killed her prostitute mother's client with a fire poker, leading her to repeatedly steal. The vivid image of the blood flowing from the man she killed, Bruce Dern, leaves a strong impression on her, causing her to perceive red flowers, red ink, red clothing, and even lightning as red. This becomes the "origin" of her repeated overreactions. Then, towards the end of the film, as Hedren's flashback plays, the screen is filled with bright red blood flowing from Bruce Dern, who was killed by Hedren. Her overreaction wasn't to the things behind the scenes—the flowers, ink, clothes, lightning, and blood—that "are." It was to the common "doing" that ink, clothes, lightning, and blood all have in common: "red." This phenomenon is already evident in her monochrome works. ●In "Suspension," the tray that Cary Grant carries as he comes up the stairs at night is not poisoned milk but "white" (Hitchcock puts a light bulb in a glass and films it shining white), ●In "Spellbound," the tablecloth, gown, railroad tracks, bed sheets, shaving cream, sink, chair next to it, washbasin, and bathtub that Gregory Peck, suffering from mental illness, continues to overreact to are all "white" representing "doing," ●In "Stage Fright," the blood smeared on objects such as dresses, skirts, and shooting gallery prize dolls is revealed as "red," stripped away from the "being" of blood. In monochrome, Hitchcock had revealed not only "white" but even "red," but in 1964 he made the color film ●"Manie," in which flowers, ink, clothes, lightning, and finally the sea of blood that fills the screen are revealed as pure "red." The following year, Godard made *PIERROT LE FOU*, and when asked in an interview, "There's a lot of blood in *PIERROT LE FOU*," he replied:
●In "THE BIRDS," when Rod Taylor is asked by his sister Veronica Cartwright, "Why do birds attack people?", he replies, "I don't know, it's a mystery." The car radio in the garage also comments that the reason why birds attack people is unknown. In fact, the "birds" in "THE BIRDS" are not birds, but objects that exist to attack people, so the proposition "Why do birds do this?" falls apart. If we apply Godard's words, "This is not blood, it's red!", then it would be something like, "This is not a bird, it's a fully automated attack machine," and it is utterly ridiculous to ask a fully automated attack machine, "Why are you, a bird, doing this?" The realm of pure "doing" without "being" is a terrifyingly uncomfortable and exposed realm of dysfunction, and when we look at "THE BIRDS," we are terrified of the clueless "doing," cling to the "behind = being" of the phenomenon, and cannot help but exclaim to the fully automated attack machine, "Why are you, a bird, attacking humans?" This is "vulnerability," and this tendency becomes stronger the more the intellectual class has accumulated knowledge as its background.
★Spielberg
In his debut TV movie, "Duel" (1971.11.13), Dennis Weaver's car overtakes a tanker truck on the highway and is then relentlessly pursued by the tanker truck. The tanker truck, despite its massive size, attacks Dennis Weaver's car, pushes a broken-down kindergarten bus, and explodes after falling into a ravine, never once performs the function of a tanker truck. The driver's face is never shown in a single shot. This tanker truck completely abandons the idea of being a tanker truck driven by a driver and is objectified into "doing" things like "attacking," "pushing buses," and "exploding." Therefore, there is no one driving it, its body must be enormous, and it must be a tanker truck that explodes when it falls—a concept conceived from the opposite perspective. That is why the questions "Why a tanker truck?" or "Why is there a driver of this tanker truck?" are not valid. First of all, this object is not a tanker truck but a "fully automated attack machine," so the moment you ask "why a tanker truck," the question is already flawed. In this respect, this tanker truck is the same as the police officer (Mort Mills) in the patrol car that checks on Janet Leigh as she takes a nap on the highway in "SYCHO," chases her to a used car center and "softens" her down. As a MacGuffin that drags Janet Leigh to the Bates Motel, he becomes a "living thing = stereotype" through the superficial vibrations of a patrol car, uniform, and sunglasses, and as a naked object that never makes you imagine that he "is" a police officer, he terrifies Janet Leigh and drives her to the Bates Motel with the power of "doing" that could be called "fully automated authoritarianism" rather than a fully automated attack machine.
★ "JAWS" (June 20, 1975) and "20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA" (December 24, 1916)
● Why does the shark in "JAWS" attack people? The great white shark that suddenly began attacking people while they were swimming is said to have been separated from its pod and had developed a taste for eating humans, which seems to be the motive for the attack. However, the reason why it so relentlessly hunts down and attacks humans is never shown even once in the film, and there is no trace of the revenge motive seen in the ocean film ● "ORCA" (July 15, 1977), such as "because his wife was killed." According to oceanographer Richard Dreyfuss, who spoke to Governor Murray Hamilton, this shark is a "perfectly-engine eating machine," programmed to eat humans as an end in itself, so it has no motive to persistently attack people. All that exists is the meaningless movement of an unknown eating machine that has been refined solely for the purpose of "eating." While the animalistic protagonists in Hitchcock's involved movements don't have a specific goal like "eating," the shark in "JAWS," which does have a goal like "eating," is like the tanker truck in "Duel," which is also driven by the act of "attacking." Whether one views it as a "habitual offender" driven by the act of "being" or as an "object" without a specific "being" is debatable (since it's "fully automatic," it's closer to a "habitual offender"), but there's no difference in how the shark and tanker truck are portrayed, purified into an act of "doing" (Howard Hawks' "The Thing From Another World" (1951.4.7), which depicts a battle with unknown aliens, was titled "The Thing," which may be a result of this film portraying the aliens as "objects" driven solely by the act of "doing").Just as when marine biologist Richard Dreyfuss saw a shark submerged in the ocean with three barrels attached to its body and asked fisherman Robert Shaw, "Have you ever seen anything like this?", and Shaw replied, "No," or as when Roy Scheider asked, "Have you ever seen a shark like this before?", Richard Dreyfuss immediately interrupted him with, "NO," ● In "JAWS," the movement of the shark is concentrated in the fact that the shark deviates from the standard of what a shark "is" and approaches the ultimate "doing," and the indescribable smiles that spontaneously appear on the faces of the protagonists as they watch Jaws speeding along with the barrels attached are nothing less than the surprise of those who are suddenly struck by the emotion evoked by "doing" something that they have come face to face by "seeing" an object that is "not a shark," something completely different from the expressions of "reading" about events that are segmented into the realms of "being" as good or bad, good or evil. The protagonists' struggle against an object that is "not a shark" resembles the professional efforts of a hunter, a marine scientist, and a police chief—people who at first glance seem to possess the skills to hunt sharks. However, since their opponent is an unknown object, their professional skills are of no use. Piano wire is chewed through, magnum shots do no avail, cages are gnawed away, poisoned arrows are dropped and become flotsam in the sea, and they fight each other without unity or trust, until in the end, Police Chief Roy Scheider straddles a collapsing mast and shoots an oxygen tank thrown into Jaws' mouth with his rifle, causing it to explode—a truly absurd scene. The reason this film ends in such a primitive way is that it's a story of the protagonists being tossed about by the attacks of Jaws, having lost all their skills. This is very similar to how the crew of "LIFEBOAT," who are outmaneuvered by a superhuman German captain, lose all their skills—boat, camera, typewriter, water, food—into the sea, and end up fighting each other without any unity or trust, ultimately losing their "captain" position to the German, resolve the incident in an extremely primitive way that has nothing to do with their individual skills: they all attack the German and throw him into the sea. In the 1916 silent film "20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA," based on a Jules Verne novel and directed by Stuart Peyton, there is a scene in which a Lincoln sailor, straddling the tilted mast, fires a harpoon at the deck (back) of the massive submarine Nautilus as it passes by. But it's completely ineffective, and even cannon fire misses. The Nautilus, known as the monster of the deep sea, then rams the Lincoln, throwing its crew into the ocean... If this submarine were "Jaws"...Such a shift is a quality only possible for those who can conceive of film from the perspective of "doing," and Spielberg's talent is succinctly concentrated in this. The wriggling of the submarine as it slips past the yacht, the sailor straddling the tilted mast, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" then moves on to underwater filming, which was groundbreaking in 1916, and flows into a shark hunt against a horde of sharks in the ocean. While the idea for "Jaws" may not be based entirely on this, it is highly probable that Spielberg has seen "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (the remake directed by Richard Fleischer, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (December 23, 1954), contains no imagery that is reminiscent of "Jaws"). The ability to extract only the motion from the functions of a giant submarine slipping past a yacht and liken it to the back of a giant "shark" passing by a fishing boat is what gave rise to "JAWS," which says "This isn't a shark," and "Duel," which says "This isn't a tanker truck," and brought the world into the spotlight.
★Spielberg's Masterful Skill
The films "JAWS" and "THE BIRDS," both about "doing," are subtly different. Even if some might find the ending of "THE BIRDS" incomplete, few would feel confused after watching "Duel" or "JAWS." Despite neither answering the questions of "Why the birds, why the tanker truck, why the sharks," only "THE BIRDS" is perceived as incomplete, likely because both "Duel" and "JAWS" feature only one fully automated bombing machine. If they simply shot and killed it, or pushed it into the ravine, the protagonist would be freed, and the case would be resolved to some extent. However, in "THE BIRDS," Ronnie Chapman, a customer at the restaurant, says, "Just kill them all!" According to ornithologist Ethel Griffiths, who responded to the suggestion, there are apparently 5.705 billion birds in America alone and 100 billion worldwide. If the bird anomaly were to affect all birds, it would be impossible to shoot or capture them all in the film. Therefore, in order to provide a solution that would bring the protagonist at least some peace of mind, one would ultimately have to answer the "why" part of "why birds," and "THE BIRDS" would descend from a film of "doing" to a melodrama of "being." The emotion in "THE BIRDS" emerges not in the "being" of "why birds," but in the realm of "doing" that "these aren't birds," and Hitchcock's "half-hearted" ending was because there was no other way to end a film about "birds attacking people," and Hitchcock simply finished the film faithfully to the action. That's why "The Birds" makes the viewer feel uncomfortable, while "Duel" and "JAWS" set up a single, eerie, unmoving machine and eliminate it, bringing relief to the protagonist, thus avoiding some degree of discomfort. It shows how skillful Spielberg is to focus on just one machine in his films, but in reality, although mitigated, "JAWS" and "THE BIRDS" are both films about "doing," and Spielberg is praised for his ability to capture on screen the moment when the details of his "doing," which he had tried to sugarcoat, break through the wrapping and are exposed, and for his talent to make that "shark" that runs through the water with a barrel still attached feel like "no longer a shark."
★Piranha
●The "Piranha" series lacks the concept of "extracting movement from function" found in "JAWS." The origin of the swarm of small piranhas is clear: they were biological weapons stored by the military in a pool, which escaped during a couple's playful antics and began attacking people. Therefore, these piranhas are inherently piranhas, and there is no model for their "doing" equivalent to "sharks" → submarines. This is why piranhas can never escape "being piranhas," and the surprise of "this is not a piranha" never comes. That's why, with each installment of the "Piranha" series, they grow larger and more numerous, as if frustrated that "this is not a piranha." However, since they are originally piranhas, nothing can make them cease to be piranhas. While there may be a certain melancholy in the ever-growing piranhas, it never brings the surprise of "I've never seen piranhas like this before." The mediocrity of many B-grade disaster movies stems from the misconception that a qualitative event like movement should be resolved quantitatively.
★"ALIEN" (May 25, 1979)
Ridley Scott's "ALIEN" eliminates the "origin" of the aliens and focuses on not "showing" a single alien in the darkness, leaving the unknown terror as the terror of an unknown "doing." In contrast, James Cameron's sequel, "Aliens" (July 18, 1986), features countless aliens with the "origin" of being the offspring of a "queen bee," shamelessly revealing their forms and growing to enormous sizes. This is not unrelated to the fact that James Cameron's debut film was the sequel to "Piranha,"「Piranha II: Flying Killers)」(1981.12). The idea of making the object of terror larger and increasing its number in order to create terror is, like "Piranha," a degeneration of movement brought about by approaching the "origin," and is far removed from the qualitative movement of "doing."
★SF Film
Because the subjects of science fiction films are, by definition, unidentified, these films are inevitably compelled to trace back toward an "origin"—an intellectual inquiry into the nature of the unknown. The frequent appearance of scientists in the genre is a structural necessity; yet, this also carries the risk of shifting the narrative focus from "doing" (action/events) to "being" (essence/origin), potentially causing the momentum of the film to stall. Furthermore, unlike dramas centered on human characters, science fiction lacks a clear, inherent "origin" to serve as a definitive "being." Consequently, simply introducing an alien entity often results in a portrayal that feels cheap or implausible. To depict an alien effectively, a filmmaker must either follow the approach of *Alien*—leaving the creature’s "origin" unrevealed and allowing the inexplicable terror to remain truly inexplicable—or, as seen in *Blade Runner* (1982) and *Dawn of the Dead* (1978), use the familiar template of a human being to evoke the chilling realization: "This is not a human." In *Blade Runner*, the "replicants"—robots endowed with human memories—pursue the status of being human (an elusive, perhaps non-existent state), a quest that generates a profound, poignant emotion. However, if one wishes to capture a different kind of terror—the horror of an entity that deviates from its template, much like the threats in *The Birds* or *Jaws*—then we have no choice but to wait until humanity actually encounters a real alien.
■Quantitative Examination of MacGuffins
●A notable trend in Hitchcock's works since "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934) is that in films about "first offenses" that focus on "being," or in films where the protagonist is involved in a movement but an active element is present, the number of MacGuffins dramatically decreases. Incidentally, the data for Hitchcock's function-movement correlation table was collected from March to April 2014, making it the second earliest collection period after D.W. Griffith's function-movement correlation table. Since then, my "eye has become more discerning," and if I were to recollect the data now, the amount of MacGuffins for D.W. Griffith and Hitchcock would probably be 1.5 to 2 times greater than what is presented here. My "viewing" standards settled down around August to September 2014, and as a result, the data from before that time is presented less than the data collected afterward. I will write about the "fear of seeing" in more detail at a later date, but in the case of this Hitchcock data, since all his works were collected in a concentrated period, the ratio still has value as data. In this context, there is a noticeable tendency for the number of MacGuffins to decrease quantitatively in works where the protagonist is the active character, compared to works where the protagonist is merely caught up in events. Not only in the case of Hitchcock, but also in Hollywood narrative films by D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Hawks, and others, there is a correlation between the quantity of MacGuffins and the value of the work, and based on past experience, there has never been a single film where a work with a small quantity of MacGuffins has great value.
■Michael Mann Function-Movement Relationship Chart
This chart presents the Function-Movement Relationship Chart for Michael Mann's films. Michael Mann uses fewer MacGuffins than Hitchcock. Hitchcock's involved movement, which completely omits the concept of "being," is only activated when it is triggered by an external factor such as a MacGuffin. In contrast, the movement of the "habitual offender," which pursues "being something that doesn't exist" and engages in ascetic movement, is activated internally, driven by its own impulses, and thus activates completely automatically, like the shark in "JAWS." In particular, in Michael Mann's "10 prior convictions," the "origin" is lost long ago, which paradoxically increases the pull of "being something that doesn't exist," and the movement becomes more internally automated. This is why the movement of Michael Mann's protagonist can be activated from the moment the film begins, and the number of MacGuffins is reduced compared to Hitchcock's involved movement.
★Functional Movement
Furthermore, Michael Mann's movement loses its "psychological authenticity" and is blindly directed toward a "non-existent origin," and that movement, too, becomes refined by being directed toward a "non-existent functionality," and the "humor" of extracting movement from function in Hitchcockian involved movement is diluted in Michael Mann's movement. ●The restaurant counter seats where the scene of Robert De Niro and Amy Brenneman meeting in "HEAT" was filmed are certainly a MacGuffin to bring the two together and not for enjoying a meal or coffee, yet Amy Brenneman is drinking cola and De Niro is sipping from a coffee cup. In the sequence of the dialogue between De Niro and Al Pacino facing each other in that restaurant, neither of them touches any food or drink, but this does not reach the level of absurd "humor," but rather becomes a more realistic event that is embedded in the process of functionality. In Michael Mann's world, there are hardly any functional deviations like pipes turning into guns or crop dusters becoming bombers; at most, you'll see burning people speeding down slopes in wheelchairs (●"Thief"), hiding behind waterfalls (●"THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS"), throwing televisions out of cars (●"HEAT"), people falling onto the hoods of cars (●"COLLATERAL"), or hiding guns tucked between rolls of toilet paper (●"PUBLIC" In "ENEMIES," events that extract movement from function remain within a functional scope. Every tool, place, and event in Michael Mann's films is designed to be functional, so even if it's a "habitual" ascetic movement directed towards something that "doesn't exist," a characteristic of Michael Mann's films is that guns are used as guns, boats as boats, and the sea as the sea when they are aimed at something. Even if there are strange spaces with large wallpapers and spaces that are unusually open to the outside with glass walls, guns are never used as blanks, and churches are never used as drug cartel hideouts. On the contrary, guns are always held firmly with both hands, aimed, and fired accurately at the target. In his contemporary film "Thief," Michael Mann established a combat shooting style in which the thief James Caan holds a gun firmly and functionally with both hands, and this has greatly transformed the history of film, which had previously been dominated by the movement-oriented "one-handed shooting," a consequence that can be derived from his tendency toward function.
★Underhand grip
Michael Mann on knife grips: ●In "The Last of the Mohicans," when the Indians scalp the white men, when Daniel Day-Lewis rushes to save Madeleine Stowe from an attack by the Indians, and immediately afterwards when he stabs an Indian in the thigh, when Wes Studi the Indian gouges out Maurice Loeb's heart, and when Wes Studi is in the valley at the end, people are holding knives with an underhand grip. ●In "Collateral" (2004.8.6), when Tom Cruise is apprehended in a disco, he switches his knife to an underhand grip and stabs his attacker in the leg. ●In "Miami Vice," at the moment Jamie Foxx rescues his wife who is being held captive in a camper van, he instinctively grips the knife in an underhand grip with his left hand and stabs his enemy. However, in "THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS," the fact that it's a period drama with Native Americans as the main characters leads to a decline in functionality, and in many other cases, the reverse grip can actually be seen as functional in relation to the positioning of the characters and the flow of movement, and the scene in "SYCHO" where a knife is held in a underhand grip and brandished, which gives off an eerie scent, was not filmed. Michael Mann's films, which are directed towards "being," do not contain events that are far removed from functionality, and the shift to animalistic underhand grip like that of Hitchcock is rare.
★Michael Mann and the MacGuffin
Michael Mann's "10 prior convictions" type of movement should be able to occur automatically without needing a MacGuffin due to its strong " Recidivism " far removed from its "origin," yet Michael Mann still has works with many MacGuffins, such as "HEAT." ●In "HEAT," let's say a man and a woman are brought together. Then a restaurant is set as the place where they meet. Then that restaurant is no longer just a restaurant, but a MacGuffin that activates the movement of "bringing a man and a woman together," and no matter what, in order to make a film, one is compelled to place a MacGuffin. However, even though they are both restaurants, the restaurant where De Niro and Amy Brenneman meet in "HEAT" is not as revealing as "Annie," the restaurant where James Stewart and Kim Novak met in "VERTIGO," because Michael Mann's movements are the epitome of functionality. Michael Mann's movements, which are honed to an extent that pushes them toward "non-existent functionality" and are automatically generated, can be portrayed as "habitual offenders" with just a few MacGuffins, even in the realm of true stories that are rife with danger as they rapidly approach "being," such as "THE INSIDER" and "ALI," and Michael Mann's "habitual offenders" are full of potential as a genre film that should be mass-produced.
■ Howard Hawks – The Alignment of Occupation and movement
Howard Hawks, like John Ford and Michael Mann, films skills-based movement. Gangsters kill people (● "Scarface" (1931/1932.3.31)) ● "Barbary Coast" (1935.9.27), stage directors direct (● "TWENTIETH CENTURY" (1934.5.3), pilots fly planes (● "THE DAWN PATROL" (1930.7.10) ● "CEILING ZERO" (1935/1936.1.16) ● "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS" (1939.5.15), soldiers fight wars (● "TODAY WE LIVE" (1933.3.3) ● "THE ROAD TO GLORY" (1936.6.2) ● "SERGEANT YORK" (1941.9.27), lumberjacks cut down trees ("COME AND GET IT" (1936.10.29), a newspaper reporter chases the case (●"HIS GIRL FRIDAY" (1939/1940.1.11), professors use their skills to fend off gangsters (●"BALL OF FIRE" (1941.12.2), ●"A SONG IS BORN" (1947/1948.10.19), a sailor steers a boat (●"TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT" (1944.10.11)), a fisherman catches fish (●"TIGER SHARK" (1932.9.22), a detective does detective work (●"THE BIG SLEEP" (1946.8.22), Cowboys herding cattle (●"RED RIVER" (1946/1948.8.26), soldiers fighting, scientists devising scientific countermeasures (●"THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD"), scientists creating a rejuvenation drug, children playing children's games (●"MONKEY BUSINESS" (1952.9.5), dancers singing and dancing (●"GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES" (1953.7.19), ● kings flaunting their power (●"Land Of The Pharaohs" (1954/1955.6.24), hunters hunting (●"HATARI!"), racers racing (●"RED LINE 7000" (1965.11.9), Gunmen shooting guns: ● "RIO BRAVO" (1958/1959.3.8), ● "EL DORADO" (1966/1967.6.9), ● "RIO LOBO" (1970.12.17), etc. In Howard Hawks' works, the majority are skill-based movement where occupation and movement are aligned.
★Starting a movement of Howard Hawks
The fact that the movement is already activated at the start of the film means that the movement is activated without a MacGuffin, and it is a typical example of a "habitual offender" whose movement is automatically activated by an internal impulse (see " Starting a movement of Howard Hawks"). In 29 out of 37 of Howard Hawks' films, the movement is already in the process of being activated when the film begins, and in the other works as well, it is closely related to professional conduct (see table), so even just looking at this, it can be seen that Hawks' movement is governed by a strong "habitual nature".
★Repetition
The degree of “habitualness" in "Habitual Offenders" can also be seen in the repetition of the movement. Hawks's professional hunters hunt rhinos → giraffes → zebras → deer → impalas → leopards → buffaloes → wildebeest → monkeys and then rhinos again, and finally, unbelievably, hunt a woman. ● Like the hunters in "HATARI!", the aim is to continue and repeat professional activities. ● In "TIGER SHARK," the scene of fishermen catching tuna by line is filmed endlessly in fresh locations and with natural light, like a documentary. ● In "THE DAWN PATROL" and "THE ROAD TO GLORY," the officer's address to the recruits is repeated many times. ● In "THE DAWN PATROL," "CEILING ZERO," "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS," and "AIR FORCE," the pilots fly their planes many times. ● In "SCARFACE" (1931/1932.3.31) and "Barbary Coast," gangsters relentlessly wield violence. ● Just as in "Big Sleep" where the detective repeatedly performs his detective work, in "Red River" where the cattle herders endlessly herd their cattle, in "Red Line 7000" where the racer participates in races many times, and in Westerns like "Rio Bravo" and "Rio Lobo" where the gunmen keep fighting, Hawks' works emphasize the repetition of the protagonist's professional duties. Compared to John Ford, who only filmed Thomas Mitchell's work as a doctor once in "Stagecoach," Hawks's works are more devoted to professional activities, and even in works that point to the "first offense" tendency which will be examined later, there are only exceptions where the professional duties are performed only once (in this respect, "The Big Sky" (1951/July 29, 1952), in which the protagonist is a hunter but no hunting scenes are filmed, is an "unlike" Hawks film).
★Flashbacks
In Hawks' films, flashbacks only exist in one scene: ● In "Sergeant York," Gary Cooper, having returned from the battlefield, sits on a cliff behind his house and recalls only the voices of Major Stanley Ridges and Reverend Walter Brennan. Even this scene is merely a dramatization of voices actually heard in the film and can hardly be called a flashback; in effect, flashbacks do not exist in Hawks' films. ● In "Red River," the actions of the protagonists are told through third-person narration (there are different versions), ● "The Big Sky" also features narration by Arthur Hunnicutt, and ● "Land of the Pharaohs" also features narration by Archbishop Alexis Minotis. While some works employ a format of telling past stories, this does not mean that the films themselves go back in time.
★Differences from Michael Mann
1. The backstory
Hawks' protagonists, like Michael Mann's protagonists, exhibit tendencies toward being "habitual offenders" through the initiation and repetition of their actions and the absence of flashbacks. However, unlike Michael Mann's protagonists, Hawks' protagonists make many references to the past. Many of the protagonists in Hawks' films are old acquaintances, and once the movie starts, they usually spend the entire time reminiscing about backstory, completely ignoring the audience. Examples include: ● The divorced couple Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday", ● Cary Grant and Anne Sheridan in "I Was a Male War Bride", ● Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey in "The Thing from Another World", ● King Jack Hawkins and High Priest Alexis Minotis in "Land of the Pharaohs", ● John Wayne and Angie Dickinson in "Rio Bravo"...the list goes on and on. In the Hawks' style of movement, there is no past as a recollection; instead, the past is constantly intertwined with the present movement as a backstory.
While it's impossible to strictly separate "origins" from backstory, "origins" are past events that constitute the identity of the protagonist in the present. For example, in "Only Angels Have Wings," when Jean Arthur asks, "Why do you fly?", pilot Thomas Mitchell replies, "I've been here for 22 years, and I still can't give a proper answer." Or, in "The Road to Glory," towards the end, when nurse June Lang asks Lieutenant Frederick March, "Why are you going to your death?", he replies, "I've been asked that many times, but I still can't give a satisfactory answer." Many Hawkesian protagonists have lost their "origins." On the other hand, ● "VIVA VILLA!" (1934.4.10) captures the very moment of Pancho Villa's "origin" as he becomes a revolutionary after his father is whipped to death by a landowner when he is a child, ● "COME AND GET IT" captures the moment of Edward Arnold, a logging site supervisor, meets and falls in love with Frances Farmer, the very moment of his "origin," ● "SERGEANT YORK" also captures the very moment of Gary Cooper, an atheist and rough character, who converts to Christianity after his gun is struck by lightning, the very "origin." ● In "THE BIG SLEEP," detective Humphrey Bogart says, "I graduated from college at 38. My former boss was the district attorney. I defied him and got fired, which boosted my reputation," which can also be interpreted as the "origin" of why he became a detective, ● In "RIO BRAVO," Sheriff John Wayne, when asked by Angie Dickinson, "Why did you become a sheriff?", replies, "I got tired of selling my gun skills everywhere, so I wanted to sell them in one place." ● In "THE BIG SKY," Dewey Martin continues to clash with Native American women out of resentment over the death of his brother at the hands of Native Americans. ● In "EL DORADO," James Caan seeks revenge for the death of his best friend. ● In "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS," Cary Grant recounts the circumstances of his breakup with Rita Hayworth. ● In "HATARI!", the story of how John Wayne became a misogynist after being "burned" by a woman is recounted as a kind of "origin" of his character. Thus, Hawkesian protagonists often talk about the past that Michael Mannian protagonists stubbornly try to bury.
→True Stories and Origins
Among Hawks' works, only three films—●"VIVA VILLA!", ●"COME AND GET IT", and ●"SERGEANT YORK" (the "only three" refers to the films I have seen)—film the protagonist's "origins" themselves. Of these, ●"VIVA VILLA!" and ●"SERGEANT YORK" are both true stories based on real people. True stories based on "facts" are rife with the risk of filming details that are weak points from a kinetic perspective, such as the "origins," so it is no coincidence that biographies depicting the "origins" themselves are filmed in such genres. The only flashback scene in Michael Mann's works is ●"ALI", a true story about Muhammad Ali, and the "origins" are told to some extent in ●"PUBLIC ENEMIES" and ●"MADE IN L.A.", and it is no coincidence that the former is also a true story.
★ Approaching "First Offense" - Guilt, Repentance, Withdrawal, Stagnation of Duty
Howard Hawks' movements are those of "habitual offenders," and therefore, the protagonists generally do not feel guilt or repent for the tasks they carry out. When we think of Hawks' films, we picture John Wayne in "RED RIVER," who coldly enforces contracts with the cowboys; the hunters in "HATARI!", who repeatedly hunt and chase animals to send them to the zoo; or the Western gunmen who kill their opponents without showing a trace of guilt. Guilt seems to be fundamentally far removed from Howard Hawks' protagonists. However, Hawks' films also contain a fair number of details that approach "first offenses," which are absent in Michael Mann's protagonists. The following ①- are all details made from a moral perspective and are closely related to each other, so they should not be considered independently, but here are a few typical examples.
① Guilt
● Neil Hamilton and Richard Barthelmess in "The Dawn Patrol," ● Warner Baxter in "The Road to Glory" feel guilty as a superior officer sending young, first-time offender soldiers to their deaths, ● James Cagney in "CEILING ZERO" feels guilty when he fakes illness to go on a date with a woman, only for the pilot who took his place to crash and die; he ultimately takes on a dangerous mission and ends up committing suicide, ● Miriam Hopkins in "Barbary Coast" breaks down in tears regretting her actions.
② Repentance
● In "Sergeant York," the unruly, faithless Gary Cooper is struck by lightning and has a change of heart. ● In "Red Line 7000," the woman who brings misfortune is reborn (repents) after warding off evil, the stubborn man who only uses new things (James Caan) changes his mind, and the reckless replacement driver (John Robert Crawford) also has a change of heart.
③ Withdrawing
● In "TODAY WE LIVE," a love triangle between a man (Gary Cooper, Robert Young) and a woman (John Crawford) leads them to withdraw due to guilt. ● In "THE ROAD TO GLORY," a love triangle between a man and a woman (Frederic March, Warner Baxter, June Lang) also leads to guilt and withdrawal. ● In "SERGEANT YORK," Gary Cooper again withdraws from Joan Leslie, whom he loves.
④ Believing or Not Believing
● In "TODAY WE LIVE," Gary Cooper sometimes believes or doesn't believe John Crawford because she has another man, based on the moral dilemma of good and evil. ● In "Pyramid," King Jack Hawkins also sometimes believes or doubts his second wife, Joan Collins, based on the moral dilemma of good and evil. ● In "RED LINE 7000," James Caan also hits his lover, Marianna Hill, because she has another man, based on the moral dilemma of good and evil.
⑤ Stagnation of Duty
● In "THE DAWN PATROL," Officer Neil Hamilton cannot bear to watch young soldiers die one after another and is transferred. ● In "THE ROAD TO GLORY," the soldiers cannot sleep at night due to the groans of wounded soldiers trapped in barbed wire, and Officer Warner Baxter is seen giving orders while taking aspirin, indicating a stagnation of duty and an atmosphere of war weariness.
⑥ Going Back to the Past
● "COME AND GET IT" is the rags-to-riches story of Edward Arnold, a foreman at a paper mill. As he approaches old age, he falls in love with a girl (Frances Farmer playing both roles) who is the spitting image of the woman he loved in his youth. However, because the woman in the present is the spitting image of the woman from the past, the current movement becomes entangled in the past. This film is the only Hawks film I have seen in which the movement is directed back to the past, making it a melodrama.
→ "SCARFACE" and "SERGEANT YORK" - True Story Part 2
Hawks, who modeled Al Capone after a gangster who ran rampant during the Prohibition era, filmed "SCARFACE." In "SCARFACE," the protagonist Paul Muni kills George Raft, a bodyguard who was in love with his sister Anne Dvorak, out of incestuous jealousy (though only implied). After Anne Dvorak fiercely confronts him, saying, "I loved him!", he is tormented by guilt, and his previously lively movements suddenly become stagnant, his steps heavy, his eyes vacant, his speech slurred, and he can no longer speak properly. In this film, the sister's reprimand represents an approach to the brother's "origins," which leads to the cessation of his movement. Filmed during a period of strict censorship under the Hays Code for gangster films, this movie is based on real people and depicts a gangster who was rampaging and a "habitual offender." Perhaps filming him continued to portray this gangster was not permitted, as the film evokes the cessation of his movement due to the recall of his "origins" and his subsequent redemption due to guilt. Similarly, in "Sergeant York," which also depicts real people, Gary Cooper, a conscientious objector, is given a 10-day leave by his superior officer, Stanley Ridges, to return home and think things over. A scene is filmed of him contemplating on a hill in his hometown. After the only flashback in a Hawks film, Cooper decides to fight. This sequence of "thinking" → "deciding" is characteristic of a "first offender," and although the scene appears lyrical at first glance, from a kinetic perspective, it can be described as a "melodrama."
★The Coldness Towards First Offenders – The Rules of Joining the Group
In Hawks' films, the protagonists themselves occasionally exhibit "first-offender" elements such as "origins" and a sense of guilt. In his early works, such as "THE DAWN PATROL" and "THE ROAD TO GLORY," a warm gaze towards "first-time offenders" can be found, as he praises the inexperienced replacement soldiers who die. However, such events gradually disappear in Hawks' films as the elements of "habitual offenders" become stronger. Even in the theme of "companions" that is common in Hawks' films, only "habitual offenders" can join the group, and "first-time offenders" are not treated properly unless they grow into "habitual offenders." This began to appear in "CEILING ZERO" (1935), where young pilot Carlyle Moore Jr., who throws himself out of a plane out of cowardice and wastes the aircraft, is fired without question by his boss Pat O'Brien for his "first-time offender" immaturity. This trend was continued in "Only Angels Have Wings," another film about pilots, where boss Cary Grant casually says of a pilot who dies in a crash early in the film, "He died because he was inexperienced," and then calmly eats the steak the dead pilot had ordered. This trend was further developed in "Air Force" (1942), another film about pilots, where gunner John Garfield, who had been taught to fly by his superior officer John Rigley until two and a half years prior but was expelled after causing a fatal accident, is thoroughly scorned by his colleagues, including Sergeant Harry Carey (requesting retirement or transfer is considered a "first offense" of abandoning duty), and James Brown, who was with Arthur Kennedy's sister but failed to protect her and put her in danger of death, is also ruthlessly interrogated by Kennedy and the other two. It's unclear whether Hawks' own experience as a flight instructor in the Air Force influenced his harsh treatment of "first-time offenders" in his films, but this continuation of Hawks' treatment of "first-time offenders" in his movies has reached the level of ridicule. ● In "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Tommy Noonan, who criticizes his lover Marilyn Monroe from a moral standpoint, is also portrayed as a complete fool. The reason Monroe lectures him, saying, "If you love me, you must believe in me to the end," is simply because he is a good-versus-evil person who only affirms her "good" and denies her "evil"—a "first offender." This is an unbearable infidelity for a "habitual offender" who trusts those they love unconditionally, transcending good and evil, and he is immediately ostracized from their group. ●In "EL DORADO," the boy who falls asleep on watch and is shot in the stomach by John Wayne dies without being seen off, buried, or given any sympathy, which is typical of Hawks' cold treatment of "first offenders." ●In "RED RIVER," a "first offender" who steals and licks sugar, causing a bull to stampede and killing his comrades, is nearly whipped by his boss, John Wayne. Furthermore, the film depicts the ultimate ostracism, with "first offenders" who break their contract and run away, abandoning their professional duties, nearly being hanged by John Wayne. This cinematic history of cold treatment of "first offenders" in Hawks' works leads to Michael Mann's "habitual offenders" in "HEAT," where boss Robert De Niro immediately tries to get rid of a comrade (Kevin Gage) who commits an unnecessary murder during an armored car robbery. ● In "RIO BRAVO," Dean Martin is tricked by a woman, drowns his sorrows in alcohol, messes up his job, and puts his partner John Wayne in a difficult situation. When he whines, "I can't do this anymore. I'm quitting," John Wayne retorts, "Fine, quit! Nobody's stopping you!" and curses him, "You'll get a silver coin thrown in your spittoon. You might as well become a vagrant!" Martin punches Wayne in frustration, and immediately afterwards apologizes, saying, "Sorry," as is typical for a first offender, but Wayne coldly dismisses him, saying, "Maybe you're beyond saving." ● Robert Mitchum in "EL DORADO" is also a "first-time offender" who gets dumped by a woman and drowns his sorrows in alcohol. He suffers terrible fates, such as being hit on the head with a bucket by John Wayne, being forced to drink a potent drug to prevent him from drinking, being made fun of in a bar, crying, and being laughed at by women when they see him in the bath. Despite all this, he doesn't experience a dramatic event of losing his "origin" like the "song of massacre" that befell Dean Martin in "RIO BRAVO," and his fate ends inconclusively.
→Women vs. Men = "First Offenders" vs. "Habitual Offenders"
●In "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS," boss Cary Grant dismisses the deceased pilot's death in the crash as "He died because he was inexperienced," and calmly eats the steak he ordered. Richard Barthelmess, rumored to have abandoned his colleague and escaped from the plane, is also ruthlessly excluded from the team for his "first-time offender" immaturity. Cary Grant, stating "I can't entrust dangerous missions to my comrades," continues to assign Barthelmess, who is "not a comrade," to dangerous missions. Barthelmess eventually becomes a member of the team, but this is not due to an intellectual event of good and evil where a "misunderstanding" is resolved, but because he continued to perform dangerous missions like a "habitual offender." Whether his past actions were actually a "misunderstanding" or not is not revealed. What is important is his current "habitual behavior," not resolving the past "misunderstanding." That's why even comrades can't always remain comrades. In the middle of the film, when his "comrade" John Carroll refuses a dangerous mission, Cary Grant immediately fires him. When his colleague Zig Ruman scolds him, saying, "It's cruel to blame him," Cary Grant immediately replies, "I'm not blaming him, I just fired him." This is because John Carroll may be "right," but he's not a "habitual offender," and it is this "coldness" of Grant's that leads to the film history of the brutality of "habitual offenders" (as discussed later). However, the women, who can only wait for the "habitual offenders" to return, cannot understand the men's "habitual offender" behavior, which transcends good and evil, and condemn them from a moral standpoint. Jean Arthur even tries to stop Cary Grant from taking off in bad weather by pointing a gun at him, but this action, which at first glance seems like a courageous act driven by love, is nothing more than an action based on "good and evil" that interferes with the "habitual offenders'" professional activity from the perspective of "habitual offenders." As a result, she is not even allowed to join the toast when her fellow pilots make up with Richard Barthelmess, and for a protagonist, she spends a very long time as a "first offender" compared to other works. Rita Hayworth, Cary Grant's ex-girlfriend, also broke up with the "habitual offender" Grant by making a "first-time offender" claim like, "If you don't stop flying, I'm leaving you." Now, she is also curious about the truth behind her current husband Richard Barthelmess's past crimes and tells Cary Grant, "I have no choice but to leave him," only to have cold water thrown over her head by him asking, "Do you know the meaning of 'trust'?", which finally brings her back to reality. However, she too is just a "first-time offender," deciding whether to leave her husband or not based on the "good or evil" of the truth behind past events, and as long as she remains that way, she will be excluded from the group of "habitual offenders." ● In "To Have and Have Not," Dolores Moran, the wife of a resistance fighter, is morally unable to understand that Humphrey Bogart is a neutral man who cooperates with the resistance not out of "goodwill" but for money. Even when her husband is shot and wounded, she strongly refuses to let Bogart treat him, but later, when she sees her husband undergo surgery, she faints, showing her weakness. She is portrayed as a completely different breed from Bogart and Bacall, who perform the surgery without flinching and assist him—a "first-time offender." After seeing the two of them, Dolores Moran apologizes to Bogart, saying, "No matter what you say, it doesn't make me angry anymore," but this "no matter what you say" means that she does not read good and evil into his words, and in doing so, she too belatedly joins the ranks of "habitual offenders." However, the female protagonists in subsequent Hawks films evolved from Jean Arthur-Rita Hayworth-esque "first-time offenders" to "habitual offenders" who not only didn't hinder men's professional activities but actually encouraged them, such as Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday," Barbara Stanwyck in "Ball of Fire," Lauren Bacall in "To Have and Have Not" and "The Big Sleep," and Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. ●In "El Dorado," Michelle Kelly, a woman, shoots and kills the enemy boss without hesitation in place of John Wayne, whose arm is paralyzed by a seizure. Furthermore, in the final scene of his last film, "Rio Lobo," Sherry Lansing, a woman whose face is disfigured by Sheriff Mike Henry, shoots and kills the sheriff in place of John Wayne, a situation that has earned him a place in the "the film history of the brutality." As the films progress, not only men but also women are shown to be developing a stronger "habitualness."
★Hawks' Past
While early Hawks films show an approach to "first offenses," only "Scarface" possesses an "origin" governed by psychological causality, such as "Citizen Kane" and "Manie," where recalling it causes fainting or paralysis. As indicated by the automaticity, repetition, absence of recollection in the initiation process, and the "A History of Cinematic Exits," Hawks' protagonists are "habitual offenders" who perform ingrained movements. The past they narrate is not a past to be traced back to, but rather a past that points to the current relationship between people, showing how they have come to be where they are today. After "To Have and Have Not" (1944), in which Humphrey Bogart first appeared in a Hawks film, the "habitual nature" of Hawks' films intensified, and events such as guilt and repentance can basically no longer be found except in "Red Line 7000." Along with Bogart, Cary Grant and John Wayne are etched in film history as stars who embodied the Hawks-esque "habitual offenders" who showed not a trace of guilt.
★"6 prior convictions"
One might expect that Howard Hawks' works, where the movement is internally triggered as a "habitual offender," would have fewer MacGuffins than Hitchcock's works, where the movement is triggered by an external MacGuffin, but there are actually far more ("Howard Hawks Function-Movement Relationship Chart"). This phenomenon in Hawks seems to be due to the difference between Hawks and Mann in their distance from the "origin." Unlike Michael Mann's character, who generally avoids talking about the past, Hawks' "habitual offender," who is moderately familiar with the past, is closer to the "origin" in terms of distance from it, perhaps like a "6 prior convictions." While not quite as imperfect as Thomas Mitchell in "Stagecoach," his character is portrayed as more incomplete and more human, and the movement increasingly requires a MacGuffin to get going. To carry out the movement, they must rely on the power of alcohol, like Neil Hamilton and Richard Barthelmess in "The Dawn Patrol," or need the power of aspirin or alcohol, like Warner Baxter and Frederick March in "The Road to Glory," and sometimes find solace in jam sessions where they joke around, temporarily forget their duties, play the piano or harmonica, and sing together. Thus, those who take detours here and there need to be propelled back to their mission by a MacGuffin, whereas Michael Mann's characters, so far removed from their "origins" that they have become the ultimate end in themselves, are automatically driven to their mission. They cannot forget their mission and indulge in jam sessions, nor do they need alcohol or aspirin to carry it out, nor do they need numerous MacGuffins to motivate them. Certainly, Michael Mann's films also feature events unrelated to the mission, such as romance and family, but these function as MacGuffins to highlight the asceticism of professional protagonists who, like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in "HEAT" or Will Smith in "ALI," impulsively choose work over family when faced with a choice between work and family. Family and romance are, in most cases, not detours in Michael Mann's films.
→ "CEILING ZERO" ~ "The Old Ones"
James Cagney, who repeatedly breaks the rules with his flights, tries to woo June Travis, a woman the same age as his daughter, and goes on a date with her by feigning illness. However, his best friend, a pilot (Stuart Irwin), who takes his place, crashes and dies, leaving Cagney tormented by guilt. In the end, he attempts a dangerous flight and crashes, but as Cagney says towards the end, "Pilots are engineers now. You have to be college graduates," this film depicts the "old ones" who live in the "space between" eras. ● In Howard Hawks' works prior to "TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT," one can find the "old ones" of "4 prior convictions."
→ "BALL OF FIRE" - Uncharacteristic of Hawks
Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder and produced by Samuel Goldwyn, this film is popular among Hawks fans, but regardless of its value, it is full of details that are "uncharacteristic" of Hawks. Professor Gary Cooper decides whether to trust or not Barparla Stanwyck based on whether or not she used him, and when he defeats Dan Duryea, he uses a very roundabout and intellectual method of burning off the string of a picture frame with sunlight and dropping the frame on Dan Duryea's head. Furthermore, the fact that Gary Cooper, a "first-timer" in boxing, knocks out Dana Andrews while looking at a boxing book makes this film "uncharacteristic" of Hawks in terms of morality, intelligence, and the "first-timer" aspect, and the details suggest that Hawks did not intervene much in Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's script.
★ "HIGH NOON" (July 24, 1952)
Fred Zinnemann filmed "HIGH NOON" in roughly the same length as the film's running time. The story depicts a retired sheriff (Gary Cooper) who marries Grace Kelly and is about to leave town when the gunmen who once terrorized the town return. He decides to put on his badge again and fight, but none of the townspeople he asks for help will join him. Isolated, the sheriff breaks down in tears, writes a will, and finally fights alone to defeat his enemies before leaving town with his wife. "HIGH NOON" is sometimes described as a "realist" film, different from previous Westerns, and it is a well-known fact that this film angered Howard Hawks, who then made "RIO BRAVO" as a critique of it. ●In "RIO BRAVO," there is a scene on film where rancher Ward Bond repeatedly offers to help Sheriff John Wayne, who is surrounded by numerous enemies, only to be refused. This is sometimes said to be a kind of rebuttal to the protagonist in "HIGH NOON," who cries after being refused help by the townspeople and ultimately throws his badge at them before leaving in resentment. However, for Hawkes, what is important is not the events in the plot but the movement, and Hawkes' criticism should not be judged solely on the specific flow of the story. Comparing the action of Gary Cooper, after his marriage, driving his carriage out of town with his wife Grace Kelly, to stopping the carriage after a while with a pensive look on his face, blinking, and telling his wife, "I don't want to show my back to the enemy," and then turning back to town, with Robert De Niro's lane change in "HEAT," both are actions of "turning back," but it can be seen that the former is done by thought, while the latter is done by impulse. Gary Cooper, his face glistening with sweat, constantly frowning and blinking as he relentlessly tries to persuade the townspeople, is a "first-time offender" whose actions are stagnant in the realm of pure "being," dominated by psychology. His motivation for fighting is revealed when he says, "They'll chase me wherever I go. There's no escape. Are you going to keep running until you die? This is my town. I have friends here. Let's work together," and he asks his former colleague Lon Chaney Jr. the question typical of a "first-time offender," "What should I do?" and even hopes for his enemy's rehabilitation, saying, "He might have changed in prison." What kind of Howard Hawks-esque "habitual offender" would hope for their enemy's rehabilitation? The townspeople are all tormented by guilt, psychological, and their attitudes change drastically depending on whether they perceive something as good or evil. Gary Cooper repeatedly changes his mind, punching a man in a bar, immediately admitting his wrongdoing and apologizing with "You're right," then confessing to his former assistant Lloyd Bridges that he's "scared and will run away," abandoning his duties and attempting to escape on horseback, only to immediately "repent" and decide to fight again, and then bravely attacking Lloyd Bridges when he reprimands him. This is because he is not an ascetic professional "habitual offender" like Tom Cruise in Michael Mann's "Collateral," who boasts that "a man doesn't talk, he acts directly, that's what a man does," but rather a melodramatic "first offender = thinker" who thinks before he acts. This phenomenon can also be seen in the sudden change of heart of Grace Kelly, who was supposed to leave town and abandon her husband, but then abandons her Quaker faith, shoots and kills the enemy, and saves her husband. A "first-time offender" movement remains confined to the realm of good and evil, and therefore the movement has not become ingrained in them, leading to repeated actions where good and evil are easily reversed. The change of heart of the townspeople in this film is evidence that they are indeed "first-time offenders" (this point will be re-examined in Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" (1953.11.3)). What is worrying is not the request for cooperation or crying from the townspeople, but the psychological events that are limited in a "first-time offender" manner, and Hawks' critique must also be read in this context.
★Realism
When people think about "realism" in film history, the "realism" in "HIGH NOON" is probably the fact that a professional sheriff recruits citizen (first-time offender) accomplices, the sheriff runs away, the sheriff writes a will, the sheriff cries, people change their minds, the Quakers shoot and kill the gunman, and the time in the film matches the running time. However, these are not realism that comes from the demands of the movement, but rather "likeness" that comes from approaching the "outside" = "being," and in many cases this becomes "psychological authenticity," which is an event that directly leads to the stagnation of film, yet film history has historically affirmed and valued it. A typical fallacy in criticism is the tendency to positively evaluate "being"—that is, approaching the "outside"—as "realism." It involves using things that resemble our actual lives depicted in films—such as sheriffs running away or crying—things we are familiar with—as the basis for evaluation, while consistently avoiding the unfamiliar "doing" of movement within the film itself. The danger lies in simply recognizing the suitability of intellectuals, who are experts in "being," as critics. The reason the term "realism" has a very dubious connotation in film history is largely due to the fact that it has been used to praise the direct transfer of the external world into the internal world.
★Godard
"I have always tried to convey the truth, but rather than the truth of what was said, I have tried to make it seem as though the moment it was said was the truth" ("Godard's Film History II," p. 254). This statement by Godard conveys that realism is not about the content = "being," but about the truth of the moment = "doing."
→ "The Outlaw" (1941/February 5, 1943)
This film was shot by Howard Hawks for about two weeks, and the rest was completed by producer Howard Hughes, who replaced the cinematographer from Lucien Ballard with Gregg Toland, famous for his pan-focus shots in "Citizen Kane." The film becomes more psychological in the middle, when Jane Russell begins to nurse Jack Beutell, and the presence of pan-focus shots in the nursing scenes suggests that Howard Hughes took over around this point. However, in the final act, when Billy the Kid (Jack Beutell) faces Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) to duel, he doesn't draw his gun even after the cuckoo clock chimes. Even after an enraged Huston shoots him in both ears, he still doesn't draw his gun, so Huston asks, "Why won't you draw it!" and Beutell replies, "The cuckoo clock chimes were wrong." By answering, "I had too much time to think," he confesses that his movement is not ingrained in him but rather a movement of thought. Upon hearing this, Houston repents out of guilt, saying, "I'm sorry for hurting you," and reconciles with Butell. When Houston confronts Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell), who is jealous of this, he draws his gun first but hesitates out of guilt, and is shot by Thomas Mitchell, revealing that his movement is also not ingrained but psychological. Furthermore, Mitchell, who shot him, rushes to Houston and apologizes out of guilt, and then, at Houston's burial, Jack Butell apologizes to Thomas Mitchell out of guilt, saying, "I'm sorry. I tried to kill you. But you and Doc (Houston) were best friends. If I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened." This is a series of "first-offender" melodramas of repentance, apologies, and guilt that, from a Hawksian perspective, can only be described as foolish. This film was constantly interfered with by producer Howard Hughes, who ended up directing the latter half himself. While Howard Hughes also directed the excellent "Hell's Angels" (May 27, 1930), he made a blunder with "The Outlaw," turning Hawks' portrayal of a professional "habitual offender" into a "first-time offender" and ending the film that way (if Hawks had continued directing, it would have been impossible to end the film with the protagonist remaining a "first-time offender"). In "Scarface," the protagonist Paul Muni feels guilty and begs for his life at the end, but due to the Hays Code at the time, the gangster could not be portrayed as a "habitual offender." Similarly, in "Sergeant York," where the villain Gary Cooper has a change of heart and transforms his personality midway through the film, the fact that it is based on a true story and the "external" force of war interferes, but here again, the "external" force of the producer's interference allows it to approach melodrama.
→ "THE BIG SLEEP" and Mystery
"THE BIG SLEEP" is fundamentally a mystery film in which a detective investigates the truth behind a hidden case, but the characters in the film are so intricately intertwined that the truth remains unclear even after multiple viewings. However, the protagonist of this film is Humphrey Bogart, a "habitual offender" who has lost his "origin" and no sense of guilt. For a "habitual offender," the action comes first, and the truth comes "afterward," so it is impossible to bring narrative consistency to a mystery with such a "habitual offender" as the protagonist. Therefore, it is inevitable given the nature of the film that this work, directed by Hawks, who had "6 prior convictions" is "difficult to understand," and is not surprising. Since mystery is a genre that traces back to the truth, the protagonist is inevitably made to be someone who is likely a "first-time offender," and it is destined to flow into a psychological melodrama that traces back to "what it was" through flashbacks and so on. Therefore, directors like Hawks, Michael Mann, and John Ford, who film "habitual offenders," are fundamentally incompatible with mystery, and if they were to film a "habitual offender," it would become a "difficult to understand" occupational film like "The Big Sleep."
→Hitchcock and Mystery
In Hitchcock's films, the works (mysteries) in which the goal is to solve the truth that the audience is unaware of, or in which this is a crucial element that determines the work, are: ●"THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1934) (1934) followed by ●"Revecca", ●"SPELLBOUND", ●"THE PARADINE CASE", ●"STAGE FRIGHT", ●"TO CATCH A THIEF", ●"THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY", and ●"MANIE". With the exception of ●"Rebecca", which depicts Joan Fontaine's involvement in the movement, all of these works are focused on "being," and in these works Hitchcock makes his "First-Time Offenders" films = "films aimed at the truth" = and as a result, the complexity of the movement lags behind the narrative clarity. While it's true that many Hitchcockian films about being dragged into something reveal "truths" such as state secrets, as we've examined in detail the multiple layers of "being dragged into" in Hitchcockian dragging-in movements, "being dragged into" means being forced into an action—meaning there's no reason at the beginning of the action. Actions without a reason "before" can't be retrospectively aimed at the "truth." In these four "dragged-in" films, the "truth" of state secrets is a MacGuffin, and the fact that this "truth" is presented in an extremely vague and tacked-on way is a consequence of the fact that, like mysteries involving "habitual offenders," the "truth" of dragging-in movements comes "after" the action has already happened. ● In "Shadow of a Doubt" and ● "Rear Window," no scenes of past murders are filmed, and the "truth of the past" presented there only emerges "later" as a result of "seeing" the current actions of Joseph Cotten and Raymond Burr; no direct evidence of the murder is ever presented until the end. ● In "VERTIGO," direct evidence of the "truth" is presented in the middle of the film, but that is the only point where the "truth" is "targeted," and the periods before and after are filled with the suspense of "getting caught up in it." ● Even in "SYCHO," we, the audience, know who the "real culprit" is from the beginning, and even if that person is not the real culprit, the film is made on the premise that there is a "real culprit," and it is not made as a mystery to find out "who the real culprit who killed the woman is." In Hitchcockian movements of getting caught up in things, where details of "getting caught up in it" are arranged, the "truth" comes "later."
■John Ford and the Occupational Movement
John Ford's films include works like "The Whole Town's Talking" (February 22, 1935), in which a diligent salaryman at an ironworks company is used by a wanted gangster because he bears a striking resemblance to him. While the movement of the protagonist, Edward G. Robinson, who is thrown into an environment completely unrelated to his skills as a salaryman, is essentially the same as a Hitchcockian "getting caught up in something" movement, this is the only John Ford film I have seen where the protagonist is "getting caught up in something." Like Hawks, most of John Ford's films are dominated by occupational skill movements, such as gunmen shooting people, sailors sailing ships, soldiers fighting, miners digging coal mines, and lawyers defending their clients.
★Activating John Ford
Among John Ford's films, 27 feature the movement already in motion at the start of the movie, while 26 feature the mission beginning after the movie starts. This is a close ratio, suggesting that his "habitualness" is weaker compared to Michael Mann's 11 to 1 and Howard Hawks' 29 to 8. → See " Starting a movement of John Ford".
★First Offense
While John Ford's style of movement is that of a "habitual offender," compared to Michael Mann and Howard Hawks, he is a "4 prior convictions" who has come closer to the "origin," and therefore many of his works feature characters who are "first offenders," even the protagonists. ●In "YOUNG MR. LINCOLN" (May 30, 1939), Lincoln (Henry Fonda), a newly qualified lawyer, is shown defending his first client, a truly "first offense." ●In "THE LONG GRAY LINE" (January 4, 1954/January 4, 1955), Tyrone Power, a "first offender" who enters the military academy as a messenger, later becomes an instructor and gains experience, growing into a "habitual offender" (although he is knocked out by his students as a boxing instructor and becomes a swimming instructor despite not being able to swim). ●"THE IRON HORSE" (August 28, 1924), the film depicts the "origins" = "first offense" of the protagonist George O'Brien, a surveyor, in his childhood, then transitions to his portrayal as a "habitual offender" in adulthood. ● In "ARROWSMITH" (December 26, 1931), the film chronicles the life of doctor Ronald Colman, starting from his childhood, then showing his hesitation to perform surgery on his first patient after becoming a doctor, which leads to the death of a child and the guilt he suffers, before finally discovering a vaccine and becoming a "habitual offender" who saves many Native Americans. ● Even Victor McLaglen, who betrays his best friend and causes his death in "THE INFORMER" (May 1, 1935), probably made his first betrayal (first offense). ● In "THE HORSE SOLDIERS" (June 12, 1959), Colonel John Wayne is asked by Constance Towers, "You're a professional soldier, aren't you?" to which he replies, "No, I was a railroad engineer." ● In "STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND" (September 6, 1935), Will Rogers skillfully pilots a steamboat and ultimately wins the race, but he himself says that he has "lived his life as a medicine seller for many years." ● In "3 GODFATHERS" (December 1, 1948), three men on the run after a bank robbery help a pregnant woman give birth in a covered wagon they come across, and also raise the baby in place of the deceased mother, performing a series of "firsts." ● "WAGON In "MASTER" (April 19, 1950), Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. use their skills as cattle herders to act as wagon masters for a Mormon wagon train, wiping out a gang that has taken over the train in a gunfight, yet they claim they have "never killed anyone before" and "are not gunmen." John Ford's protagonists often exhibit a "first offense" aspect, and many of his films depict these novice "first offenders" being mentored by seasoned "habitual offenders." ● In "RIO GRANDE" (November 1, 1950), the journey of Claude German Jr., a first-time offender and son of Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel John Wayne, to becoming a "habitual offender" is depicted through experiences such as dueling with a comrade, delivering a message to his father, infiltrating a church to rescue children, removing an arrow from his father, and supporting his father's shoulder. ● In "SUBMARINE PATROL" (November 25, 1938), the crew, mostly inexperienced rookie sailors, including Richard Greene, are trained by the "habitual offender" Captain Preston Foster and veteran J. Farrell MacDonald to become "habitual offenders." ● "Fort Apache (March 27, 1948), rookie lieutenant John Agar is constantly being helped by his father, veteran sergeant Ward Bond, and his uncle, drill sergeant Victor McLaglen, while rookie recruits like Hank Worden are also being trained by veteran soldiers. ● In "3 Godfathers," when John Wayne, a "habitual offender," advises Harry Carey Jr., a "first-time offender," to reconsider his decision to rob a bank, saying, "You should reconsider; bank robbery is more dangerous than cattle rustling." Also, in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949.10.22), when Major George O'Brien orders that the dangerous mission be entrusted to rookie lieutenant John Agar and second lieutenant Harry Carey Jr., John Wayne, nearing retirement, vehemently resists, saying, "They're too inexperienced; let me do it." O'Brien replies, "When the lieutenant (John Agar) gives an order, all the soldiers look at your (John Wayne's) face. They doubt whether his orders are correct. Do you want to turn him into a bad officer?" To which John Wayne replies, "Of course not... you're right," and backs down immediately, agreeing to let the two "first-time offenders" gain experience. Also, like the citizen militia replacements in "What Price Glory" (July 25, 1952), the officer cadets in "The Long Gray Line," and the film "How Green Was My Valley" (October 28, 1941) which follows Roddy McDowall's growth from childhood to adulthood, and in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," John Wayne, a "habitual offender," secretly helps James Stewart, a "newcomer" and "first-time offender," before leaving. ● In "UP THE RIVER" (1930.10.10), Humphrey Bogart, a righteous but fragile and impulsive "first-time offender," tries to shoot and kill a man who tried to swindle his mother and inherit his fortune, but his prison mate, "habitual offender" Spencer Tracy, reprimands Bogart, and together with his partner Warren Hymer, they recover the inheritance before returning to prison. ● In "THE SEARCHERS" (1956.5.26), "habitual offender" John Wayne constantly accompanies Jeffrey Hunter, a "first-time offender" who rushes to the rescue without letting his horse rest, drinks too much water from his canteen, and hesitates to shoot at Native Americans. ● In "DRUMS ALONG THE In "Mohawk" (November 3, 1939), Claudette Colbert, a city girl who married into a farming family, is terrified of the Native Americans and cries out, getting slapped by her husband Henry Fonda, but gradually becomes a "habitual offender" and supports her husband. Similarly, when amputating the leg of American General Roger Imhoff, who was injured, military doctor Charles Tannen confesses, "This is the first time I've amputated a leg." Also, in "The Horse Soldiers," there is a scene where Union cavalrymen are attacked by Confederate boy soldiers, 16 years old and "first-time offenders," and flee without fighting back. In "CHEYENNE AUTUMN" (October 3, 1964), Patrick Wayne, a rookie lieutenant who harbors hatred for Native Americans because his father was killed by them, endangers his unit with a reckless operation. However, when he returns to his unit despite his own injuries, his superior officer, Richard Widmark, acknowledges him, saying, "You've become a good soldier." John Ford's movement strongly reflects an element of nurturing and raising "first-time offenders," and is filled with positive elements towards "first-time offenders" that cannot be found in Hawks' "6 prior convictions" type.
→“THE LONG GRAY LINE” (1954)
In John Ford's films, it's not just men who are training "first-time offenders." ● In "The Long Gray Line," Tyrone Power, an instructor at the military academy, is criticized by his superior, Ward Bond, who lists the characteristics typical of a "first offender": "You're not ready yet, you're undertrained, rebellious, short-tempered, and cunning." He constantly complains about wanting to go back home, help his brother with his business, or be transferred, but his wife, Maureen O'Hara, supports him throughout. She convinces her husband of his dream of attending the military academy when he laments wanting to quit and go home, brings his father (Donald Crisp) and brother (Sean McCrory) from Ireland to comfort him, and when her son dies and she becomes unable to have children, she opens the way for her grieving husband by saying, "The cadets at the military academy are like sons to me." She and her best friend Betsy Palmer continue to encourage him, and her final moments are enveloped in a somber long shot, with the last scene showing her participating in a parade with her father-in-law, Donald Crisp. ● "THE LONG GRAY LINE" is a story about a man like me who can't stick with anything for long, but who has come this far thanks to the people around him, and he really wanted to tell the president that. That's why, despite being nearing retirement, he asks the president for more duties. Maureen O'Hara's memory of a woman who has supported such a husband continues to engrave the present-day image of the John Ford-esque "sergeant," carrying a straw hat adorned with flowers.
→ Witnessing the end of a "first offense"
● In "SEAS BENEATH" (March 29, 1931), young lieutenant Steve Pendleton, who lands on the island, is tricked by enemy spy Marion Lessing into drinking alcohol and having his information stolen. As a result, he misses his own ship and is left behind. In the end, he infiltrates an enemy German supply ship and manages to cause some trouble, but is shot and killed. Despite this "first offense" blunder, all the enemy German soldiers watch over him with salutes. ● In "The Lost Patrol" (February 16, 1934), a 19-year-old recruit confesses, "I'm still a novice," before failing a mission, being killed, and having his horse stolen, yet everyone buries him. ● In "The Horse Soldiers," John Wayne attends to a recruit in his final moments. ● In "What Price Glory," Marine Captain James Cagney weeps as he attends to the final moments of recruit Robert Wagner, who has just been discharged from the hospital after recovering from measles. Such scenes cannot be found in Hawks' portrayal of professional movements. While Howard Hawks' films also feature scenes of people being buried, these are limited to "Habitual Offenders." ●In "TIGER SHARK," Edward G. Robinson is seen off by his best friend Richard Arlen and his (former) lover Zita Johann, ●In "AIR FORCE," Captain John Rigley is seen off by his comrades, ●In "THE ROAD TO GLORY," Sergeant Gregory Ratoff is seen off by his superior officer Warner Baxter and others, ●In "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS," Thomas Mitchell, though mortally wounded, is seen off by his comrades including Cary Grant, but these are all "Habitual Offenders," and there is never a case where a "first-time offender" who made a mistake on duty is seen off by his comrades.In "RIO LOBO," John Wayne's best friend, whose train is stolen along with the gold bars during a Confederate attack, is not seen off in his final moments. Similarly, in "EL DORADO," the boy who falls asleep and is shot in the stomach by John Wayne is neither seen off nor buried. John Wayne in "RED RIVER" is particularly cruel, whipping a first-time offender who makes a mistake and attempting to kill him when he fights back, and trying to hang first-time offenders who break their contracts and run away. Herein lies a stark contrast between John Ford's nurturing and nurturing approach to first-time offenders and Hawkes' cold treatment of them.
→ "THE GRAPES of "WRATH" - On Psychological Close-ups and "First Offenses"
As the family prepares to leave their farm and drive west, there's a close-up shot of mother Jane Darwell burning her belongings and looking at herself in a mirror wearing earrings. This is a "psychological close-up," and the close-up that seems to say "I'm going through a sad time" is written all over her face, as I discussed in my paper "Psychological Authenticity and Film History." But that's not all. The mean woman in the gas station diner instantly changes into a "good person," Henry Fonda, who acts based on his sense of "righteousness," is rebellious each time he encounters "bad people" along the way (he's quick-tempered because of his "righteousness"), and Grant Mitchell, who appears to be nothing but a "good person" from every angle, is in charge of the farm run by the Department of Agriculture. This film pits good against evil everywhere, and there isn't a single "Habitual Offenders," making it a film worthy of an Academy Award as a "first offense."
★Repetition
John Ford's movements are not like those in Hawks' "HATARI!", where actors playing hunters repeatedly perform professional movements. Similarly, in "MOGAMBO" (1953.10.9), which also features hunters as the main characters, only three hunts are filmed—against a black panther, a rhinoceros, and a gorilla—and these are mostly montages of studio shots and on-location shots of wild animals. For example, in the scene where Ava Gardner is surprised to see a snake coiled up in her room, there is a close-up of Gardner licking a lamp, which is clearly out of step with the flow of the story, before a surprised Gardner embraces Gable, creating a love scene. Thus, hunting and wild animals are not filmed as an end in themselves, as in Hawks' film, but rather as MacGuffins that activate the relationships between men and women. In the silent film "3 Bad Men" (August 28, 1926), three "bad guys" (Tom Sanchi, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Frank Campau), who are bank robbers and horse thieves, meet a lovely young woman, Olive Borden, and go to great lengths to find her husband. In the end, they die protecting her and her lover, but their only act of evil is an attempted theft of Olive Borden's horse at the beginning of the film, which was unsuccessful. Similarly, in the silent film "Hangman's House" (May 13, 1928), not a single courtroom scene is filmed featuring Judge Hobard Bosworth, famous for hanging himself. Furthermore, the protagonist, Victor McLaglen, a fighter in the Irish War of Independence and commander of the Foreign Legion in the Algerian War of Independence, only seeks personal revenge against the man who drove his sister to suicide, and no scenes of the struggle for independence are filmed. In the gangster film "Born Reckless" (May 11, 1930), Edmund Law's gangster activities are limited to the jewel heist at the beginning and the gunfight at the end. Shortly after the film begins, he is sent to the battlefield, but even there he only flirts with women and plays baseball, and not a single shot of him fighting as a soldier is filmed. After returning, he has left the gangster life behind and become a nightclub owner, joining the upper class. Unlike Hawks' "Scarface," there is absolutely no depiction of a gangster continuing his gangster activities in an ascetic manner. ● In "STAGECOACH," Thomas Mitchell's movement to "do medical work" was only filmed once, ● In "THE LONG VOYAGE HOME" (1940.10.8), the sailors drink, fight, escape from the ship, and interrogate spies, but their job as sailors is limited to sheltering from storms, ● In "HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY," the only miner scenes filmed are of the young Roddy McDowall working in the mine shafts, ● In "TABACCO ROAD" (1941.2.20), farmer Charlie Grapewin is not filmed doing any farm work, and ● In "MY DARLING" (1946.12.3), In "Clementine" (1946), Henry Fonda becomes a sheriff to find the man who killed his brother, but instead of carrying out his revenge, he spends his time playing poker, bringing back a runaway stage actor, being infatuated with a beautiful woman (Kathy Downs), putting on perfume and dancing. Furthermore, in "3 Godfathers," a bank robber takes care of a baby. In "The Fugitive" (July 2, 1947), Henry Fonda baptizes a baby as a priest and is present at the end of a boy's life, but much of his work is not priestly but about escaping. In "Judge Priest" (September 28, 1934), Will Rogers' official duties as a judge are only shown in the opening trial against Steppin' Fetchitt, after which he switches from judge to lawyer and engages in legal defense in court. In the remake, "The Sun Shines Bright" (May 2, 1953), Judge Charles Winninger drinks, campaigns, chairs the veterans' association, prevents mob lynchings, and preaches at funerals, but his judiciary duties are only shown in one sequence in court when he is late, and in that courtroom, the former bugler judge is more interested in playing Dixieland to the harmonica of his servant Steppin' Fetchit than in the proceedings, and in "The Quiet Man" (1952.6.6), John Wayne returns to his native Ireland, but it seems he can live off the money he earned in America, so there are no scenes of him doing any professional work to earn a living; at most, he gets into a fight with Victor McLaglen as a former boxer. In "Mister Roberts" (1955), Jack Lemmon, a laundry officer on a cargo ship, never does laundry even once, instead blowing up the laundry room with firecrackers, covering the ship in foam, and flirting with nurses. According to Henry Fonda, he is "a man who has never accomplished anything," and the other crew members are fed up with the ambitious Captain James Cagney, abandoning their duties and waiting for permission to go ashore. ● In "The Wings of Eagles" (1956/January 30, 1957), Lieutenant Commander John Wayne is supposed to be a pilot, but he only flies a plane once in the opening scene. The rest of the time he gets into fights with army soldiers, has a falling out with his wife, falls down the stairs and becomes paralyzed, undergoes rehabilitation, and writes movie scripts, so it's not clear what his specialty is. In "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (February 28, 1936), Dr. Warner Baxter is imprisoned on a remote island prison after being framed as an accomplice in Lincoln's assassination, and his medical duties are suspended for a long period. In "Donovan's Reef" (June 12, 1963), shipping operator John Wayne runs a bar called "Donovan's Reef" and engages in various activities. In "Together" (June 28, 1961), when Richard Widmark introduces his friend James Stewart to his superior, John McIntyre, he points out that "Stewart is a sheriff, a guardian of the law, a diplomat, an adventurer..." Thus, John Ford's "4 prior convictions" is a significant step backward in terms of the repetition and specialization in his duties that can be found in Hawks' "6 prior convictions."
★Unclearness of Duties
●In "SEAS BENEATH," the film begins with a US military disguised ship having an unknown destination, and the mission being top secret and unknown even to the crew. ●"THE LOST PATROL," as the title "THE LOST PATROL" suggests, begins with the only British reconnaissance team leader who knows the orders being shot and killed in the desert. With no orders left behind, Sergeant Victor McLaglen laments that "we don't know the individual locations, objectives, or even the whereabouts of the main force," and the soldiers become easy targets for Arab soldiers, nearly being wiped out. ●In "SUBMARINE PATROL," the crew of a submarine chaser are not told their destination even after setting sail. John Ford's works are often plagued by an unclearness of duties, where the protagonists don't know what they should be doing, something that is not possible in Howard Hawks' style of movement.
★Requests for Transfer
This tendency is often seen in John Ford's films, particularly in the theme of "requests for transfer (or retirement)." ●In "Submarine Patrol," Richard Greene, the chief engineer of a submarine chaser, requests retirement from his superior officer. ●In "Fort Apache," George O'Brien, the cavalry adjutant who has been relieved of his duties by his successor Henry Fonda, continues to wait for a transfer notice. Even Fonda, though he hasn't submitted a transfer request, expresses dissatisfaction with his new post as commander of a fort, stating that he has "no intention of spending his bones here." ●In "THE HURRICANE" and ●"DONOVAN'S REEF," Doctor Thomas Mitchell and Baron Cesar Romero, both stationed on a remote island, write requests for transfers back to their home country of France, while ●in "SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON," newly promoted Lieutenant Harry Carey Jr. submits his resignation. ● In "Mister Roberts" (July 30, 1955), Henry Fonda, a cargo officer on a freighter during World War II, repeatedly requests a transfer to a battleship. ● In "What Price Glory," Chief Petty Officer Dan Daly requests a transfer soon after being assigned to his post, his subordinate William Demarest even requests to be discharged, and Lieutenant James Cagney also requests a transfer, saying, "If we capture an enemy officer, we can be transferred," and even after that is not granted, he initially refuses to go into battle, saying, "I'm fed up with war. There are only new recruits and they don't know how to fight." ● In "They Were Expendable" (December 19, 1945), torpedo boat captain John Wayne writes a request to be transferred to a destroyer, and ● in "The Long Gray Line," officer academy instructor Tyrone Power also tries to retire multiple times or writes a request to be transferred because he cannot bear the repeated deaths of his students. Even in works where no transfer requests are actually written or submitted, the sailors in "THE LONG VOYAGE HOME" can no longer tolerate the tyranny of their current shipowner and request a transfer, John Wayne wants to quit sailing and return to the countryside to run a ranch, and Ian Hunter escapes from a ship where landing is prohibited. In "STAGECOACH," Doctor Thomas Mitchell, and in "HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY," Reverend Walter Pidgeon are forced to transfer or leave town due to discrimination and prejudice from the townspeople. In "FORT APACHE," Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel Henry Fonda is dissatisfied with his current situation after being demoted to a remote area and, eager for glory, chooses a reckless operation that leads to the annihilation of his unit. ● In "RIO GRANDE," Lieutenant Colonel John Wayne's job is, according to General J. Carroll Naish, "the dirtiest job in the army," and his son, Claude German Jr., has dropped out of military academy to join the army, and his mother, Maureen O'Hara, has gone to the trouble of coming all the way to the fort to get him discharged. ● In "Mister Roberts," cargo ship captain James Cagney is also dissatisfied with the status quo and continues to incur the distrust of his subordinates due to his ambition to become a Navy lieutenant commander. Unusually for a John Ford-esque protagonist, Will Rogers, the doctor in "Doctor Bull," repeatedly engages in professional activities. However, his frequent medical procedures, which he has become a "habitual offender," lead to accumulated fatigue that prevents him from getting enough sleep. Combined with the discrimination and prejudice from the townspeople, he eventually complains, "I want to quit my job and hang out here (the widow's house)." Later, when he is about to lose his medical license, he again expresses a desire to resign, saying, "I'm tired of work. I want to go fishing and relax." Thus, while many of them take pride in their duties, they harbor dissatisfaction and conflict regarding the specifics of their work, a phenomenon clearly demonstrated in war films by the discontent of sailors with their assigned ships. ● The protagonists of "SEAS BENEATH" work on a decoy ship whose mission is to lure German U-boats into firing torpedoes, a far cry from a glamorous fleet. ● "THEY WERE EXPENDABLE," as the title suggests, is a torpedo boat whose mission is to attack from cover, not a glamorous mission like a destroyer, and John Wayne, dissatisfied with this, has already written a transfer request. ● "MISTER ROBERTS" begins with a shot of Lieutenant Henry Fonda on the deck of a dilapidated cargo ship that the sailors call the "Reluctant Ship," gazing enviously through binoculars at glamorous ships like battleships and aircraft carriers sailing the sea. in● "SUBMARINE PATROL," the submarine chaser the sailors board is described as "the smallest ship in the Navy," and according to crew member Richard Greene, the son of a wealthy man, it is "smaller than my father's yacht." Even the captain, Preston Foster, is a destroyer captain who was demoted after making a mistake on the glamorous stage. It is common for John Ford's types of professionals to be assigned to auxiliary tasks far removed from the glamour, and this tendency is in stark contrast to Howard Hawks' "AIR FORCE," where the bomber is the largest in the Air Force, and Lieutenant John Agar is a respected elite, while gunner John Garfield, who has expressed his desire to retire from the Air Force, is despised by his colleagues. In Hawkes's protagonists, who take pride in and consistently carry out a single task in a single profession, the only instance where the event of "transfer" occurs is probably Neil Hamilton in "The Dawn Patrol." As a British Army squadron commander, he finds it unbearable to watch the young, inexperienced recruits—"first-time offenders" sent into action under orders from his superiors—perish one after another; he gladly relinquishes his post to his successor, Richard Barthelmess, and departs. Yet, while Howard Hawks’ characters often embody a stoic, disciplined commitment to their professional duties, the protagonists of John Ford’s films are almost invariably haunted by an internal conflict regarding their own professions.
★Strike
Going beyond simply requesting a transfer, the John Ford-esque protagonist progresses to the event of a strike, where he voluntarily suspends his duties, much like John Carradine, the worker in "The Grapes of Wrath," or the miners in "How Green Was My Valley." While it is certainly possible to consider a strike as a professional movement by workers, unlike Howard Hawks' protagonists who often temporarily interrupt their duties with leisure activities such as jam sessions, a strike, which completely suspends one's duties—one's calling—is a stark contrast to the ascetic professional figures of Hawks.
★Guilt and Repentance
The John Ford-esque protagonists, who tend to be more like "first-time offenders" than "habitual offenders" like Hawks, are often tormented by guilt and undergo periods of repentance. In the silent film *Stright Shooting* (August 27, 1917), Harry Carey, a wanted gunman, feels guilty when his fellow gunman shoots and kills a young man from a rival ranch in the back, and repents, becoming a member of the young man's ranch. In *Arrowsmith*, Dr. Ronald Colman is tormented by guilt after he hesitates to perform surgery on a child during his first examination, resulting in the child's death. In *The Lost Patrol*, during World War I, a British Mesopotamian reconnaissance team is killed one after another by an unseen enemy, driving soldier Boris Karloff to madness, and commander Victor McLaglen regrets his leadership. In *The Informer*, Victor McLaglen cannot bear the guilt of being an informer and ultimately confesses his sins in church. In "HURRICANE," Raymond Massey, a cold-hearted administrator assigned to a remote French colony island in the South Pacific, eventually has a change of heart and lets the escaped convict John Hall go. In "DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK," Henry Fonda, who killed a Royalist Indian, and Arthur Shields, who shot and killed his ally Francis Ford to spare him from being burned alive by the Indians, both confess their guilt. In "THE IMPOSTER," Father Henry Fonda, who is on the run due to the Catholic ban under the revolutionary government, is tormented by guilt over the death of a villager who sacrificed himself for him. Mexican soldier Pedro Armendáriz also feels guilty about executing Henry Fonda, and J. Carroll Naish, who betrayed Fonda, later confesses his sins to Fonda. In "Apache," Henry Fonda, surrounded by Apaches and in a desperate situation, apologizes to his subordinates Ward Bond and George O'Brien for his command; ● In "Rio Grande," Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel John Wayne and his subordinate Victor McLaglen feel guilty for burning down John Wayne's wife (Maureen O'Hara) ancestral farm on official orders; ● In "What Price Glory," Marine Captain James Cagney weeps after a young soldier dies and struggles with the conflict of "I'm sick of war"; ● in"THE LONG GRAY LINE," Tyrone Power, an instructor at the U.S. Military Academy, attempts to leave his post due to guilt over the death of one of his students in battle. In "The Cavalry," John Wayne, a Union Colonel in the Civil War, feels guilty and apologizes for the death of the servant (Althea Gibson) of a Southern woman (Constance Towers) he forced to accompany him to the army. In "CHEYENNE AUTUMN," Army Captain Richard Widmark continues to feel guilty about fighting against the Cheyenne group, who are starving but trying to return home. Thus, John Ford's protagonists, compared to Hawks' protagonists, often feel guilty about their professional activities in a far greater number of situations.
★Origins
Compared to the Hawks-esque protagonist with "6 prior convictions" who specializes in professional activities = "doing," the John Ford-esque protagonist who moves away from his profession and becomes devoted to "being" = "first offense" naturally has many shots and references about his "origins." ● In "THE IRON HORSE," the childhood "origins" of surveyor George O'Brien are filmed as they are, ● In "UP THE RIVER," Spencer Tracy tells Humphrey Bogart, who is about to kill someone with a gun, "If you kill someone, you'll be put to death. I was a death row inmate. I was always terrified of the sound of the electric chair motor," telling Bogart his own "origins" and dissuading him from committing the crime (however, it is unclear how a death row inmate is still alive). ● In "The Long Voyage Home," John Wayne recounts his "origins," saying, "My mother and brother lived on a farm in Stockholm, Sweden, and my father died. I worked on the farm until I was 16, and then I left my hometown and became a sailor." Ian Hunter, Wayne's fellow sailor, also has his "origins" revealed through a letter, showing how he, an alcoholic, became a sailor to escape his family. ● In "The Lost Patrol," Victor McLaglen mentions the "origins" of his fight, saying, "My wife died after giving birth to our son. For a while I hated my son, but I was moved by affection and, while being promoted in the military, I paid for his education. Now my son is everything to me. I fight for my son." ● In "Mary of Scotland" (July 30, 1936), Katharine Hepburn says, "I married in France at the age of 16, and when the king was killed, my husband succeeded to the throne and I became Queen of France." However, after my husband died and I was left alone, I returned to Scotland," she told Frederick March about her upbringing. Henry Fonda in "Mister Roberts" also spoke about the "origins" of his fighting, saying, "I dropped out of medical school and enlisted. Because those who fight save lives." John Wayne in "Donovan's Reef" described in detail the "origins" of his current life on a remote island, saying, "I was injured playing football in my second year of college and joined the Navy. The destroyer I was on was hit and I drifted to an island with a Japanese base, where I hid in a mountain cave and fought the Japanese." In addition, Woody Strode, a Black cavalry sergeant in "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960.5.18), had his "origins" as a Black slave read aloud from a letter among his belongings. Colonel John Wayne in "The Horse Soldiers," while drunk, said, "Before joining the military, I was a railroad engineer." He says something to the effect of, "I used to be a decent person, but I changed after my wife died due to medical malpractice by doctors," which can be interpreted as the "origin" of his current "ruthless habitual offender" behavior. ● In "RIO GRANDE," John Wayne's "origin" is told as he was kicked out of his home by his wife after burning down her farm 15 years earlier on orders during the Civil War, and ● in "THE QUIET MAN," the "origin" of him killing an opponent in a match during his boxing days is shown through John Wayne's recollections. Thus, John Ford's films often feature characters who possess a memory of their "origins," something that Hawks' ascetic professionals have often already lost.
→ "MY DARLING CLEMENTINE" - Henry Fonda Forgot His Origins
● In "MY DARLING CLEMENTINE," the "origin" of Henry Fonda becoming the town sheriff is depicted in the film: his brother Don Garner was killed by Walter Brennan and his gang. Up until now, the concept of "origins" has often been viewed negatively, but in "occupational" skill movements, the existence of an "origin" is essential. Even if someone is a "「10 prior convictions」" like Michael Mann, their "origin" is not completely forgotten; it exists in the depths of memory, but it is so distant that they act naturally without referring to their "origin" each time. That is a "habitual offender," and the behavior of a "habitual offender" is always rooted in their "origin." However, in this film, Henry Fonda seems to have completely forgotten his "origin" from just a few days ago, becoming infatuated with a girl named Cathy Downs whom he meets in town. He goes to the barber shop to check his appearance in the mirror, puts on perfume, and dances with women. Henry Fonda's actions reveal not even a hint of the "origin" that accompanies the actions of "habitual offenders" such as John Wayne in "The Searchers" and Charles Winninger in "The Sun Shines Bright." Fonda's actions, as if suddenly recalling his previously completely forgotten "origin" only after seeing the pendant of his brother worn by Linda Darnell, are full of frivolity . Even if this film were a love story between Fonda and Downs with the death of his brother as a MacGuffin, the actions of going to the barber of one's own free will, approaching the woman of one's own free will, the woman inviting the man to worship of her own free will, the man asking the woman to dance of his own free will, and in the final scene, dismounting from his horse of his own free will to talk face to face, are far removed from the emotions of being "forced" into things, as seen in John Ford's "Stagecoach" when he is "forced" to ride in a carriage and coincidentally meets Claire Trevor there, or when John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara kiss in a secluded room while sheltering from a thunderstorm in "The Quiet Man." Instead, they are filled with "first-time offender" behavior, where one thinks before acting. "My Darling Clementine" forms a triangle of "first offenders" with Victor Mature, who is constantly scowling and irritable as he confronts the "origin" of his remaining lifespan, and Linda Darnell, a jealous woman who judges people in terms of good and evil. The smiles of Henry Fonda and Victor Mature when Jane Darwell, the woman who was with Linda Darnell after her surgery, suddenly offers to "take care of her" are captured as the kind of "goodwill" faces typical of "first offenders."
★Flashbacks
Flashbacks were also filmed as part of John Ford's movement to approach the "origins." ●"HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY" is narrated in flashback form by Roddy McDowall (voiced by someone else), and the final scene also features a flashback of the family dinner table (this is carried over to the final scene of Francis Ford Coppola's ●"The Godfather Part II" (December 12, 1974)), ●"CHEYENNE AUTUMN" is also narrated in flashback form by the protagonist Richard Widmark, ●"THE HURRICANE" begins with a flashback by Thomas Mitchell on a ship, ●"THE LONG GRAY LINE" ●"THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE" progresses with scenes of the protagonists Tyrone Power and James Stewart actually recalling their experiences, and a courtroom trial was filmed ●in"JUDGE PRIEST," Henry B. Walthall's testimony is filmed in flashback form, and in "SERGEANT RUTLEDGE," the film itself unfolds in flashback form through the trial. In "THE GRAPES of WRATH," the scene in which John Qualen loses his farm to the bourgeoisie is inserted through two somewhat lengthy flashbacks, and in "THE QUIET MAN," the scene in which John Wayne kills his opponent in a boxing match is also filmed in flashback. Regarding short flashbacks, in "THE IRON HORSE," the protagonist George O'Brien recalls a scene from his childhood where his father discovers a shortcut through a valley to lay a railroad; in "THE LONG GRAY LINE," the dead appear in flashback form in the final scene; in "3 GODFATHERS," only the voices of the deceased Harry Carey Jr. and Pedro Armendáriz are heard in flashbacks; and in "WHAT PRICE GLORY," there is a shot in which the singing voice of a girl he met and fell in love with in France is heard by Robert Wagner on the battlefield. n Hawks' films, there is only one flashback scene, in "Sergeant York," where Gary Cooper, returning from the battlefield, recalls only the voices of Major Stanley Ridges and Walter Brennan on a cliff behind his house. Even this is a dramatized version of voices actually heard in the film and can hardly be called a real flashback. In contrast to Michael Mann, who only has one flashback scene in all his works, in "ALI," the abundance of flashbacks in John Ford's films suggests that the protagonists in his works are closer to their "origins" compared to those of Hawks and Michael Mann.
★Conflict – John Ford is caught up in it
John Ford's movement, compared to Hawks', approaches the "origin" more closely, pulling the movement from an animalistic "doing" that has professionally specialized the movement to something closer to a human "being," creating the emotion of conflict. However, one factor that creates conflict is the human element in the realm of "being," and since this is an approach to the psychology = melodrama that one faces precisely because one is human, John Ford's movement is always on the brink of psychological stagnation, and if this escalates, like Father Henry Fonda in "THE IMPOSTER," the movement stagnates because he continues to doubt his own suitability as a priest, and even when the villains drink the wine necessary for the ritual, he only panics and is unable to fight or even run away. However, just as John Ford, even when filming a "first-time offender" like Henry Fonda in "Young Mr. Lincoln," determines the "origin" of why he became a lawyer in an extremely irrational way, by deciding the direction in which a tree branch fell, and just as Charlie Grapewin, the farmer protagonist of "Tabaco Road," feels guilty about stealing but remains completely unconcerned and continues his usual "habitual offender" behavior, and just as John Wayne, after being knocked unconscious in "The Quiet Man" and supposedly recalling his "origin" in a flashback, remains completely unconcerned afterward, many of the protagonists John Ford films, who are directed towards "being," maintain a level of "conflict" that is just short of falling into the melodrama of a complete "first-time offender," maintaining the "habitual offender" behavior of those who are somewhat further removed from their "origin," like those with "4 prior convictions" compared to Hawks' "6 prior convictions." One of the things that makes this possible is the vast number of MacGuffins placed at every moment (John Ford's Function-Movement Relationship Chart). For example, the hat, a prop used countless times in Ford's films, is used to throw far away like a frisbee, wave as a signal or greeting, take off, brush dust off clothes, scratch one's head with the hand that has just taken off the hat, or put coins, tips, or letters inside. It is never worn to shield oneself from the sun. When it is used to shield oneself from the sun, such as when John Wayne uses his hat to shield Harry Carey Jr.'s face from the sunlight in the scene where Harry Carey Jr. dies in "3 Godfathers," it is used in a way that is completely detached from the function of "wearing a hat to shield oneself from the sun," reaching the absurdity of slapstick comedy in Buster Keaton, which will be discussed later. While Hawks functionally aims for "being" and avoids approaching "origin," he continuously confronts it with MacGuffins of "doing," ultimately approaching pure "doing." In contrast, John Ford deliberately brings movement closer to "being," while simultaneously confronting it with MacGuffins at every turn, thus eliminating motivation from the starting point of the movement,, and creating conflict—a remarkable feat. ohn Ford's films are more moving than Howard Hawks' because they more intensely blend the human element of "being" with the struggles of "doing," resulting in emotions stemming from the stagnation and conflict of the task. As one approaches the "origin," the "habitualness" weakens, so activating John Ford's "4 prior convictions" requires an external trigger, a MacGuffin. As a result, their actions become more "forced to begin" or "involved" by external forces, leading to conflict, occasional stagnation, and constant complaints. In contrast, in the case of Hawks' "six prior convictions" and Michael Mann's "ten prior convictions," the movement is initiated internally by a strong "habitual behavior." Therefore, even though they are both involved, they are internally involved, and the emotional conflict that arises from being "forced from the outside" becomes less apparent.
★Umbrella
●In "FOUR SONS," a woman uses an umbrella to shelter from the rain in a wartime rationing station (later, the umbrella is also used by children to hide under a large umbrella) ●In "THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND," a priest accompanying a female prisoner on her way to the gallows holds an umbrella over her ●In "MISTER ROBERTS," although sailors returning to their ship at night are using umbrellas, aside from the frequent sight of women using parasols, there are no scenes of the protagonist sheltering from the rain with an umbrella in any of John Ford's works ●"DONOVAN’S In "The Reef," umbrellas only exist as an extremely bizarre scene where John Wayne hides his massive body under an umbrella shared with Elizabeth Allen in a leaky church. In John Ford's films, as with Hitchcock, umbrellas are never used functionally to shield from the pouring rain. Even in Howard Hawks' films, which are closer to functionality, there isn't a single shot of the protagonist using an umbrella in the rain (● In the final sequence of "Viva Villa!", Wallace Beery, who is driving, is shown using the umbrella of the man in the passenger seat, but this was probably shot by Jack Conway, who took over directing from Hawks). Furthermore, even the protagonists of Michael Mann, who should be functional, never use umbrellas except for Russell Crowe using one in "The Insider." Not only in the case of "involved movement"—which has no connection to functionality—but even in "skill-based movement"—which ought to be functional—the very pursuit of functionality ends up as something that "does not exist," rebounding inward as sheer absurdity.
■ "Being" and the MacGuffin
We have examined how Hitchcockian involved movements, being movements of "doing," must strip away "being," and how those who have lost their skills and become "softer" are repelled by the MacGuffin. However, there is a question: if you throw a MacGuffin at a protagonist who is filled with skills directed towards "being," wouldn't it be negated by those skills and therefore ineffective? Indeed, skills are attached to "being," so if skills are attached to a film that is solely about "doing," it will lead to the suicide of the movement. On the other hand, when filming a professional skill movement directed towards "being," if it is a "first offense" that is referenced to its "origin," then the motivation for the movement is already attached by psychology and its complexity is limited, so throwing a disparate event like a MacGuffin at it will have no effect. Looking at Hitchcock's Function-Movement Relationship Chart, there is a tendency for MacGuffins to be drastically reduced in films of "first offenses" (which could also be said to be because there is less MacGuffin-like inclination, making it more psychological). Professional skill movements filled with "habitual offender" skills are pathological in that they move away from their "origin" while pretending to be intellectual, and they are activated as if propelled by a "non-existent functionality" for no reason, so when they are hit with a MacGuffin without reason, they can accelerate towards "doing" with even greater intensity. It is the Psychological Authenticity that negate or stop movement, not skills. If you accumulate "habitual behavior" to the point of having "4 prior convictions" in the style of John Ford, you begin to forget the "origin," the movement becomes more flexible, and it becomes easier to be repelled by a MacGuffin. If you further refine it to the point of having "「10 prior convictions」" in the style of Michael Mann, the movement becomes an end in itself, and a MacGuffin becomes unnecessary. However, even in Michael Mann's works where movement is an end in itself, MacGuffins are placed, demonstrating the versatility of the MacGuffin phenomenon, which isolates movement from function, in accelerating movement while preventing the film from becoming filled with "psychological truthfulness." However, in the case of Michael Mann's "10 prior convictions," the distance from "Psychological Authenticity" is already maintained by "habitualness," which is far removed from "origin," whereas in John Ford's "4 prior convictions" or Howard Hawks' "6 prior convictions," which do not reach "10 prior convictions," the distance from "Psychological Authenticity" is maintained not only by the distance from "origin" but also by MacGuffin-like circuits. The sheer volume of MacGuffins, surpassing even Hitchcock's, always exposes a preposterous dynamism in their movements.
→ "WAGON MASTER" (1950) - The Meaning of Singing
● In "WAGON MASTER," there is a scene where cowboys Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. are asked to be guides (wagon masters) for a Mormon wagon train. They initially refuse, but later accept the job. This "acceptance" is established when the two chase after the wagon train and have a conversation with Ward Bond, but nothing is filmed about their motivation for accepting the job. All that exists is a scene where Harry Carey Jr. hums a song on top of a fence as he watches the wagon train depart, and Ben Johnson, standing beside him, sings along in response. There are apparently some critiques that attempt to interpret this song as "suggesting commitment to Mormons and blind obedience to 'the Lord's will'" ("John Ford Essay, pp. 167 et seq."). However, this song is a MacGuffin sung to remove psychological motivation from the act of "taking on," and since MacGuffins are merely triggers to start a movement, it has no meaning (it is precisely because it has no meaning that it is exposed). The mentality to forcibly find a non-existent, invisible, psychological meaning such as "blind obedience to 'the Lord's will'" in a song that was sung specifically to remove psychological motivation from the act of "taking on" is nothing more than a weakness of criticism that finds its value in denying the movement. ● in"TABACCO ROAD," when lovers Marjorie Rambeau and William Tracy apply to the town hall for marriage and are rejected, they start singing "Sowing Seeds in the Morning," and the people who hear them join in, singing along, and that alone is enough to get their permission to marry. Similarly, in "JUDGE PRIEST," when "Dixie" is played from outside the courtroom, the courtroom is inspired in response, and the defendant's innocence is decided by that alone. Songs and music can evoke emotions and stir something when they are sung in response to and passed on to others. In "WAGON MASTER," the "contract" is already made when Ben Johnson joins in and sings along to the song that Harry Carey Jr. hums.
★"A History of Cinematic Exits" - John Ford
John Ford's ●"THE LONG VOYAGE HOME" has an interesting scene. In this film, which depicts sailors on a cargo ship traveling from the West Indies to Britain via America, midway through the film, sailor Ian Hunter is suspected of being a German spy and is detained by his fellow crew members. There is a scene in which a letter found in a black box he was in for examination is read aloud by Thomas Mitchell (Ian Hunter appeared in three consecutive silent films from Hitchcock's British period: ●"DOWMHILL" (October 24, 1927), ●"EASY VIRTUE" (1927), and ●"THE RING" (1927)). However, as the letter is read, it becomes clear that it is a private and heartbreaking letter from Ian Hunter's wife, and Thomas Mitchell, muttering "You're making me read this?", shouts "Get out!" After chasing away the onlookers, the crew members sharing a room with Ian Hunter silently turned off the light, silently released Ian Hunter, and silently went into bed, without a word of apology. Certainly, one could view this as them feeling guilty or embarrassed and unable to bear being there any longer, but if this stemmed from a "sense of guilt," it would be a "first offense" based on "good and evil," and there should have been hesitation due to thinking before acting. However, their actions of releasing Ian Hunter, turning off the lamp, and going into bed without any psychological hesitation are portrayed as ingrained behavior of those who have mistakenly intruded into the private realm of a letter from his wife and are trying to quickly leave, and that is why John Ford does not have anyone utter the word "apology," which implies good and evil. ●In "STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND," there is a scene where, the moment John McGuire's fiancée, Anne Shirley, calls out to him from outside the barred window, the other prisoners in his cell leave without hesitation. Similarly, at John McGuire and Anne Shirley's prison wedding, when the two kiss, although they cannot "leave" due to being in prison, all the attendees, including Will Rogers and Eugene Barrett, immediately turn their eyes away and turn their backs, granting the couple a moment of "private space." Indeed, in the silent film "UPSTREAM" (1927), there is a scene where a large group of fellow actors enter the room where knife-wielding Grant Withers and the heroine Nancy Nash are kissing and stay there to congratulate them, and in "THE QUIET MAN," there is a scene where John Wayne comes to consult with Reverend Arthur Shields, and his talkative wife, Eileen Crowe, only leaves after being urged by her husband. However, in "THE IRON HORSE," future President Lincoln subtly turns his back to allow the parting embrace of the boy and girl; in "FORT APACHE," as soon as John Agar, who has returned home after a long absence, begins to talk to his mother, Eileen Rich, his father Ward Bond immediately takes his hat from the hat rack, puts on his jacket, and tries to leave; in "SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON," as soon as George O'Brien and Mildred Natwick begin to share a farewell kiss, John Wayne, who is also present, immediately turns his back; and in "RIO GRANDE," as Claude German Jr.'s mother, Maureen O'Hara, enters the tent to see her son, the soldiers who are with her, including Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., and Ken Curtis, all leave the tent one after another. ● In "THE LONG GRAY LINE," when Tyrone Power learns of his wife Maureen O'Hara's pregnancy and rushes to her side, his father Donald Crisp urges his son Sean McClory to leave as they run off, ● In "WHAT PRICE GLORY," towards the end, when James Cagney tells the French girl Marisa Pavan that her lover (Robert Wagner) has died, Cagney prompts Corinne Calvet, who is also present, to leave, and she immediately says "I understand" and disappears off-screen (her footsteps can be heard off-screen, indicating she is running off), and also ● In "THE QUIET MAN," again early on, when Father Ward Bond says to John Wayne, "I want to talk to him (Barry Fitzgerald)," he immediately gets out of the carriage and leaves. ●in "THE "SEARCHERS," John Wayne returns home during the wedding and leaves Vera Miles and Jeffrey Hunter, saying, "It looks like you two have something to talk about." In the final scene, he quietly walks away without joining the circle of family members who are embracing Natalie Wood, who has also returned home. In the silent film "FOUR SONS," after the mother sees off her sons who are going off to war, Albert Grann, the postman who was present, quietly leaves the room. In the gangster film "BORN RECKLESS," Edmund Law enters a room where his sister and her boyfriend are together, chats with them for a while, puts on a record, and then leaves after seeing them hold hands. In "Up the River," prison warden Robert Emmett O'Connor not only pretends to look for a pen and leaves his office to leave Humphrey Bogart and his lover Claire Luce alone, but also pulls off the feat of immediately leaving with his young daughter, who is trying to give the pen to her father. What these have in common is the ingrained behavior of immediately withdrawing from the private space of others, and while the John Ford-esque movements are filled with details that approach the "origin," what keeps them within the realm of "habitual offenders" with "four previous convictions" is the dynamism of the protagonists' ingrained behavior (habitualness). The John Ford-esque movements are based on an extremely delicate balance between the outside and the inside, where the characters are drawn in by external factors but act driven by an ingrained impulse from within.
→ "THEY WERE EXPENDABLE" (1945) Donna Reed and A History of Cinematic Exits
● In "THEY WERE EXPENDABLE," there is a scene in the middle of the film where soldiers stationed on the Bataan Peninsula invite military nurse Donna Reed to a party. The soldiers attend this party, held in a grimy bungalow in the midst of a battlefield with limited supplies, in full dress, and greet Donna Reed, who nursed the wounded John Wayne, with an attentive, motionless posture. Seeing this, Donna Reed is taken aback and asks Robert Montgomery for permission to introduce herself. She appears to have come straight from duty, as she takes off her hat, brushes her disheveled hair in front of a mirror on the wall, puts on a necklace, and then introduces herself to the soldiers again. Sitting at a table barely furnished with chairs, soup is poured by a veteran Navy cook, biscuits and jam adorn the table, and the soldiers' love songs, heard from beneath the floorboards, liven up the meal. Then, Robert Montgomery leaves the table, saying, "I have work to do," and one by one the soldiers disappear, until finally the cook blows out the candles and vanishes into the kitchen at the back, leaving John Wayne and Donna Reed, who share a deep affection for each other, at the table. Here, Donna Reed combs her hair, and the soldiers' departure flows smoothly, without any psychological stagnation, hesitation, or reluctance, as if it were an ingrained movement. John Ford continues to film that respect is an emotion emanating from ingrained movements, and dignity is adrift in an impulse rising from within. The private space created in a shabby party venue with limited supplies is preserved as a memory only through ingrained actions. However, just as the exits here were slow, one by one, Ford's departures are generally a split second slower than the instantaneous departures of Hawks or Michael Mann , and this is where the difference between "10 prior convictions, 6 prior convictions" and "4 prior convictions" becomes apparent.
★Taking off your hat
"A History of Cinematic Exits" is a cinematic history of "Habitual Offenders," and John Ford's movement, which has etched numerous "A History of Cinematic Exits" onto film, is, like Hawks and Michael Mann, an impulse that surges from within as a deeply ingrained movement, and is by no means entangled in "Psychological Authenticity" as a complete "first offense." ●As we examined in "Stagecoach," for them, the movement comes "first," and good and evil come "later," and in its nature, it is ultimately "Habitual Offenders." ●Right at the start of the film with "How Green Was My Valley," Roddy McDowall immediately takes off his hat as soon as he encounters Anna Lee walking up the stone steps on her way home from the candy shop. This movement is deliberately portrayed as a ingrained habit of a "habitual offender," where he takes it off first and then thinks (or doesn't think)—rather than thinking before taking it off. This vividly reveals the "habitual" nature of his humanity itself, transcending specific "professions" such as gunman, doctor, or sheriff.● In "SUBMARINE PATROL," American soldiers instinctively remove their hats in front of the German submarine they themselves sank; ● In "Young Lincoln," the crowd simultaneously removes their hats in front of the Revolutionary War soldiers parading; ● In "THE LONG VOYAGE HOME," the sailors all remove their hats in honor of the late Ian Hunter, and then everyone removes their hats again in front of the Irish lullaby sung in the bar; ● In "HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY," the workers all remove their hats in front of Sarah Allgood, who has recovered from her illness; ● In "3 GODFATHERS," Pedro Armendáriz removes his sombrero next to the dying Harry Carey Jr.; and in the silent film ● "3 Bad Men," Olive Borden, the daughter who hires the three "bad men," asks, "I'm the boss, right?" In response to this declaration, the three "villains" all took off their hats, and when this escalates, it will lead to everyone taking off their hats at every moment, like in "FOUR SONS" and "THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT". Sometimes, in "DOCTOR BULL," Will Rogers, who sat down first, is reprimanded by the widow Vera Allen, who is about to sit down at the table, with "The old you would have pulled out your chair for me," causing him to hastily go back and pull it out; in "FORT APACHE," Henry Fonda apologizes to the Ward Bond family when they visit, saying, "It was rude of me not to take off my hat"; in "THE LONG GRAY LINE," Sean McClory, the son, enters a room with his hat on and is scolded by his father Donald Crisp, "Is your head cold?"; in "THE SEARCHERS," towards the end, a young lieutenant is reprimanded by Ward Bond for forgetting to take off his hat; in "THE HORSE SOLDIERS," John Wayne, a Northern cavalry soldier, is sharply satirized by Southern lady Constance Towers for his rudeness in not removing his hat. Actions such as removing one's hat, pulling out a chair, or "standing up from one's seat," which can be found in all John Ford films, are all "habitual" details that have become ingrained in the character. While Hawks' ingrained actions, which have reached the extreme of "habitualness," become specialized into "professions," Ford's actions, which are somewhat closer to "origins," spread broadly into "humanity," expanding into more human events such as protecting and helping people, returning home, continuing to search, being a gentleman or lady, being Irish, keeping promises, and loving. The further one moves from its "origin," the more animalistic and autotelistic the movement becomes, specializing in a specific occupation (vocation). As a result, the human movement of "taking off one's hat" or "exiting" decreases as Howard Hawks and Michael Mann strengthen their "habitualness," and people become more animalistic = specialized in "doing." In Michael Mann's movement, which is specialized to the extreme as a professional movement, the only protagonist who wears a hat is Johnny Depp in "PUBLIC ENEMIES," and even then he never takes off his hat in front of women. As for "A History of Cinematic Exits," it only appears once, in "THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS" by Jodie May, which we examined in Chapter 2. Both films lower the "habitualness" by capturing the "in-between" periods between eras. "THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS," as the original title suggests, is a film that captures the "in-between" period between eras, depicting the last of the Mohicans. The human actions of a gentleman and a lady are captured here, with the British gentleman Stephen Waddington sacrificing his own life to save a lady, and the lady Jodie May choosing to die. This is because Michael Mann brings people's "habitualness" closer to its "origins," and it is no coincidence that Michael Mann's only "A History of Cinematic Exits," a human event that deviates from professional movements, appears here.
★→Ingrained Movement ~ ●"3 Bad Men" (1926) and "3 Godfathers" (1948)
In "3 Bad Men," outlaw gunmen risk their lives to protect a beautiful girl, and in "3 Godfathers," a bank robber risks his life to protect a baby he finds in the desert, the villainous gunmen tend to appear to have a change of heart and become good people midway through the film. However, a change of heart is a psychological event, and like Raymond Massey letting the fugitive John Hall go in the final scene of "The Hurricane," it is an event unique to "first offenders" where they change their actions or principles based on a judgment of good and evil. ●"3 Bad Men" ●in "3 Godfathers," there are no psychological shots, expressions, or words that indicate a "change" or "repentance" at the starting point of the protagonists' actions. They simply replace bank robbery with helping people, driven by their humanity, and their actions are consistently driven by ingrained instincts. Similarly, in "The Searchers," there are no psychological shots indicating "repentance" or "change of heart" between John Wayne trying to shoot Natalie Wood and John Wayne picking her up and taking her home. Determining whether or not there is a psychological motivation at the starting point of a movement is extremely important in determining the quality of the movement in that film. While John Ford doesn't possess the adroitness of making films solely focused on "doing," like Hawks' "Bringing Up Baby" (February 8, 1938), when it comes to films directed towards "being," he approaches the movement a little closer to its "origins" than Hawks. This frees the movement from specific occupations, enabling him to capture emotional movements that Hawks and Michael Mann's "habitual offenders" could not.
★Hawksian involvement in movement and taking off one's hat
We examined how the protagonists of Hitchcockian involvement in movement don't wear hats in the first place, or if they do, they don't take them off in front of women, but even in Howard Hawks' works, the protagonists in his animalistic works that focus solely on "doing" things, such as ●"BRINGING UP BABY"●"I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE"●"MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT?" (which we will examine in the final chapter), never take off their hats out of respect for women or when entering a house, even if they have hats. This is different from the protagonists in Hawks' works that depict professional movements, which make up the majority of his films, who take off their hats fairly frequently. This indicates that their movement is "animalistic" and different from the movement that is ingrained in one's professional life (animals don't take off their hats).
★The Film History of the Brutality - John Ford
To grasp the "habitualness" in the movement of film, one must confront not only "A History of Cinematic Exits" but also "the film history of the brutality." In John Ford's works, the "habitualness" is particularly strong in "THE SEARCHERS," where he repeatedly searches for his daughter who was kidnapped by Native Americans. John Wayne, who is said to "change his eyes at the mention of Comanche," shoots out both eyes of a buried Native American with a faint smile, shoots a wounded Native American and is rebuked by his comrades, uses his comrade Jeffrey Hunter as bait to get the merchants to shoot him, then shoots the merchants in the back , tries to shoot his kidnapped cousin Natalie Wood because she is turning to Native American, and scalps the head of the Native American chief who killed his brother and sister-in-law's family and brings it back. His movement is extremely brutal. John Wayne relentlessly hunts down the Comanche, but there is no explanation whatsoever for why he hates them so much, and he shows no trace of guilt. His movement is precisely a "doing" movement, the very essence of "Habitual Offenders," and perhaps unconsciously carrying the scars of defeat in the Civil War, his "origins" remain shrouded in mystery as he boasts that "he hasn't yet traded his gun for a plowshare." The reason why the protagonists of Westerns can shoot and kill many enemies and still have happy endings is because they are "Habitual Offenders" and exist in a realm far removed from the realms of good and evil (the realism of "High Noon" is nothing more than the weak mind that finds it "real" that the protagonist is a "first offender"), and works like "The Searchers" in particular are dominated by a "brutality" that could never be filmed unless the protagonist is set as a "Habitual Offender," and moreover, someone with an even stronger "habitualness" than John Ford's "4 prior convictions", which is why John Wayne continues to repeat his actions of pursuing Native Americans, and in that respect, this work occupies a unique position in terms of its movement theories among John Ford's works. Similarly, in John Ford's "Two Rod Together," a film with a strong "habitualness," James Stewart, a sheriff, is tasked with retrieving children abducted by Native Americans.
Despite being a sheriff, he is a "corrupt sheriff" who takes 10% of the profits from every store in town. He demands $55 from the Army, his client, for each child he retrieves, and is a greedy man who also makes the parents whose children were abducted promise a reward. He is also a merchant of death, even offering state-of-the-art rifles to the Native Americans who are in conflict with the U.S. Army as a hostage exchange. However, Major John McIntyre, who dislikes him, tells Lieutenant Richard Widmark, "You are a good man, but good intentions can sometimes hurt people. That's why I chose him (Stewart). I thought he might be able to teach you something," hinting that he expects James Stewart to act in a way that transcends good and evil. This is because he is not a psychological figure who "is" a bad person, but a "Habitual Offender" who transcends good and evil, and that is why Stewart can be expected to "do" something—to carry out his mission (rescuing the Native Americans). The fact that he is portrayed as a greedy person here is a detail that points to him transcending good and evil, and not because he is a bad person. Rather, the ones portrayed as bad are the townspeople who look at the girl he brings back (Linda Crystal) with prejudice, and they can be prejudiced because they are "first-time offenders" who judge things in terms of good and evil, but prejudice cannot occur in a "Habitual Offender" who transcends good and evil (even if there is a racist "Habitual Offender," he is not discriminating based on "good and evil"). ● In "SEVEN WOMEN," Anne Bancroft repeatedly performs her duties as a doctor, such as preventing disease and attending births to elderly women, and in the end, she stays behind to free everyone, poisoning Mike Mazurki, a Mongolian, and then drinking poison herself, ending in a "tragic" conclusion (whether her "helping others" is "public" or not depends on whether her activism is ingrained in her being). Her activism, which remains closed off from psychological close-ups, determination, and motivations, transcends good and evil and leads to "brutal" consequences due to the strength of its "habitualness." Genre films tend to feature "villains" not because they are evil, but because they are able to carry out harsh and "brutal" tasks through a flexible movement in the realm of "doing" that lies beyond good and evil. As a result, their actions can be "read" as "brutal" in retrospect. Even if a gunman who appears out of nowhere were to kill all the bandits who attacked the village and save it, his "brutal" act would not be accepted by the villagers who live in the realm of good and evil, and the gunman would be driven out of the village as a nuisance and disappear without a trace. In "Collateral," Michael Mann's taxi driver, Jamie Foxx, criticizes Tom Cruise, a hitman who calmly continues to kill people, saying, "You lack something fundamental that every human being possesses." This is spot on, and it is precisely because Michael Mann continues to film protagonists who lack events that would stagnate their movement in the realm of good and evil that he is able to continue to film the fluid movement of gangsters, thieves, and other characters, which succinctly indicates that he continues to make genre films. "Habitual Offenders" are people who live on a precarious line between "habitualness" and madness, either by recalling their "origins" and reaching a cinematic death like Orson Welles in "CITIZEN KANE," or by plunging beyond "habitualness" and going insane like Raymond Rouleau, the designer in Jacques Becker's "FALBALAS" (June 20, 1945), who drives a woman (Françoise Lugagne) to suicide but shows no trace of guilt, instead immersing himself in his work and love. It is their movement, floating on the vague boundary between death and madness, that gives rise to "the film history of the brutality."
→John Ford and Mystery
Howard Hawks' Mysteries ● We examined how "The Big Sleep" becomes difficult to understand because the protagonist's strong "habitualness" makes the "truth" ambiguous. However, John Ford's mysteries, where the "habitualness" is not as strong, take on different appearances depending on how the event of "truth" that stagnates the movement is portrayed. ● "Sergeant Rutledge" is a mystery in which Woody Strode, a Black soldier, is tried in a court-martial on suspicion of murder. When the prosecutor says that Strode's return to save his comrades after escaping following his arrest was a "noble act," Strode immediately denies it, saying "No." To the prosecutor's question, "Then why did you return?", Strode replies, "I don't know..." and then adds, "Something was telling me to return..." This is a characteristic of "Habitual Offenders" driven by an inner impulse, and in this film, not only Strode but all the Black soldiers are portrayed as "Habitual Offenders," which is why the scene where Strode escapes on horseback after tending to the Black soldier and the scene where the Black soldiers sing under the moonlight are filmed with the most emotion. On the other hand, when the defense attorney Jeffrey Hunter tells Strode, "I still believe in you," the "belief" means "I believe in your innocence," and in this film, while the white people who occupy the top of the credits play the role of "first-time offenders" tracing back to the "origin" of the "truth" in court, the Black people wandering lower in the credits are portrayed as "Habitual Offenders," thus preventing the mystery from stagnating at the very "origin." "FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER" (April 29, 1938) is a mystery in which four sons search for the real culprit to clear their father's name after he died a dishonorable death. The detective work of those without detective skills—a lawyer, an embassy official, a pilot, and a university student—appears at first glance to be a involved movement, but their investigation, driven by a firm resolve to "restore their father's honor," is portrayed as a movement of detective work by "first-time offenders." This is why the protagonists, Richard Greene and David Niven, exhibit the attitude typical of "first-time offenders," sometimes believing and sometimes not believing Loretta Young based on good and evil. The film also features a reversal of good and evil, where Burton Churchill, Loretta Young's father and supposedly a "bad" arms dealer, turns out to be a "good person." This work points out the danger that the mystery genre, which traces back to its "origins," is rife with "first-time offender" tendencies in every detail.
→ "JUDGE PRIEST" (1934) "YOUNG MR. LINCOLN" (1939)
"JUDGE PRIEST" and ● "YOUNG MR. LINCOLN" share the commonality of being "mysteries" in which the protagonists, a judge and a lawyer, seek the truth through the courtroom. ● In "YOUNG MR. LINCOLN," lawyer Lincoln (Henry Fonda) defends the brothers of the defendants in a murder case that occurred during an Independence Day celebration. Although the crime scene is filmed, the truth is hidden from us, the viewers, so the focus in the courtroom becomes the "truth" of who the real culprit is. However, the "truth" here is largely a MacGuffin that allows the protagonist lawyer to transform into "Lincoln" by winning in court. The motives and methods of the real culprit are presented in a very vague manner, and "truth" itself is not the objective to be sought, so the trial is not portrayed as immediately leading to a stagnation of the movement. But as already mentioned, Lincoln here is a first-time offender and his first defense, and the moment of Lincoln's very "origin"—from a general store owner to a congressman and lawyer—is captured. Furthermore, due to the constraints of being based on a "true story," John Ford could not insert improvisational comedy on the spot, nor could he possibly portray the "film history of the brutality" of a real-life president. The details gradually deviate from John Ford's "Habitual Offenders" and spill over into details such as "righteousness," "justice," and "goodness." Similarly, in "JUDGE PRIEST," where "truth" is at issue in court, Will Rogers is not a real person. He is a veteran judge, and his "origins" are revealed only indirectly, through him talking to photographs of his deceased family illuminated by candlelight. While this gives us a vague understanding of the scars of the Civil War and the current "origins" of the judge living alone, he stubbornly avoids mentioning his own "origins." Will Rogers, free from the constraints of "true story," "first offense," and "origin," practices John Ford's "four prior convictions" by watching comics and fishing in court and switching from judge to lawyer. He secretly observes the relationship between his nephew Tom Brown, a lawyer fresh out of law school and his only remaining family member, and his girlfriend Anita Louise, an illegitimate child whose mother has died and whose father is unknown. He resigns from his position as judge to become a lawyer and helps defend his nephew, who is a "first-time offender." However, the person he defends in court is Anita Louise's hidden father, David Landau, who is on trial for assaulting Frank Melton, the barber's son who has been slandering his daughter behind her back. Here, just like in "Young Mr. Lincoln," the decisive scene of the crime is hidden, so the focus in court is directed towards "the truth." Then, after many witnesses have been questioned and the defendant seems on the verge of being found guilty, his Civil War superior officer (Henry B. Walsall) begins to testify. From outside the courtroom, the sound of Dixie music played by Steppin' Fetchit and other Black musicians can be heard, and as the defendant's heroic actions during the war are recounted with this "accompaniment," the courtroom erupts in ecstatic jubilation, and the defendant is acquitted without a verdict, leading straight into a Dixie parade for a happy ending. This is even more absurd than Howard Hawks' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," where Jane Russell transforms into Marilyn Monroe and sings and dances in court. This courtroom scene, which instantly replaces the psychological event of "truth" with emotion, is nothing short of John Ford's acrobatics that no serious film director could ever replicate.
→Francis Ford
What's interesting about these two films is Francis Ford, John Ford's real-life brother. This actor, whom Shigehiko Hasumi calls an "elderly drunkard" ("John Ford Theory 205"), is like Harpo Marx, barely speaking and flashing a harmless smile, yet he plays a character that plunges the morals of those watching into the depths of despair. He is an actor who, by no means, touches upon the realms of good and evil, morality (although in "The Informer," he plays a perfectly reasonable judge in the Resistance's trial, and in "The Prisoner of Shark Island," he talks quite a bit as an enemy sergeant). In "Young Mr. Lincoln," in the jury suitability questioning, he nods charmingly in response to Henry Fonda's question, "Have you ever lied?", and according to Fonda, he is accepted as a juror because "he is honest." In fact, several questions had been asked by Henry Fonda before this, but we must notice the strangeness of the answers. The question-and-answer session was as follows:
★skillful dancing t～ "THE PLEASURE GARDEN" (1925), "A SONG IS BORN" (1948), and the reading of Shakespeare in "MY DARLING CLEMENTINE" (1946).
As we examined in Chapter 1 the "readable expressions" of Julie Andrews in the confession scene on the hill in "TORN CURTAIN" and Roscoe Lee in the bribe negotiation scene in "TOPAZ," the screen is full of dangers that can lead to "reading" simply by showing the image, without listening to the sound, through the expressions, gestures, and screen size. A "readable screen," like "readable sound," is a screen where the good or bad, right or wrong, of an event can be discerned just by looking at it. In his debut film, *The Pleasure Garden*, when Camerita Guerrati, a country girl, auditions for a dance performance, the stage director and other staff members watching her dance the Charleston make faces that say, "That's good (she's good)," but their expressions are so clear that you can "read" whether they are good or bad. This is a memorable event that should be remembered, as Hitchcock later moved away from this kind of directing (the only other example that comes close is when Bergman enters the governor's party in *Under Capricorn* and the guests make faces that say, "She's beautiful").In that respect, what's interesting is Howard Hawks' self-remake of "BALL OF FIRE," titled "A SONG IS BORN," which includes a shot of Benny Goodman improvising on the clarinet, with Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, and others leaning forward and listening intently with expressions that say, "This is amazing." In this film, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, and many other actors, unlike the professors in "BALL OF FIRE," bring their real-life musician skills directly into the film, playing roles that are the same as their real lives. The expressions of "This is amazing..." that they make, constantly engaged with the "external" real life = "being," are similar to Julie Andrews' expression when listening to Paul Newman's confession on the hill in "TORN CURTAIN." They are psychologically segmented by engaging with the realm of "externality" = "being," and anyone who sees them can "read" them as "This is good..." and are therefore shot in a rare crude way for Hawks. In Howard Hawks' "RIO BRAVO," there's a scene where John Wayne comes in with a coffee cup and smiles while Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, and Walter Brennan are jamming. This expression isn't an objective judgment of good or bad, but rather a spontaneous, overwhelming emotion, a smile that defies segmentation. It qualitatively mirrors the smile John Wayne gives when he suddenly appears and smiles at the jam session between Elsa Martinelli and Red Buttons in "HATARI!". In contrast, the "This is good" shot in "A SONG IS BORN" appears as a segmentation phenomenon in the realm of "being"—"Psychological Authenticity"—and is therefore trapped and stagnant by the "being" of good or bad singing. As we have already discussed, when "being lovers" and "being Benny Goodman" are brought to the forefront, the power of "doing" tends to recede from the film, and shots that depend on "being" = "external" are taken, and this phenomenon spreads to every event in the film. ● In "Torn Curtain," during the bus escape at the end, a resistance fighter pretends to light a cigarette to hide Paul Newman and Julie Andrews from the eyes of the police officer at the checkpoint, and when Newman retrieves the money from the robbers, the resistance fighters playing the passengers all applaud in unison. These are not particularly clever scenes, but they are also segmented shots that forcibly extend to "well done" = "good," and this is evidence that the movement of this film is directed towards the very definition of "being" in terms of good and evil. John Ford: In "My Darling Clementine," there's a scene where actor Alan Mowbray, standing on a table and performing Shakespeare, forgets a line, and Victor Mature, who happens to be there, continues the line. However, this scene, shot in a simple close-up, only captures the line being repeated "correctly," making it a "readable" scene that simply fits in with the "external" element of Shakespeare, and does not evoke any cinematic emotion at all.
→ "FORT APACHE" (1948) - Did John Wayne Lie?
"FORT APACHE" is the first film in the "Cavalry Trilogy," in which Lieutenant Colonel Henry Fonda, who has been demoted to a frontier fort, is eager to achieve something and, according to him, "will definitely make a name for himself and get out of here," ignoring the advice of his subordinate John Wayne, challenges Native Americans to battle, and perishes along with many of his soldiers. There is much debate about John Wayne's words and actions in the final scene of this film, when he is talking with reporters. This is explained in detail in Shigehiko Hasumi's "On John Ford," starting on page 15. I haven't read some of the documents cited there myself, so please forgive me for quoting indirectly, but my interpretation is as follows: The reporters, unaware that Fonda's reckless operation led to the annihilation of his troops, praised him as a hero who bravely challenged the Native Americans. John Wayne's response, "That was absolutely right," was a reluctant affirmation of the false legend of Fonda as a hero, stemming from his "deep resignation to himself as a member of the military organization." This scene is not a happy ending glorifying "militarism," but rather a tragic progression of events where a false legend was affirmed by another falsehood, which is even "Brechtish" (laughs). This led to a change in researchers' evaluation of John Ford, who had previously been viewed negatively as an intellectually carefree director, and they began to think he was quite capable.
That's the gist of the argument. For more details, you'll have to read "On John Ford." The focus here boils down to whether John Wayne lied, affirming the false heroic legends fabricated by journalists who never witnessed the battle firsthand. Was it a lie for a commander who ordered a reckless operation to say, "He was a hero"? As Henry Fonda's regiment is about to depart, three women—Shirley Temple, Anna Lee, and Eileen Dunne—appear on the second-floor balcony to see off their lovers, fathers, or husbands. In the next shot, the women on the balcony, in the dim early morning sky, are gazing intently at the departing regiment. In a later shot, Anna Lee's husband, George O'Brien, receives the long-awaited notification of his transfer, but amid the joy of those around her, Anna Lee refuses to call him back, saying, "He's not a coward." Seeing this, Irene Dunne urges the soldiers, "Bring him back," but Anna Lee again restrains her, and then, as if mesmerized, she begins to gaze once more at the departing regiment, and the women beside her begin to gaze in response. In another shot, Anna Lee says, "I can't see them anymore... all I can see are the flags," as the women continue to stare intently at the men who have disappeared from view. Captured in five shots on this dimly lit balcony, these women, unaware of the fate awaiting the men who have gone off to war, simply imprint the image of their husbands or lovers heading to the battlefield onto their minds. There are no psychological shots, and no positive or negative value judgments are included. Subsequently, negotiations with the Apache, which were supposed to be resolved amicably through Wayne's negotiations, broke down at the sole discretion of Commander Henry Fonda, forcing the regiment to choose all-out confrontation. Wayne protested, slamming his gloves on the ground from horseback, calling it "too reckless," to which Fonda rebuked Wayne as a "coward" and ordered him demoted to a supply unit on a safe ridge in the rear. John Wayne, who had already risen to stardom with Howard Hawks' "RED RIVER" (1946) and was credited first in the opening titles of this film, even surpassing Henry Fonda, was ordered to remain in the rear in a supply unit where he would not participate in the fighting. In fact, Wayne never joined the battle until the very end, instead observing Fonda and his men from afar through binoculars and his own eyes. Wayne repeatedly checked on his unit through binoculars, and John Agar, a rookie lieutenant who was also ordered to remain in the rear by Fonda, watched the battle of his father Ward Bond and uncle Victor McLaglen through binoculars. Afterward, Wayne rides his horse to where Fonda has fallen and been injured in a Apache attack. He helps Fonda, who is dazed and has a large wound on his forehead, to his feet and tries to get him onto his own horse to safety. However, Fonda says, "Give me your saber," indicating his intention to return to his unit. He interrupts Wayne, who says, "The unit has been annihilated," and takes the saber. He then asks Wayne, "Do you have any questions?" and rides away on his horse before he can answer. John Wayne mutters "No questions" as he watches him go... This line, "Do you have any questions?", appears eight times in this film.
① At the initial meeting, after Fonda unilaterally presented his own views, he asked everyone, "Any questions?" Everyone, including Wayne, left the room silently (the lack of response signified no objections).
② Immediately afterward, Wayne asked his subordinates, "Any questions?" but no one answered.
③ When Fonda asked John Agar, "Any questions?" regarding the order to recover the bodies of the killed soldiers, Agar silently saluted and turned right.
④ Afterwards, when Fonda issued a new order and asked John Wayne if he had any objections, Wayne replied, "I have no objections," and then left the room saying, "No questions."
⑤ In a mission to bring back Native Americans who had left the reservation, John Wayne recommended Pedro Armendáriz and, in turn, asked Fonda, "Do you have any questions?" to which Fonda replied, "No questions."
⑥ After Fonda demoted Wayne to the supply corps, Fonda asked George O'Brien, "Any questions?" to which O'Brien replied, "No questions."
⑦ The case described above.
⑧ After finishing a meeting with reporters, Wayne asked them, "Any questions?" but the responses varied and were inaudible.
"THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE" is a film about events in a small Western town where a railroad is about to be built and a school and dam are about to be constructed. James Stewart, a rookie lawyer fresh out of law school who has come from the East, is one of the "new ones" who tries to solve cases with the law, not with guns. On his way west, his stagecoach is attacked by a gang of robbers led by Lee Marvin, and he is seriously injured, but is rescued by gunman John Wayne and ends up working at the town's diner. John Wayne is a gunman with a gun belt around his waist ("Habitual Offenders"), and from Stewart's perspective, both the robber Lee Marvin and John Wayne are the same in that they try to solve things with the power of guns. Stewart, who clashes with Wayne at every turn, builds a school, manages the voting, and runs for office. However, in the gun-ridden West where roughnecks still roam, a lawyer with "first offenses" cannot survive on "righteousness" alone. John Wayne warns him that he will have to "protect his reputation (as a lawyer) with a gun," and although he learns how to use a gun from John Wayne, he doesn't get the hang of it, and the town is ravaged by Lee Marvin and his gang. One day, Stewart duels with Lee Marvin and shoots him dead, and the guilt causes him to abandon his candidacy for Congress. When he tells John Wayne about it, Wayne scolds him, saying, "You always overthink things," and tells him the truth: "I'm the one who shot Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin)." Upon hearing this, Stewart recovers and enthusiastically runs for office again, but his approach is typical of a "first-time offender," where he decides whether or not to run for office based on "truth," and James Stewart's actions are always based on "righteousness." As discussed in Chapter Two, his conflicts with John Wayne, his shouting, cursing, and physical violence stem from his belief in "righteousness." As long as he acts based on "righteousness," any words or actions that deviate from it are considered "evil" and rejected. This "quick-tempered" personality is typical of a "first offender" who acts based on "good and evil," and while John Ford lovingly films Stewart, who exudes a kindness and righteousness reminiscent of a Frank Capra film protagonist, his gaze remains fixed on John Wayne in "Habitual Offenders." Returning to town for Wayne's funeral after several decades, Stewart has transformed into a "Habitual Offender," having learned firsthand that history cannot be changed by "righteousness" alone. He orders the undertaker to immediately put boots and a gun belt on Wayne in the coffin, and, with a calm demeanor completely unlike his former self, he reminisces about the past while interviewing reporters. When Stewart first arrived in town, John Wayne dressed up and entered the kitchen of a diner to present the waitress, Vera Miles, with a cactus rose. The flower, which bloomed in the garden of Wayne's house, which was being expanded in preparation for his marriage to her, was a rather bleak flower that bloomed on a cactus, lacking the delicate beauty of a real rose, but it was a flower that Wayne was proud of, as it bloomed in a land where water was scarce. When Wayne told Miles, "You are more beautiful than a cactus rose," Miles replied shyly, "Well, you're good at flattery." Stewart, who had been silently listening to the utterly innocent and perhaps even "uneducated" conversation about the shabby flower while washing dishes, frowned in bewilderment when he saw the cactus rose in Wayne's hand. When Miles, who was looking at the flowers planted in the backyard, asked him, "Have you ever seen such a beautiful flower?", Stewart replied, "Have you never seen a real rose?" Later, Stewart and Miles fell in love and got married, but when Vera Miles returned to town decades later to attend Wayne's burial, she found no one with a gun belt or drunken journalists. The only remnants of the past were former Sheriff Andy Devine, Wayne's valet Woody Strode, and a dusty stagecoach on display... As the film begins and the train arrives at the station, station attendant Willis Bauchey disembarks carrying a large hatbox. The hatbox is then handed to Andy Devine, who has come to meet Stewart and Miles, and then to Miles when they board the carriage. Here, Divine and Miles, who have parted ways with James Stewart and boarded the carriage, begin their conversation. "This town has changed," Miles murmurs, and the camera slowly approaches them, as Divine murmurs, "The desert is the same as it used to be." "I wonder if the cactus roses are in bloom," Miles asks, and Divine drives the carriage towards the desert. As the carriage stops in front of John Wayne's old house, Miles asks, "Did you know where we were going?" and carefully pulls the hatbox that has been placed where Andy Devine had been sitting as he got out of the carriage to pick cactus roses. While Stewart is having a meeting with reporters, we can see the carriage carrying the two of them entering outside the window. As they get out of the carriage, Miles hands the hatbox to Devine. The group then enters the funeral home, and the camera dolly in on Andy Devine, Vera Miles, and Woody Strode sitting on a bench next to John Wayne's coffin. Miles carefully takes the hatbox from Devine, who is sitting beside him, and reaches out to open the lid, but the scene cuts off here. That is the last time the hatbox is filmed. The story then follows the cactus rose being placed on top of the coffin, suggesting it was taken from a hatbox. However, John Ford completely avoids any mention of this hatbox from the opening scene. There are no shots of Andy Devine picking the cactus rose, placing it in the hatbox, taking it out, or placing it on top of the coffin. The connection between the cactus rose and the hatbox is kept completely hidden, only indirectly suggesting that the hatbox contained it. Surely, it wasn't a hat that was inside, and one can imagine that the hatbox probably contained the black hat worn by Vera Miles, but the fact that an empty hatbox is passed through so many hands is simply bizarre. However, if we fill in the blanks, the only explanation is that Andy Devine picked the cactus roses from the garden of John Wayne's old house and put them in that hatbox, which Vera Miles then took out and placed on top of the coffin. In that case, the hatbox was already a "box for holding cactus roses" rather than a "hatbox" when Vera Miles arrived at the station in the opening scene. In the final scene on the train, Stewart asks his wife Vera Miles, "Who put the cactus roses on top of the coffin?" and she replies, "I did." Later, when Stewart is chatting with a station attendant who says, "After all, you're the man who shot Liberty Valance," he suddenly stops as he is about to light his pipe. Is this act of Stewart "stopping before lighting the pipe" a result of being reminded once again that John Wayne, whom he had criticized so much, was his benefactor? Or is it a surprise that he is now recalling that exchange in the kitchen about the Cactus Rose? This scene of "stopping before lighting the pipe" is very complex and defies the segmentation of "reading." However, Stewart, who in those young days asked Miles in the kitchen, "Have you never seen a real rose?", cannot enter into the private relationship between Miles and Wayne regarding the Cactus Rose. The station attendant who graces the opening and closing scenes is Willis Bauchay, who played the humorous judge in John Ford's "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960). This film, in which an actor a little too big to play a minor role plays the station attendant in the opening and closing scenes, begins and ends with Cactus Rose. This gunman, lying in a coffin with his boots still removed, hadn't even worn his gun belt for several years, according to former Sheriff Andy Devine. Unlike the "habitual offenders" who vanished into the hollows in "Fort Apache," this gunman disappeared into the shadows without anyone even seeing him off. He is a quiet part of the lineage of "the film history of the brutality," which became prominent around "The Searchers" (1956) and continued through "The Horse Soldiers" (1959), "Two Rod Together" (1961), and "Seven Women" (1965). Ending with a melody and a speeding train that could easily be mistaken for the final scene of a Yasujiro Ozu film, "THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE" leaves the lingering impression of a love story between an unknown man (THE MAN) who loved a woman saying, "You are more beautiful than a cactus rose," and a country girl who murmured, "How beautiful," about the flower, a love story of ignorance and innocence shared only by two people, leaving no room for anyone else to intrude.
→ John Ford — "The Sun Shines Bright" (1953) —
●This film, a self-remake of "JUDGE PRIEST" (1934), differs from its predecessor in that it only features one courtroom sequence at the beginning, and even then, it is not directed towards the "truth," thus lacking any "mystery" aspect.In the first film, Anita Louise, an illegitimate daughter discriminated against by the townspeople, is replaced in the remake by Arlene Whelan, also an illegitimate child. While the first film focused on the trial of the daughter's father, the remake revolves around the election of judges at the end of their terms. The story goes that Dorothy Jordan, the daughter's (Arlene Whelan's) mother, became pregnant with the daughter after having a relationship with the son of a general (James Kirkwood) while serving as a nurse in the American Civil War. However, the general's son was killed in a fight with a gambler, and the general refused to acknowledge the daughter as his granddaughter. The daughter was then raised as an "adopted daughter" by the general's surviving subordinates (the judges), and her mother became a prostitute. However, this film does not present the "origins" described here in a coherent manner, but rather hints at them through extremely fragmented words and actions. ●In "JUDGE PRIEST," the "origins" are vaguely hinted at through the words Will Rogers speaks to a family photograph illuminated by candlelight, whereas in "THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT," Judge Charles Winninger was a bugler during the Civil War, and his harsh war experiences can be inferred from a gathering of the veterans' association, of which only a dozen or so survivors remain. However, there is absolutely no filming or explanation as to why he lives alone or why he has no family. The only person by his side is his Black servant, Steppin' Fetchit, who appears to have been a flag guard, a soldier who protected the military flag, and from his words it seems he fought alongside the judge in the war. However, the presence of relatives such as a nephew or sister-in-law, who were present in the previous film, is also not shown. Thus, the judge, who lives with his hidden "origins," goes to the Union veterans' association to return the military flag, delivers a cheerful speech, and leaves the room. In the dimly lit corridor, he slumps his shoulders in despair, enveloped in a melody that seems to comfort him, and disappears into the backlight of the setting sun shining into the corridor from behind. At this point, it is revealed that the judge's present is being shaken by an extraordinary "origin." The way this "origin," which is only filmed in fragments and never spoken of, is vaguely brought to light by the current movement is dominated by a strong "habitualness" that is also found in John Wayne's "The Searchers" and Anne Bancroft's "Seven Women." It is for this reason that this film occupies a quiet place in John Ford's filmography, alongside those works that are part of "the film history of the brutality." The film unfolds around the election campaign for the next judge, but when the Arleen Whelan 's mother dies and he attends her funeral (she was a prostitute), he will lose the support of the townspeople and it will affect his vote. Thus, the election becomes a MacGuffin that creates the judge's internal conflict, and the film's campaign shifts from the election to a different event. Towards the end, as his opponent (Milburn Stone) is giving a street speech, he glances over and sees a hearse pulled by two white horses, the judge walking behind it, and a funeral procession of carriages carrying prostitutes, pulled by black horses, turning a corner. From there, there are silent shots of this funeral procession, but "all the while, the white hearse, the judge, and the black carriages do not change their slow pace." Shigehiko Hasumi provides a detailed examination of this silent procession, stating, "The only sounds that can be heard are the judge's footsteps and the sound of the two carriages' wheels turning on the gravel of the dirt road." Despite the mockery of the townspeople, one by one, those joining the funeral procession do not frown, but rather remove or put their hats back on as they join the line and continue walking calmly. Hasumi emphasizes that "not a single close-up is inserted here," and continues to write that "the participants in the funeral procession remain completely silent, continuing their silent march" (from "John Ford Essays," pp. 132 onwards). In this sequence of shots, where they continue walking calmly, without changing their pace, without close-ups, and in silence, there is no "edge＝Psychological Authenticity." The filming begins while the procession is already in progress, and does not capture the beginning of the procession. There are also no close-ups, making it impossible to discern the psychology of the funeral procession members, or those joining the procession, at the moment they begin marching in a line, or when they join the line. Furthermore, it is impossible to infer any subsequent shifts in their emotions from their unchanging pace. The distant long shots can only be "seen" by straining the eyes, and the silent march can only be "heard" by pricking up the ears. That is the time of the "Habitual Offenders" living in the "present," and in that elusive yet alluring world of movement, there is no good or evil, no right or wrong. To move away from the "origin," or to not film the "origin," means that there is no explanation of how the characters came to be, and inevitably the film cannot be "read," drawing the viewer into the allure of "seeing" and "hearing." If you strain your eyes and prick up your ears, you will see figures of people who act before thinking, not after thinking. All we can do is touch their presence.
→ "UNFORGIVEN" (1992) Eastwood - Between Cruelty and Dignity
This film tells the story of a notorious villain (Clint Eastwood) who mercilessly murdered women and children, but falls in love with a woman, has a change of heart, marries, becomes a farmer, runs a ranch, and has two children. After his wife dies, he is left raising his children alone, but is in poverty with no prospects for the future when a young man comes to him and proposes that they take care of a bounty target together. The film is portrayed as the man returning from being a "first-time offender" to being a "habitual offender." Eastwood's former associate, a reformed Black man (Morgan Freeman), accompanies Eastwood but when it comes time to eliminate the bounty target, he becomes frightened by guilt and leaves the group. The young upstart who invited Eastwood (James Woolvett) boasts that he has "killed five people," but after shooting the bounty target in front of him, he confesses that "it was actually my first time killing," revealing that he is a "first offender," and drinks and cries. Similarly, at the beginning of the film, Eastwood is shown chasing a pig, falling and getting covered in mud, and being thrown off his horse, emphasizing that he is a "first offender" at this point. Later, when he shoots the bounty target in the stomach from the top of the valley, Eastwood is shown not being able to look the man in pain and giving him time to drink water from his canteen, which further emphasizes that at this point, Eastwood is not a "Habitual Offender" in "the film history of the brutality," but rather a "first-time offender" who shows mercy to his enemy out of a sense of guilt. After being beaten and injured by Sheriff Gene Hackman, Eastwood is haunted by nightmares of past murders, tormented by the fear of death and guilt. Much of the film is dedicated to portraying all three main characters as "first-time offenders." However, Eastwood, who appeared in "A History of Cinematic Exits" and readily praised Hawks, has consistently directed films such as "High Plains Drifter" (April 6, 1973) and "Pale Rider" (May 13, 1985) as "Habitual Offenders," in which the characters show no trace of guilt even after killing someone. This "habitualness" is also an established part of his character as an actor. As James Woolvett asks Eastwood, "Were you scared when you killed someone (in the past)?" and Eastwood replies, "I don't remember, I was usually drunk," in "Unforgiven," Eastwood drank to forget his "origins" and became a "Habitual Offender," killing women and children without feeling any guilt. He tells James Woolvett that his wife helped him quit drinking and get back on his feet, and that he hasn't drunk alcohol for the past 10 years. This shows that by abstaining from alcohol, Eastwood had returned to his "first offense," and when he heard from a prostitute that Morgan Freeman had been tortured and killed by the sheriff, the first thing he did was start drinking whiskey. Here, Eastwood brings the whiskey bottle to his lips three times, a somewhat excessive number of movements for a cinematic performance, and this movement is filmed excessively as a detail that erases the memory of the "origin" and returns to "Habitual Offenders." That is why he brutally murders the unarmed bartender and utters cruel lines that show not a shred of guilt, such as "If anyone defies me, I'll kill their wife and friends too." Here, he reverts to his "Habitual Offenders" persona, completely devoid of any sense of guilt, as seen in films like "HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER," "THE GAUNTLET" (December 17, 1977), "BRONCO BILLY" (June 11, 1980), and "PALE RIDER." Ultimately, this film flows from "Habitual Offenders" (the brutal murderer before the film begins) to "First Offense" to "Habitual Offenders," which is the opposite of the flow of "CITIZEN KANE," which was shot as "First Offense" → "Habitual Offenders" → "First Offense."
→ "THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES" (June 30, 1976)
Like "UNFORGIVEN" (1992), Eastwood directed "THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES," a film in which a gunman who was once a "Habitual Offender" returns to being a "first-time offender" after becoming a farmer through marriage, but when his wife and child are killed by the Union army, he takes out his sealed gun and transforms into a vengeful "Habitual Offender." Although it is only hinted through the indirect connections in the film that this man was once a gunman's "Habitual Offender," Eastwood has shown how a man who was once a "Habitual Offender" can change into a "first-time offender" through marriage or retirement, only to revert back to being a "Habitual Offender" in films such as ● "THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES" and ● "UNFORGIVEN" (1992). In addition, in ● "FIREFOX" (1982.6.13), a soldier (Eastwood) who retired from the military due to the trauma of seeing a Vietnamese girl die in the Vietnam War and later returned to the military, but repeatedly recalls his "origin (trauma)" and is held back by guilt while carrying out espionage activities that he himself "has no experience" in, reverts to being a "Habitual Offender" when he hijacks a Russian fighter jet. Furthermore, in "SPACE"COWBOYS(2000.8.4)," elderly retired Air Force soldiers regain their "habitualness" through training and explore space. This theme is repeated in works in "THE ROOKIE" (1990.12.7), we see how Charlie Sheen, a newly appointed "first-time offender" detective, grows into a "Habitual Offender" by becoming the partner of veteran detective Eastwood. Eastwood is a filmmaker who can skillfully differentiate between "first-time offenders" and "Habitual Offenders" and float between them, and in this respect, Eastwood is closer to John Ford's "4 prior convictions" than to Hawks' "6 prior convictions." However, the target in these works is ultimately the realm of "habitualness," where the movement lacking a sense of guilt is thoroughly depicted in the latter half of the film, emphasizing the change from "first-time offender" to "Habitual Offender." As a symbol of this, acts of brutality are repeated, such as Eastwood repeatedly spitting on the forehead of a corpse in "The Outlaw Joseph Wales," or Charlie Sheen calmly burning down a civilian bar in "The Rookie," or Eastwood blowing up a gold mine with dynamite in "Pale Rider." This brutality continues to be etched in film history as one of the hallmarks of making films about "Habitual Offenders."
★Between Madness and Dignity
●"Unforgiven" is unusual for an Eastwood film in that it has won many awards, including an Academy Award. However, the critics' reactions are solely focused on the characters' "first offense" aspect. They appreciate the human element of "first offenses," such as a sense of guilt and morality, and are not necessarily condoning "Habitual Offenders" as they are. This is why they have no choice but to ignore works that are outright "Habitual Offenders," such as "High Plains Drifter," "The Gauntlet," "Bronco Billy," and "Pale Rider." Weakness is a spirit that constantly escapes to the outside world—to "being"—to reference good and evil and reason. It dismisses the Ingrained movement as childish due to its lack of intellect, and attempts to eliminate all emotions by rationally segmenting them, preemptively reading in "being something that doesn't exist" that comes "later," such as "revenge" or "resistance to gun control," which are attached to the realm of "being." "Habitual Offenders" are madness that lies beyond good and evil, and at times they can imbue human movement with dignity, while at other times they expose madness. The strength to not draw a boundary between this madness and dignity is the quality required of a critic.
→ "THE NAKED SPUR" (1953) - Anthony Mann - "UNFORGIVEN" (1992)
In this film, bounty hunter James Stewart captures and escorts the bounty target Robert Ryan. In the middle of the film, Stewart, shot in the leg by an Indian, is shown in his sleep muttering about his "origins"—how he was betrayed by his lover in the past, forced to give up his ranch, and now wants to buy it back with the bounty money. This image is repeated in Eastwood's "UNFORGIVEN" (1992), where he hovers between life and death and is tormented in his sleep by guilt over a past murder. However, the connection between "THE NAKED SPUR" and "UNFORGIVEN" (1992) doesn't stop there. "This is just a wad of cash. You can be disappointed." As Janet Leigh sees Stewart loading the body of bounty hunter Robert Ryan onto his horse, she doesn't condemn him, but instead approaches him and says, "I've made up my mind. I'll be your wife and we'll live on the ranch." Stewart asks, "Why?! I'm a man who transports corpses for money!" Janet Leigh stares intently at his face, and the scene cuts to an otherworldly close-up of her hair blowing in the wind. Stewart, weeping, unloads the body from the horse, buries it, and the two of them drive away, ending the film. Here, Janet Leigh affirms Stewart and decides to marry him through a sequence of events that is completely incomprehensible from a normal psychological causal perspective. If you were to summarize this, it would be: "Kemp (Stewart) was happy to be able to have $5,000 all to himself, so he loaded Ben's (Robert Ryan) body onto his horse, but when he saw Lina (Janet Leigh) weeping, he changed his mind and buried the body." The story ends with the two of them breaking away from their past and heading to California in search of a new life. (See "THE NAKED SPUR" on the internet site "Movie Worker." I admire the passion this site puts into its synopses.) However, it was James Stewart who "broke down in tears," and there is no shot in the film of Janet Leigh breaking down in tears, and therefore Stewart did not "change his mind after seeing that." A synopsis is an uncinematic argument that is made up by attaching "something that doesn't exist" = a reason to a movement without reason, and is therefore not suited to interpreting cinematic movement, which proceeds while rejecting "Psychological Authenticity" = reason. Janet Leigh transcended good and evil to simply affirm James Stewart, and if we were to attach cause and effect to this, it would become incoherent as, "James Stewart tried to tie the corpse to a horse like a bundle of cash and take it home. That's why Janet Leigh decided to marry him," and this scene cannot be written about in a "plot critique" that is constructed by nationalistic morality and cause and effect. As long as we interpret the film with knowledge and morality, the emotion of the film will disappear. Janet Leigh's simple act of affirmation, which exists in a realm free from cause and effect, is affirmed cinematically as well, by corresponding with her two "shifted" close-ups, which clearly deviate (transcend) the causal flow of the screen up to that point in terms of color, composition, angle, etc., and this final scene will be remembered in film history as an emotion that affirms "cruelty" through the linkage (or lack thereof) of movement with the shot.
→ "UNFORGIVEN" (1992) - The Woman Who Loved a Cruel Man
● In the final scene of "UNFORGIVEN," a caption appears on the left of the screen showing the hill with the orange sunset, stating, "Later, the mother visited her daughter's grave. But there was nothing written on the tombstone about why her daughter married a notorious murderer and villain." The film ends like that. The answer is neither filmed nor spoken in the movie. However, by standards in the realm of good and evil, specifically in the realm of "first offenses," it is impossible to answer why the daughter fell in love with a "villain" who kills women and children without hesitation. In the first place, the incident in "UNFORGIVEN" begins with the insensitive remark of a prostitute (Anna Levin) whose face was slashed, laughing at a customer's small penis. Here, Eastwood subtly shows that the woman is also at fault, making it clear that this film is not a film about good and evil. Furthermore, Gene Hackman, who appears to be the "evil" sheriff, is diligently working on building a house like a good man, and Rob Campbell, the partner of the man who slashed the woman's face (Quick Mike), not only has a baby face (the face of a good person), but in fact he stopped his partner from assaulting the prostitute, and when he comes to apologize afterward, he seems to be Looking apologetic, he tells the prostitutes that he has brought a horse in addition to the compensation and asks them to accept it, then leaves and is hit with mud as he goes home. Why is it that the mud is thrown at the seemingly gentle young man who was mostly dragged into the mess and got caught in the crossfire, rather than at the actual perpetrator, a rough-looking man with a villainous face? Furthermore, the baby-faced young man is shot in the stomach by Eastwood and writhes in agony, refusing to die easily. This scene transcends any moralistic answer like "you should also take responsibility for not properly stopping your partner," clearly indicating that this film exists beyond the realm of good and evil. That's why the film ends without explaining why the daughter fell in love with this "notorious villain," but this event, which makes no sense in terms of good and evil, can only be explained in a realm beyond good and evill. Perhaps the daughter who became Eastwood's wife, like Janet Leigh in "The Naked Spurge," fell in love with the "habitualness" that emerged in the actions of the "brutal man." These two works implicitly share crucial details, and there is a realm beyond good and evil where "affirmation without reason" is possible, and they share a transcendent emotion that only appears in a realm beyond morality. The daughter had acquired the strength to perceive dignity in madness. The two were similar in many ways, and that's precisely why she was able to "reform" the man.
→ "LIMELIGHT" (October 16, 1952) - Chaplin
There's a scene where a comedian (Chaplin) is nursing the daughter of a dancer (Claire Bloom) who attempted suicide after injuring her leg, back to his apartment. He talks to her in bed.
→ "TOUCH OF EVIL" (1957/1958.4.23) - Orson Welles
The reason why many of the characters Orson Welles portrays are "villains" is a consequence of Orson Welles himself not viewing them from a good-versus-evil perspective. In the final scene of "TOUCH OF EVIL," in which he himself plays a police inspector who fabricates evidence to get suspects imprisoned, Marlene Dietrich calls him (Orson Welles) a "lousy cop" and then continues, "He was some kind of man. What does it matter what you say about people?" As evidenced by the statement, "(He was just a little strange, it doesn't matter what people say)," Wells has lost his "origin" and, as a "Habitual Offender" with no sense of guilt whatsoever, is merely "doing" things that "don't exist." Although there is no malice in his movement, which is neither good nor evil, people cannot escape the tendency to interpret the "Habitual Offenders" movement as equivalent to evil precisely because of the absence of good and evil. People cannot tolerate the situation where, as a result of the absence of good and evil, it just happens to go against the morals and laws of our world = good and evil come "later." In reality, he strangled a gang boss and fabricated evidence against the bomber while still catching the real culprit. At its core, he disregards the law to eliminate criminals, qualitatively equivalent to the "Habitual Offenders" of violent detectives like those in "Dirty Harry" (December 23, 1971). However, he makes the gangster Akim Tamiroff humorous and portrays the suspect shoemaker as a weakling, while deliberately playing himself in an "ugly" way, which leads to him being perceived as "evil." But this is because he deliberately portrays something that is not ugly as ugly, highlighting his "Habitual Offenders"-like movement as something beyond good and evil. The "ugliness" found in his movement, which consistently lacks the realm of "being" = "Psychological Authenticity," is nothing but fake. ●The fact that in "STAGECOACH," the acts of discrimination against Native Americans, which fall into the realm of good and evil, were not committed by the "old ones" such as drunken doctors, gunmen, prostitutes, gentlemen, and ladies, but by the "new ones"—Donald Meek, a salesman named Peacock, and Burton Churchill, a banker—is no coincidence. The "new ones" are first-time offenders, and as moral beings approaching the realm of good and evil, their sense of good and evil always comes "first," so their names will never be etched in film history as protagonists of "the film history of the brutality" that comes "later."
★Manipulating the Return to the "Origin"
●In "TOUCH OF EVIL," Orson Welles himself recounts his past: "When I was a rookie detective, my wife was strangled to death by a mixed-race man, but I let the killer get away." His words, "He's the only murderer I've ever let get away," suggest that this is the "origin" of his "habitual offender" obsession with arresting criminals, even to the point of fabricating evidence. The moment he recalls this, ●like Welles in "CITIZEN KANE," he should have stopped moving and returned to his "first offense" = "died." However, here Orson Welles breaks his 12-year abstinence and gets drunk, postponing the arrival of his "origin" until the final scene. ●Like Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven" (1992), the act of "drinking alcohol" is one pathway to "habitual offender" amnesia. However, Detective Orson Welles, who has been sober for 12 years, drinks at a bar and gets drunk, and as he himself says, "I don't talk about my wife when I'm sober," he begins to talk about his "origins" after drinking. Here, not only is there a movement similar to that in "Unforgiven" (1992), where "drunkenness" leads to the loss of "origins," but there is also a reversal in the movement theory: in order to get the detective to talk about his "origins," he must get drunk and lose his "origins" before he can talk about them. He is originally a "Habitual Offender" type of person, and by drinking, he becomes a "Habit-forming" While strengthening his "nature," Wells kills gangster Akim Tamiroff by the same "strangulation" method used to kill his wife, and after drinking more at a bar in Dietrich, he is taken out by his subordinate Joseph Careyah, who has hinted at a homosexual relationship with Wells. Careyah has planted a hidden microphone and "confesses" to Wells' previous fabrications of evidence, so Wells shoots and kills Careyah. However, not realizing that Careyah is dead, Wells pins the crime on Charlton Heston, saying, "You killed Pete (Joseph Careyah)," and then, with a look of surprise on his face as if he has suddenly remembered something, he backs away and dives into the ditch. His movements, in which they suddenly cease the moment something is recalled, are fundamentally similar to "CITIZEN KANE." As with "CITIZEN KANE," it is left ambiguous whether the "origin" recalled at that moment is the death of Kareia, the memory of his strangled wife, or his homosexual relationship with Kareia. However, precisely because the "origin" is vague, his current movements become even more "habitualness" and "ugly," and this Orson Welles-esque "history of ugliness in cinema" is etched into film history in resonance with "the film history of the brutality."
→ "THE INFORMER" (May 1, 1935)
Orson Welles boasted that he had seen "STAGECOACH" 40 times. In "CITIZEN KANE," he employed Gregg Toland, the cinematographer who had shot John Ford's "THE LONG VOYAGE HOME" just before, indicating a close relationship with John Ford. John Ford's "THE LONG VOYAGE HOME" was set in Ireland. "INFORMER" is a film that depicts the events of one night when Victor McLaglen, a man struggling with poverty, betrays his resistance buddy Wallace Ford out of greed, informing on him and causing his death. The film closely follows the events of that night, with the running time closely mirroring real time. Victor McLaglen gets drunk with the money he received for informing on Ford, forgetting about his informing and partying wildly in the city at night. As midnight approaches, his comrades become suspicious of the source of the money and question him, leading to his arrest. From this point on, he gradually regains his memory, then escapes and takes refuge in his lover Margot Graham's room. He sleeps with his head in her lap, and after sobering up, he confesses his guilt to Una O'Connor, the mother of the man he betrayed, before dying. However, when he betrays Ford, he thinks deeply, agonizes, and is tormented by guilt, yet he does so based on a calculation of gain and loss. At this point, he is portrayed as a typical "first offender," but afterwards, his drunkenness causes him to lose his "origin" and become a "habitual offender." The sequence of events—becoming an "Offender" and wreaking havoc, then regaining one's "origin" as the effects of the alcohol wear off, being tormented by guilt, repenting, and then dying—is similar to that of "CITIZEN KANE" and "TOUCH OF EVIL" in that the movement stops when the "Habitual Offenders" reach their "origin." The structure of maintaining a "habitualness" through drinking, then reaching one's "origin" and ceasing movement after sobering up is also similar to "TOUCH OF EVIL." Furthermore, the temporality of filming a short event of one night, predicated on the "sobering up," is similar to "TOUCH OF EVIL," which films a day that begins and ends at night. This is why the detail of McLaglen drinking heavily and then falling asleep on his lover's lap is just as significant as the detail in "TOUCH OF EVIL" of the drunkenness and awakening from intoxication after 12 years of abstinence. In "TOUCH OF EVIL," the moment Wells breaks his sobriety and drinks alcohol is depicted as an act that occurred without his will, as gangster Akim Tamiroff is called away on the phone, leaving Wells alone at the table. He drinks unconsciously without realizing it, and is surprised when he finally notices he has been drinking. In the final sequence, a heavily intoxicated Orson Welles recoils in surprise upon seeing Tamiroff's blood falling, similar to how the film portrays the recall of "Origins" without any psychological motivation. For Orson Welles, the relationship between "Habitual Offenders" and "Origins" is portrayed as a crucial detail in his theory of movement. ● In "UNFORGIVEN" (1992), Eastwood was once a villain who killed women and children without hesitation, but after meeting his wife he reformed and returned to being a good farmer = first offender =. However, when he hears from a prostitute that his best friend Morgan Freeman has been brutally murdered, he suddenly starts drinking. This alcohol is from a bottle that James Woolvett, who is distraught after killing someone, was drinking from, and he is drinking it while the prostitute on horseback is telling him that the sheriff told her that Eastwood is actually a brutal murderer. Here, Eastwood does not proactively start drinking of his own accord, but rather the alcohol is not his own, but he drinks it from someone else, and he is listening to the prostitute's story while he is drinking. "TOUCH OF Similar to the way Orson Welles breaks his sobriety in "EVIL," the film portrays him as "drinking without realizing it (or not realizing he's been drinking)," and it seems likely that Eastwood had the scene from "TOUCH OF EVIL" in mind at the time. Both Orson Welles and Eastwood here resonate with each other in their meticulous attention to the portrayal of the relationship between "origins" and "habitual offenders," and many details suggest that "THE INFORMER," with its close proximity of screen time to real time and other aspects that show the influence of European "realism," had some kind of influence on Orson Welles. ●In "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS" (July 10, 1942), Orson Welles captured on film the final moments of the aristocracy, the "old ones" who were on the decline. ●In "TOUCH OF EVIL," he again uses the "old ones" who could only be "Habitual Offenders" as his subject matter. For him, who continued to film and play "villains" throughout his life, and thus played a part in the "history of ugliness in cinema," the "Habitual Offenders" movement remained an extremely important theme.
★→ "LA RÈGLE DU JEU" (1939) - Jean Renoir - "Old Ones" and "Habitual Offenders"
This film by Jean Renoir begins with a quote from Beaumarchais' "The Marriage of Figaro": "Who can condemn infidelity, whether you are fickle or virtuous? What good is sorrowful lamentation? Is changing one's heart a sin? Love has wings. Fickle birds only fly away." Set in France on the eve of World War II, the film depicts aristocrats, soldiers, pilots, servants, and forest rangers invited to a nobleman's villa, engrossed in a game of love, while simultaneously questioning, "Is changing one's heart a sin?" As if asked, "What's your reason for changing your love interest?", he changes his lovers one after another, but these "changes of heart" are never psychological reforms or changes of belief. One moment they're fighting, the next they're apologizing like gentlemen before starting another fight (the head of the household, Marcel Dalio, and the aviator, Laurent Toutain); the next they're trying to kill their rival in love, only to comfort each other (the gamekeeper, Gaston Modot, and the servant, Julien Carette); the next he's giving up his lover to his best friend, only to quickly win him back and then give him back again (Jean Renoir gives Nora Gregor to the aviator, Laurent Toutain). Thus, he is "habit-forming" in all aspects, from nobles, servants, hunters, gentlemen, ladies, love, and humanity itself. This film, devoid of psychology or morality, unfolds through a relentless repetition of the Ingrained movement's impulsive actions, drawing criticism from those eager to understand the movement's motivations upon its release. The film ends with General Pierre Magnier's remark after the patriarch, Marcel Dalio, explains to the guests that the death of pilot Laurent Toutain, whom the jealous gamekeeper Gaston Modot mistakenly believed to be his rival, was an accident.
When those who are disappearing in the "space between" eras continue to repeat the "Habitual Offenders" movement, the final moments of the "race that will soon disappear"—the "old ones"—are etched onto the film as emotion.
★→ "Tokyo Story" (November 3, 1953) - Setsuko Hara - ""Not at all！"
In this Yasujiro Ozu film, an elderly couple (Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama) who come to Tokyo from Onomichi are treated coldly by their busy sons and daughters, but are warmly welcomed by their deceased second son's wife (Setsuko Hara). Shortly after returning home, Chieko Higashiyama suddenly dies. The reason why the actions of the eldest son, Satoshi Yamamura, and the eldest daughter, Haruko Sugimura (especially the latter), seem somewhat colder than those of Setsuko Hara is simply because their actions are thoughtfully planned. On the morning he was supposed to take his parents sightseeing, Satoshi Yamamura heard news of a patient's sudden illness, and after informing his parents, he excused himself before going out on a house call. Haruko Sugimura consulted her husband, Nobuo Nakamura, about whether to bring rice crackers instead of red bean paste as a souvenir for her parents, whether or not to take them to see Naniwabushi, she called her daughter-in-law, Setsuko Hara, to ask her to take her parents sightseeing in Tokyo, and she also consulted Satoshi Yamamura and her husband, Nobuo Nakamura, about sending her parents to a ryokan in Atami. Upon hearing that her mother was critically ill, she consulted with Satoshi Yamamura about whether or not to return to Onomichi, when she should return if so, and whether or not to bring mourning clothes, and after the funeral, she asked Satoshi Yamamura, "When are you coming home, brother?" Unlike "habitual offenders"—whose bodies react before they can even think—the actions these individuals take following a consultation lack the quality of being deeply ingrained; consequently, there is an underlying, persistent coldness to their behavior.In the early part of the film, on the morning when Satoshi Yamamura was planning to take his parents sightseeing in Tokyo, he receives news of an emergency and has to go on a house call. If Satoshi Yamamura had rushed out of the house without even grabbing what he had, the film would have been a completely different movie. In Ozu's "The Only Son" (1936), the mother (Iida Choko) comes from the countryside to visit her son (Himori Shinichi) who has come to Tokyo. Towards the end of the film, she is dissatisfied and dejected to learn that her son has married another woman (Tsubouchi Yoshiko), quit his job at the city hall, and is living in poverty. At that moment, a child from a poor neighboring family (Tokkan Kozo) is kicked by a horse and seriously injured, and hospitalized. In the hospital corridor, the son casually gives some money to the injured child's mother (Yoshikawa Mitsuko). The mother, who had been watching from the shadows, returns home and says, "You know, I was really proud to have a son like you today." "No matter how many nice places you were taken to today, you probably wouldn't have had such a wonderful experience," he says, squeezing out his joy as he heads back to the countryside. The reason for this emotion is that the movement of his son, Shinichi Himori, as he takes a bill from his pocket and gives it to the woman is ingrained. The emotion that he and his wife, Yoshiko Tsubouchi, exude through their movements is simply that they are "Habitual Offenders" who act before they think. However, in "Tokyo Story," Satoshi Yamamura and Haruko Sugimura think before they act, whereas Setsuko Hara's actions—taking time off work to show her in-laws around Tokyo, entertaining them at her apartment and getting alcohol from the next room, letting her mother-in-law stay at the apartment, giving her pocket money, seeing them off at the station, rushing to Onomichi upon hearing of her in-laws' critical condition, and staying at the Onomichi house for a while after the funeral—are all carried out without consulting anyone and without any psychological conflict, and are consistently filmed as the actions of Ingrained "Habitual Offenders." The only scene where Setsuko Hara seems to have made a decision is when she receives a phone call from Haruko Sugimura asking her to give her the first tour of Tokyo, but even then, the moment when Setsuko Hara would have said, "Okay, I'll do it," is captured on camera, and Setsuko Hara's words of acceptance or decision are not heard even from the other end of the phone. By doing so, Ozu contrasts "first-time offenders" with "habitual offenders" by portraying the "siblings who think before they act" and "Setsuko Hara who acts before she thinks" in different ways. Towards the end of the film, before Setsuko Hara leaves Onomichi, there is a scene in which she shouts "Not at all!" in response to Chishu Ryu's words of appreciation. The words that Chishu Ryu says to Setsuko Hara at this point are as follows.
★→ "Early Summer" (October 3, 1951) Setsuko Hara - NO!
Setsuko Hara, still single at the age of 28, receives a marriage proposal arranged by her superior, Shuji Sano—a prospect that delights her parents and the older brother and his wife with whom she lives. Suddenly, however, Setsuko announces her intention to marry a man named Hiroshi Nihonyanagi—a close friend of her late brother who lost his own wife three years earlier and now has a child. This throws the household into a state of utter chaos, eventually necessitating a family council. Before examining the conversation that takes place during this council, we must first look at the scene in which Setsuko Hara—in a discussion with Hiroshi Nihonyanagi’s mother, Haruko Sugimura—formally consents to the marriage.
Chieko Higashiyama (Mother): "But Kenkichi (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi) is leaving tomorrow, isn't he?"
When he asks her, "Don't you ever think, 'Oh no!' afterwards?" (this way of asking is also hilarious), Setsuko Hara's sense of good and evil doesn't come from "afterwards" in the first place, so there is no way she would think, "Oh no!" afterwards. → Chishu Ryu: "Don't you ever think, 'Oh no!' afterwards?" → Setsuko Hara: "No!" is the only answer she can give. When it comes to discussions about the realm of good and evil, "Habitual Offenders" can only respond with "Not at all!" and quietly walk away.The actions and words of "Habitual Offenders" are free from the flow of cause and effect, and therefore sometimes give great hope to those who had already given up on something due to causal morality. The way he surprised Haruko Sugimura with his "That's good, that's good..." and made her burst into tears, followed by the completely unrelated statement, "Noriko! Want some bread? Anpan!", is her cry of liberation from the flow of cause and effect, an emotion that wells up from nowhere, and it is these "old ones" who can bestow such emotions that we call them heroes.
→ "Mother" (June 12, 1952) - Hitomi's Coming-of-Age Story
In Mikio Naruse's paper, it was examined that "Mother" is a story in which Kyoko Kagawa, who can only "voyeuristically observe narratives," grows into a body capable of "voyeuristically observing nakedness" (see Part 2 of Mikio Naruse's paper, to be posted later). "Voyeuristically observing narratives" is a segmented realm of "being" and is a "first-time" act of peeping that is achieved by "reading" the subject's facial expressions, whereas "voyeuristically observing nakedness" is an unsegmented realm of "doing" and is nothing more than a "habitual" act of peeping that affirms the subject as it is by "seeing" it as it is. In the end, coming-of-age stories in film exist as a process of imprinting the transition from the realm of "being" to the realm of "doing" onto the screen.n the final scene of Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider," as Eastwood disappears from view, the young girl (Sydney Penny) never utters a word like "Come back!" as the boy in "Shane" (1953.4.23), but instead says "We all love you. I love you. Thank you. Goodbye!" before getting into her carriage and driving away in the opposite direction. This is because the girl knew deep down that the gunman would never return, and the vibration of her voice and the graceful movement of her departure without looking back quietly imprint the traces of the girl's growth onto the screen as the film ends.The bittersweet experience of losing something as one grows up represents the sadness of humanity, which can only survive the present by losing the nostalgia of its "origins."
→ "Late Spring" (September 19, 1949, Yasujiro Ozu) - The Jar
Setsuko Hara, who lives with her father (Chishu Ryu) after the death of her mother, despises her uncle (Masao Mishima), who is remarrying, calling him "unclean and dirty," and continues to harbor similar feelings towards her father, who is considering remarrying Kuniko Miyake. When Hara Setsuko went to see a Noh performance with her father, she noticed Miyake Kuniko sitting in a box seat some distance away, gave a slight bow, and then slowly glanced at Ryu Chishu and Miyake Kuniko twice each. Judging from Hara Setsuko's psychological expression as she gazed, she had a negative opinion of the two (she felt disgust), and this is filmed as narrative voyeurism—voyeurism of the act of "reading" the subject—as examined in Naruse Mikio's paper. "Reading" is a melodramatic "first offense," and the Noh performance seems to be a MacGuffin that exists solely for Hara Setsuko to engage in "reading." As the film progresses, Setsuko Hara, whose marriage has been decided, goes on a final trip with her father to Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. There, she observes Yoshiko Tsubouchi, who will become Masao Mishima's wife, from a distance. In bed, she tells her father, Chishu Ryu, "Auntie (Yoshiko Tsubouchi) is such a nice person... she and Uncle are a good match... I shouldn't have said she was dirty," suggesting that Setsuko Hara actually met Yoshiko Tsubouchi, perhaps had a meal with her, and spoke with her. However, this shot is omitted. In the shot of Setsuko Hara gazing at Yoshiko Tsubouchi from afar on the Kiyomizu Temple stage, it's unclear whether she was "reading" or "looking," but Ozu seems to have intentionally omitted such scenes, leading directly into the "famous" scene of the two sleeping side-by-side in a ryokan (Japanese inn). Here, there is still a heated debate about the incestuous love-hate relationship between Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu, but what is important from a cinematic perspective is when and by what shot the physicality of "reading" in Setsuko Hara transformed into the physicality of "seeing," or revealed that transformation, and there is no other answer than that shot in which Setsuko Hara secretly watches her sleeping father. After saying, "Hey, Dad, I really hated you," she suddenly turns her face towards her father and sees his sleeping face, and Setsuko Hara watches him with a transparent face that is completely different from the psychological expression she had when she sat in a box seat at a Noh performance (naked voyeurism), and the erotic interpretation of father and daughter sleeping in the same room is resolved from a motion theory perspective as a MacGuffin for the sake of voyeurism. There is no meaning in Setsuko Hara's "seeing," and even if there is something like the "exposure of sexuality" that Shigehiko Hasumi points out ("Director Yasujiro Ozu"), that is merely an event that comes "after" the "seeing," and what is important is the act of "seeing" that thing for what it is, and if we were to find meaning in the subsequent shot of the vase, then everything that Ozu photographed would have meaning.
→ "SHANE" (April 23, 1953)
George Stevens ● "SHANE" is a film that depicts an era when the frontier was nearing its end, and the way in which Alan Ladd, a gunman who is now a relic of his time, wipes out fellow gunman Jack Palance and the villains, the "old ones," before leaving, is followed by Don Siegel's "The Shootist" (1976), which was John Wayne's last film, but in "SHANE," before heading to the duel, Alan Ladd is asked by Jean Arthur, "Are you going for me?" When asked why he's leaving, he explains his "goodwill" motives, saying, "For you, and for Joe (Van Heflin) and Joey," and when he finally leaves the land, he tells the boy that there is no longer any need for a gunman like him in the coming age. Just as Ben Johnson, who was supposed to be an enemy and a "bad guy," suddenly has a change of heart and shakes hands with Alan Ladd, and Shane repeatedly persuades the pioneers who are about to leave the land out of fear to stay, this film, like "High Noon," is permeated with melodramatic phenomena of thinking before acting and persuading others. In the last scene, the boy shouts to Shane, "Shane! Come back!" because Shane had previously told the boy why he was leaving, and it was only because he had heard the reason that the boy was able to say, "Come back!" and unlike the girl who left without reason after saying goodbye to Eastwood in "PALE RIDER," the boy who learned the "reason" unfortunately does not grow up and the movie ends with him remaining a "first-time offender." Only "Habitual Offenders" can "grow" a "first-time offender."
★Hitchcock and "the film history of the brutality"
Hitchcock's protagonists do not embody "the film history of the brutality" as revealed in "Habitual Offenders." In terms of villains, actors with mental illnesses, such as Anthony Perkins in "SYCHO" and Robert Walker in "STRANGERS ON A TRAIN," imprint their brutality onto the screen, and Claude Rains in "Notorious" and Raymond Burr in "Rear Window" exude the inexplicable cruelty unique to "Habitual Offenders" who have no sense of guilt. However, as was frequently noted during the conversations between François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock—documented in *Hitchcock/Truffaut*—who places great importance on audience empathy when making films,consequently, when he featured criminals as protagonists—such as Farley Granger and John Dall in *Rope*, or Ray Milland in *Dial M for Murder*—he portrayed them as "first-time offenders" who remain human and, therefore, easy for the audience to empathize with. Hitchcock never made Westerns or gangster films where "Habitual Offenders" protagonists are indispensable. As we have already discussed, the majority of the crimes committed by the protagonists in films where characters are caught up in events are animalistic actions resulting from self-defense or unavoidable circumstances, and differ from the violent crimes—intentional crimes—in "Habitual Offenders." "The film history of the brutality" does not exist in Hitchcock films that cannot feature "Habitual Offenders" as the main characters.
★Genre Films and MacGuffins
If genre films are considered to be an ascetic movement of "Habitual Offenders" directed towards "being something that doesn't exist," then there is a virtual reality that activates the movement of "being," and therefore the number of MacGuffins in genre films should tend to decrease. This is precisely why genre films are suited to mass production, but the certain blandness of many B-grade genre films that are mass-produced and then disappear stems from the weakness of their "habitualness" and the resulting decrease in MacGuffins, which leads to a melodramatic tendency. To make a Hollywood-style narrative film without a MacGuffin, it's necessary to have the characters act in a realm completely removed from their "origins," as Michael Mann did. However, the limit of people's tolerable "habitualness" is at most a "human" character with around four prior convictions, and in fact, most protagonists in genre films are filmed before four prior convictions. Therefore, to keep them in the realm of "doing," it's necessary to place a MacGuffin crafted by the screenwriter. However, genre films, which are based on cheap mass production, cannot do this, and in many cases, genre films always tend towards melodrama that approaches their "origins," causing their movement to stagnate (Genre Film Function-Movement Relationship Chart). Noir films like "Gilda" (March 15, 1946) are no exception. In this film, Glenn Ford learns of Rita Hayworth's "innocence" from Detective Joseph Calleia, and upon realizing she is not a "villain," he "repents," apologizes, and the film ends happily, approaching the realm of good and evil—melodrama. The John Ford/Hawks-esque movement, which involves placing numerous MacGuffins crafted by the screenwriter, is not suited to mass production. While it may lead genre films narratively, it does not lead genre films in terms of its movement theory. Furthermore, the Michael Mann-esque movement, which is thoroughly driven by "non-existent origins," is less dependent on MacGuffins, making it easier to launch compared to classic Hollywood films like those of Hitchcock and Hawks, and thus possessing the suitability for the mass production necessary for genre films. While it may seem like a leap to associate Michael Mann, who sometimes directs films that run for nearly three hours, with B-movie genre films, from the perspective of momentum, Michael Mann's style reigns as the ideal form of genre film (whether "10 Prior Convictions" will be accepted by the public is another matter).
★Screwball Comedy
While comedy is often categorized into genres such as slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, and sophisticated comedy, the distinction between these is ambiguous, and a re-examination from a kinetic perspective is necessary.
★Screwball Comedy
While comedy is often categorized into genres such as slapstick comedy, screwball comedy, and sophisticated comedy, the distinction between these is ambiguous, and a re-examination from a kinetic perspective is necessary.
→ "IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT" (1934) and "BRINGING UP BABY" (1938)
Frank Capra's "IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT" is generally considered the "origin" of screwball comedy, but the movement is a professional and personal skills movement directed towards one's own inherent tendencies = "being," as seen in how newspaper reporter Clark Gable relentlessly conducts close-up and writes articles, and how the wealthy heiress Claudette Colbert repeatedly acts selfishly, such as making buses wait, wasting money, and cutting in line for showers, thus portraying the wealthy heiress in a "Habitual Offenders" manner. Similarly classified as a screwball comedy, George Cukor's "HOLIDAY" (June 15, 1938) features a protagonist, Cary Grant, who is described as follows: "Born February 6, 1908, he is 30 years old. He is from Baltimore. His father ran a grocery store and died heavily in debt. His mother worked to pay off the debt and died when he was 16. He started working at the age of 10. He graduated from Harvard on his own. He has done all sorts of jobs, including washing dishes, working in steel mills, car factories, and garbage collection. For the past few years, he has been in the finance industry. He is capable of doing his job. He has turned around the companies he has worked for. He has no connections and is not attached to money." Katharine Hepburn, too, continues her own human movement, directed towards "being" by leaving home for her ideals, which is also evident in "A History of Cinematic Exits," where, at the moment Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn kiss in the ship's corridor in the final scene, Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon, who had their heads out of their cabin, quickly close the door and disappear into their cabin. Similarly, in George Cukor's "The Philadelphia Story" (December 1, 1940), the "origins" of the protagonist, Cary Grant, are explained as the grandson of the library's founder and a childhood friend of his wife, Katharine Hepburn. The film begins with this "origin" itself, with Cary Grant being kicked out of his house by Katharine Hepburn.He, along with James Stewart and Ruth Hussey, continue a human movement that goes beyond their professional work as journalists, embodying the idea that "lovers fall in love." Katharine Hepburn, the daughter of a wealthy family, also continues her spirited and unrestrained movement, as befits a daughter of a wealthy family. When her father (John Halliday) scolds her for it, she tearfully protests against her cheating father, and towards the end, she confesses to him, "I feel like a human being." This film, too, is a film that captures a human movement directed toward "being," and that is why, as seen in the final scene , when Katharine Hepburn begins to read a letter from her fiancé (John Howard), Cary Grant and Ruth Hussey, who are also present, try to leave immediately(History of Cinematic Exits), but Hepburn insists that they stay, saying, "Please stay," These works capture the ingrained habits of "Habitual Offenders." Similarly, George Cukor's "ADAM'S RIB" (November 18, 1949) is a film in which a lawyer (Katharine Hepburn) and a prosecutor (Spencer Tracy) are involved in a trial where the wife (Judy Holliday) is the defendant in a case against her cheating husband (Tom Ewell), who bursts in on him and shoots him, injuring him. The film depicts their own marital disputes unfolding in the courtroom as they each take on the roles of defense attorney and prosecutor. Here too, the protagonists engage in professional and personal struggles directed towards "being" lawyer and prosecutor, or man and woman. Leo McCarey's "The Awful Truth" (October 21, 1937) depicts a couple (Eileen Dunn and Cary Grant) who are about to divorce due to suspicions of infidelity. They spend their days arguing (playfully bickering) that is far from good and evil, and towards the end, as they recall their first meeting and toast with champagne, Cary Grant's serious expression is not that of a Hitchcockian animal, but rather a human movement aimed at "being" husband, wife, woman, and man. In its "habitualness," this work approaches the powerful "6 prior convictions" period, more so than "HOLIDAY" and "THE PHILADELPHIA STORY," but it shares the commonality of being a movement directed towards "being" human. In contrast to these humanistic works, Howard Hawks' "Bringing Up Baby," also considered a screwball comedy, is filled with anti-skill animalistic activities far removed from the professional skills of an archaeologist: playing golf, searching for a lawyer, walking while hiding a woman's torn dress from behind, chasing a dog to find bones buried by a dog, and cornering a leopard with a chair and putting it in a jail cell. None of his task as an archaeologist to complete the dinosaur skeleton is accomplished.Just as Cary Grant cried out to Katharine Hepburn, "Don't drag me into this anymore!", "Bringing Up Baby" is fundamentally different in the nature of its movement from other "screwball comedies" that carry out human movements driven by "being," and is a typical example of a involved movement by a massive MacGuffin, in which animalistic humans who have been stripped of all their humanity are thrown around. This work, which is so far removed from humanity, cannot be immediately judged as being in the same genre as works that depict human "Habitual Offenders" such as "It Happened One Night." Rather, "It Happened One Night" and similar works should be seen as being in common with Howard Hawks' skill movement "His Girl Friday," in which a newspaper reporter is solely engrossed in his work as a journalist. Genres should not be classified solely by their subject matter or narrative content, but should also be considered in light of the quality of their movement. It is important to recognize that Hawks' "BRINGING UP BABY" and "HIS GIRL FRIDAY" form completely different genres in terms of their movement.
★How "Habitual Offenders" Film Comedies
Comedies about "habitual offenders" often portray "first-time offenders" as bumbling characters. ● We examined how Ralph Bellamy in "His Girl Friday," ● Hugh Marlowe in "Monkey Business," and ● Tommy Noonan in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" are treated as bumbling characters by the "Habitual Offenders" protagonists because they are "first-time offenders" acting on a moral basis. ●In "IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT," Jameson Thomas, a "first-time offender" described by Claudette Colbert's father, Walter Connolly, as "a man who can be bought with money," is abandoned by Claudette Colbert at their wedding. ●In "The Awful Truth," Ralph Bellamy, a "first-time offender" who judges people by moral right and wrong, is easily manipulated by the "Habitual Offenders," Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. ●In "HOLIDAY," Doris Nolan, the intelligent and cold "first-time offender" sister who lives life by calculation of profit and loss, is contrasted with the acrobatic group of "Habitual Offenders" who who do not consider profit and loss, such as her husband Cary Grant, her sister Katharine Hepburn, her brother Lew Ayers who wanted to be a pianist, and Edward Everett Horton Jean Dixon. ●"THE PHILADELPHIA In "STORY," John Howard, a "first-time offender" who condemns his fiancée's infidelity from a moral standpoint, is pitted against a "community of habitual offenders" consisting of Cary Grant and his ex-wife Hepburn, along with James Stewart and Ruth Hussey. In the remake "High Society" (1956), "upper class" refers to "Habitual Offenders" who transcend origin and social status. That is why John Howard, who rose from poverty through hardship and acts according to good and evil principles, is despised for being a "first-time offender," while James Stewart and Ruth Hussey, who gave up their dreams of writing novels and painting to become journalists for the sake of making a living, join the ranks of Cary Grant and others because they are Habitual Offenders who never speak of good and evil. When Hepburn says to John Howard, a man of good and evil, "You are a hundred times better than me," that "better" is nothing more than a subtle cinematic insult to the fact that he is a resident of the realm of good and evil.
To be continued in the Final Chapter