The Long Voyage Home - 1940 - DVD

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Half-way through the Ford marathon and The Long Voyage Home is one of my new favorites.

Gregg Toland is cinematographer and shares the title card with John Ford in the opening credit sequence. My viewing companion (and big Welles fan) told me that this is done in the title shot for Citizen Kane (1941), where Welles is simultaneously listed with Toland. He says the shared title card with Welles and Toland was controversial because it was the first time a director shared authorial credit with his cinematographer. As we watched the titles he was of course shocked to see Ford had done the same thing, too, only a year earlier. Filtering through my memory, I do believe I've seen Ford's name shared in the credits of other films, though I think its with producers, not creative personnel like a cameraman.

You can feel Toland's presence in the film (which is probably why he's credited along-side the director); the picture simply has more depth and focus, and ambient movement is as integral to the shot as his immediate subjects. John Wayne (he plays Ole Olsen) stands on a ship deck with a crew member; white puffs of smoke gust from the ship's smoke stack below them, which is shown in a separate shot. Up on deck Wayne stands quietly, like he's posing for a painter; the smoke slowly rises, fills the frame, and begins to drift in the wind. Toland slowly pans left to follow the movement of the white smoke against the black sky and dark figures below. No dialogue is spoken, it's serene, gorgeous.

That shot alone is enough to love the movie, but the entire picture is composed as delicately, with no superfluous space, movement or dialogue. The film is also another way to see John Wayne; he is popular for playing gruff leading men with his signature twangy strut. Here, his speaking role is more calculated, gentler, and we see that he has as much grace in his standing stature as he does in his Western swagger.

I name this my favorite of all the previously-unseen Ford films. And I think it's going to stay that way for awhile, The Battle of Midway (1942) is up next on the Ford queue...