In Hope of Unity

John Ford’s Flowers

By the grave of a loved one. This is where John Ford has his characters speak with true and unguarded honesty. It is never a grand event but something far more quotidian and intimate – a solitary ritual. Before the tombstone, the Fordian hero is soft-spoken, his gaze turned inward. He recounts memories (“I know, I guess I was a little jealous. Never could waltz myself.” John Wayne in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 1949), shares details about life continuing (“Rome, he’s got his eye set on Ellie May.” Will Rogers’s Judge Priest, 1934), voices concerns about the future (“Maybe I ought to go into law, take my chances … still, I don’t know.” Henry Fonda’s Young Mr. Lincoln, 1939) and mourns what could have been (“1864-1882. Eighteen years. Didn’t get much of a chance, did you, James?” Fonda in My Darling Clementine, 1946). The dead remain silent, yet from the blunt image of a tombstone, a transparent glow emanates; a glow that gets people talking. Here, time moves in multiple directions. It slows down, speeds up, seeps into the soil, and disperses in the wind. All that is absent is palpably felt.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” Fonda’s Lincoln asks Ann Rutledge as he sets aside the withered flowers before her tombstone, replacing them with fresh crocuses. It is a gesture we have seen so many of Ford’s heroes perform. Flower after flower has been placed before the dead, a quiet offering that adds texture to Ford’s imagery and roots to his characters’ relationships. These flowers shape the world Ford creates. They make things come alive, if only in spirit. Flowers are an integral part of the Fordian ritual that binds the living with the dead, and as such, they can help us see his films with greater clarity.

Ford’s cemeteries and desert graves are often beautifully strange. In a 1978 essay, filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky aptly described them as the setting for “unreal, yet effective communication.”1 Unreal, as in unbelievable? No, as in incredible. Bitomsky was referring specifically to the cemetery scene in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, where, beneath a glowingly saturated red-black night sky, Wayne’s Nathan Brittles waters the ground by his wife’s tombstone, acting out “an unassuming, crazed gesture of hope for impossible fertility.”2 A modest gesture tinged with the dream of an impossible resurrection. Danish poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen once wrote a single-verse poem about the ritual of visiting a beloved’s grave. Reading its final three stanzas, Brittles’s romantic gesture flares up before my inner eye:

Since none of this makes sense  
and yet takes place  
it must be of the utmost importance3

Rituals may seem to hover on the edge of meaninglessness, but take them away, and what do you have left?

Consider also Judge Priest, when Rogers’s title character brings his pipe and fold-out stool to sit by the grave of his wife and two children, breathing in the sweet smell of honeysuckles. The beams of a studio-lit moon dissolve into the dim evening air, leaving just enough mystery to let the mind wander. Gaze far enough into the misty background of flowers and bushes, and you might feel as though you’ve reached the evanescent landscape of Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). In Pilgrimage (1933), we see how far Ford’s characters will travel to reach a grave. When Hannah Jessop (Henrietta Crosman) finally agrees to journey to her son’s grave in France, the scene’s emotional weight is anchored in the monumental image of two hands exchanging a bouquet: before departure, Mary, the estranged daughter-in-law of Hannah, extends the flowers through the open window of the train car; Hannah’s gloved hand accepts them, gripping them tightly; the train begins to move. When she finally arrives at her son’s grave, something within her is released; she collapses in sorrow, the flowers still in her hand. Even in those films where no tomb is in sight, and other symbols must take its place, flowers prevail. In The Last Hurrah (1958), for example, Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy) begins his day by placing a single rose in the vase beneath his wife’s portrait.

What’s incredible about these scenes is the conviction with which they are carried out. “In Ford’s movies,” Tag Gallagher reminds us, “people are more real than everyday real. They live in storybook images. We believe in them as we believed in our mother’s bedtime stories.”4 To this, I would add that it is by allowing us to drift to the times and places of elsewhere that Ford’s imagery also grounds us in the here and now. In front of Ford’s graves – or even when just thinking about them, living with them – the material world gains depth, wonder, melancholy.

In Ford’s cinema, we witness a multitude of gestures – whether it’s subtle movements, forceful glances, broad smiles, or slapstick bar brawls, they all brim with emotion. Joy and bruised pain. These micro-events sometimes encapsulate Ford’s narrative and thematic interests; at other times, they do the exact opposite; puncture any notion of complete coherence or totalizing meaning, and instead convey a simple, poignant presence. Portuguese film critic Cristina Fernandes addresses a similar idea in her book C de C, emphasizing how the smallness of a cigarette being lit and a lip quivering in the background of a shot helps define the paper-thin enclosures of 7 Women (1965).5 Frieda Grafe and Enno Patalas have suggested that the dignity and charm of Ford’s cinema arise from the particular convergence of gestures, looks, and tone of voice (the scene in Wagon Master [1950] when a horseback-riding Harry Carey Jr. sings, “I left my gal in ol’ Virginnie…” immediately comes to my mind).6 But it is the critic and scholar Shiguéhiko Hasumi who has extracted perhaps the broadest reflection and deepest emotional resonance from the gestures of Ford’s characters, ultimately encapsulating it in a single, beautiful sentence: “For Ford, it is the eloquence of gesture which prevails.”7 Gestures lean on the eye. They press themselves onto us, but it is only because something secret remains in the heart of their eloquence, right in their obviousness. We see these gestures, but they are not ours to keep.

Amid this profusion of gestures, flowers appear, vivid and unmistakable. Accumulated over time, the simple acts of flowers given and flowers taken gain significance. As one discovers and rediscovers Ford’s films, each gesture, each flower, carries the memory of those that came before and the anticipation of those yet to come. Every act is imbued with the weight of it all.8 Ford, of course, never emphasizes such symbols too strongly. Instead, he allows them to unfold naturally and with sincerity: Shirley Temple putting a few handpicked flowers in Victor McLaglen’s hand in Wee Willie Winkie (1937), the title card in Just Pals (1920) that reads “Will you give him these flowers so he’ll know that I am thinkin’ of him?”, John Wayne declaring his love by handing a bouquet to Maureen O’Hara in Rio Grande (1950) or offering a single yellow buttercup flower in The Quiet Man (1952). Ford is romantic, and that’s his strength.

While flowers in Ford’s films are often bound to the death of a loved one, they also bloom elsewhere, as some of the examples above illustrate. Furthermore, let’s not forget that when Ford introduced colour to his work, in Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), he did so with a close-up of a lush wedding bouquet. In The Wings of Eagles (1957), a to-and-fro of thrown flowers structures the relationship between O’Hara and Wayne’s characters, culminating in the half-fantastical and completely moving moment when a paralyzed Wayne catches a glimpse of a bouquet in a mirror and is, for the first time, able to wiggle his toe. Flowers affect characters’ senses, carrying promises within them. “The air is so clean and clear. The scent of the desert flower,” Clementine remarks, as her budding love with Wyatt Earp becomes more pronounced (My Darling Clementine). In The Sun Shines Bright (1953), the choral singing of the Black community evokes hope: “The corn-top’s ripe and the meadow’s in bloom.” Among all of Ford’s film flowers, perhaps the most famous is the cactus rose of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). First given to Hallie (Vera Miles) by Doniphon (Wayne), and decades later, the gesture is returned, only it’s too late. Once again, we must return to the grave. But even so, the hope of Doniphon’s initial gesture carries us forward. We believe in these flowers; we believe in these images.

In Ford’s work, we may treasure the flowers people give to one another and the ones they reject, toss aside, and pick up again. The ones offered too early, too late, or at just the right time. The ones kept for oneself, admired from afar, or conjured through scent, song, and dreams. Flowers in Ford’s films present and represent many things, but beneath each lies a gesture, a hand reaching out to the world in the hope of unity. Such is the enduring power of Ford’s flowers.

  • 1Hartmut Bitomsky, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” Initially released in Filmkritik, reprinted in Viennale’s catalog on John Ford (2014 [1978]), 206. Translation mine.
  • 2Bitomsky, “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.”
  • 3Søren Ulrik Thomsen, “Rystet spejl,” 2011. Translation mine.
  • 4Tag Gallagher, “The Quiet Man: ‘Don’t You Remember It, Seánín?’,”2015, video essay.
  • 5Cristina Fernandes “O Último Filme de John Ford,” in C de C (Edições Miosótis, 2022), 82.
  • 6Frieda Grafe and Enno Patalas, “Es war einmal ein Ford,“ in Im Off Filmartikel (Carl Hanser Verlag, 1974), 216.
  • 7Shiguéhiko Hasumi, “John Ford, or The Eloquence of Gesture,” trans. Adrian Martin, Rouge (2015).
  • 8In his video essay John Ford: Introduction (2014), Tag Gallagher also argues along these lines when he reflects on the gestures in Ford’s cinema: “What’s the point of this analysis? That it pays to pay attention to every little thing that Ford does. Every little thing is simple and obvious when it happens, but there is such an endless succession of them that matters quickly become complicated.”

Image (1) from The Long Gray Line (John Ford, 1955)

Image (2) from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)

Image (3) from The Last Hurrah (John Ford, 1958)

Image (4) from The Rising of the Moon (John Ford, 1957)


Image (5) from Wee Willie Winkie (John Ford, 1937)

Image (6) from The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)

Image (7) from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)

Images (8) and (9) from The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957)

Image (10) from Just Pals (John Ford, 1920)

With thanks to Tag Gallagher, Andy Rector, and Peter Christian Rude

ARTICLE
15.01.2025
EN
In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.