Myth and Law in the Films of John Ford
| Author | Michael Bönke |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00178 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2001
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 47–63
Myth and Law in the Films of John Ford
Michael BÎhnke*
This paper discusses the image of law, how it is created, the relationship
of law and authority in its application and its effect on society as
portrayed in the films of John Ford, one of America’s important film-
makers during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. The
focal point of this study is three films exploring the past of the United
States of America. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), a biographical picture
about the early years as a lawyer of the later president, and – as Ford is
most typically associated with the making of Westerns – The Searchers
(1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), which, as well
as being two of his most acclaimed films, are also considered as highly
important in the genre. The films are concerned with the establishment
of law and the question of legitimacy. The two broad ways of the
development of law are the subject of the first two films, presenting an
imposing, unquestionable law-giver on the one hand and, on the other,
the operation of custom, which shows the organic creation of social
rules within a society. The third film confronts the two ways, showing
the different assumptions about the inherent qualities of the law. Myth
in this context has a dual function: as a reservoir of visual and/or
content pattern but also on the narrative level causing calculated
semantic effects. As Ford was a director with his distinct vocabulary of
visual style and narrative terms, his films demonstrate a specific use of
myth-making techniques, its connection with the inscription of certain
values into law as well as a critique of this process.
INTRODUCTION
I would like to explore the issue of how the law-making process is
represented in a John Ford film and how law is established and for what
purposes. What is the effect of the law on the societies in which it is
implemented, what relation exists between society and those who bring the
47
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Law Faculty, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Geba
¨ude GC 8/135, D-44780
Bochum, Germany
law? What role does violence play, as a reason to establish law, as a means
of enforcing it, and as to its content?
John Ford saw himself primarily as a director of Westerns but as he was
an auteur and not merely a genre director, he had his own approach to
transcending the limitations of the genre with his films. His Westerns,
situated in different locales, though mostly filmed in Monument Valley,
range in time from the late eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century
and cover all major topics important in that type of film. Even if Ford seldom
used historical subjects his films can be assigned to certain periods or
incidents, forming a kind of chronicle about the settlement of the West. His
body of work is as complex as it is contradictory but a development is
ascertainable, indicating increasing pessimism and uncertainty and also a
revision (in part) of former attitudes.
Law was seldom the explicit topic of his films, but Ford was always
interested in describing certain aspects of the functioning of society. For this
purpose he often used the rural community to act as a microcosm embodying
the tradition and the plain moral values of the pioneering life in nineteenth-
century America. So the initial conflict lies between the law as written word
(coming usually from the East) and those values and rules established in the
community. Further, it represents the conflict between the natural law and
codified legislation. It is also the conflict between the two forms of the
genesis of law. On the one hand law is seen as imposed upon society by an
authority standing high above and issuing downwards its commands; on the
other hand, law is regarded as developing within society, being spontaneous
and growing upwards, independent of any dominant will.
1
So Ford questions
the legitimacy of law (tracing its reliance on religious faith and moral ideas)
but also describes its formative effect on societies, bringing progress by
transcending tradition.
FORD AND MYTH
John Ford was often called a mythical director and indeed hisfilms were epic,
often slow-moving, to the point of meandering, original and simplistic in their
narrative, and include elements from ancient myths: the solitary hero torn
between fate and determinism, the wise fool, the young man facing initiation,
the sacrifice which must be made for the community. He most often deals with
societies at an early stage of development, less complex and characterized by
custom, service, and tradition. He uses the mythical narrative pattern of the
hero’s travel to express the shaping of character. His transcendental directing
style evokes a spiritual element from the landscape, which is often the
seemingly artificial, theatrical natural scenery of Monument Valley. Myth,
however, contains not only (narrative) form but also a semantic dimension.
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1 C.K. Allen, Law in the Making, (1964, 7th edn.) 1–2.
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
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