The Quiet Man is a mixed bag - beautifully filmed in Ireland and with strong performances by John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. But it feels dated, with over-easy reliance on all sorts of stereotypes that accumulate over the course of the film and add up to nails on chalkboard. The lazy, shiftless Irish men, the incompetent railroad employees, the negotiation over O'Hara's dowry.
But this was the most popular film of 1953. It was nominated for seven Oscars, and won two. The castle in the film is a luxury hotel catering to fans. The town of Cong is a tourist destination. It's all a real mix.
But the music is pretty nice, and is also pretty interesting. John Ford produced and directed the film, and chose the theme song personally. "Isle of Innisfree" was written by Irish composer (and policeman) Richard Farrelly, and incorporated into the soundtrack by Victor Young who did the movie score. The score incorporated man Irish songs, although they were chosen by Young rather than Ford. The video editing here is not so great but the music sure is nice.
Farrelly composed his song n a bus journey to Dublin. It became the most famous of his over 200 songs. Bing Crosby recorded the version that caused John Ford to include it in the film.
5 comments:
You overlook something: In 1953, people had been robbed of their 1940s by Hitler and Tojo and atomic bombs.
Ford was making the same movies in 1953 he would have made in 1941, except for that whole U-boats-sinking-half-the-ocean-traffic thingie kind of rampant from 1939-1945.
Stereotypes?
Ireland was (and remains) a backwater.
Moreso during a Great Depression and after another World War.
And though it isn't spoken of, notice Wayne's backstory: this is a Depression-era story, not a post-war story.
It was made in the 1950s, but it was set in the Depression-era 1930s.
Look at Ford's movies, pre-war and post-war:
Pre:
Stagecoach
Young Mr. Lincoln
Drums Along the Mohawk
How Green Was My Valley
Post:
My Darling Clementine
Fort Apache
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Rio Grande
The Quiet Man
Mogambo
The Long Gray Line
The Searchers
Mr. Roberts
etc.
Ford, a first-generation Irish-American, was in love with America, including the people that came here, especially the Irish immigrant folks he grew up around at the turn of the century. He was making the exact same movies after WW II that he'd made before the war, just doing them better, and with better resources.
The Quiet Man could have been made just as easily in 1933 as in 1953, and would have been, but a wee bit of earth-changing history got in the way.
You're judging (rather over-harshly, I think) a 1953 movie by 2022 standards, when what Ford was making was a 1933 movie with better color, better actors, better film, and a better budget.
And the people of multiple generations who'd had twenty years of their lives stolen by economic and military disaster loved him for it, including Hollywood, when that meant something, by paying tribute to a man who earned a Purple Heart and two combat awards as a Navy officer and filmmaker, FFS, during WWII.
What you're calling "nails on a chalkboard" is everything that makes this movie a classic, and everything it's missing by later standards is everything wrong with movies for 40 years and counting, starting with all white people and no people of color, misogyny, patriarchy, religion, and not making Wayne and McLaglen fall in love and turning the whole thing into something as repulsive as Brokeback Innisfree.
That sort of claptrap is what's "nails on a chalkboard".
And the reason for memes like this (not mine, but scorchingly accurate):
https://i.imgur.com/hiCV28C.png
Well all I can do is say what I liked and disliked. I did both for this film. Don't disagree with many of your points (Ford was certainly different from modern Hollywood in that he actually loved this Country - not for what it could do for him but what he could do for it).
One thing that I would disagree with you on is that Ireland today is not at all a backwater (based on three different business trips there and hopefully a vacation with TQOTW on the Shannon river and canals). So much so, in fact, that Irish who emigrated have now been returning home for job opportunities.
It's actually nice to see Ireland catch some of "the luck of the Irish".
And, of course, the question is, what era is the movie set in? Pre-WWI, post WWI but the economic boom after the war (both of which fits most of the costuming,) Pre-WWII Depression or Post War?
My feeling is Ford wrote about a quieter, more peaceful time. Maybe a tad post-Irish independence, before the world went insane.
Stereotypes often exist for a reason, and nobody, even today, in a western European area, can top the Irish for holding grudges way past time. The whole "Widow Trelawne" thingy where her family is a newcomer even though it was from the Norman invasion in the early 1100's.
What you like is your business, of course.
As for Ireland, compared to the Continent, they're still a backwater.
The tragedy is much like Diaz' comment regarding Mexico and the U.S.: "Poor Ireland; so far from God, so close to England."
From that bastion of accuracy, Wikipedia:
"The tertiary sector constitutes 49% of Irish GDP and 64% of Irish employment. The tertiary sector is by far the largest driver of modern Irish economic growth — the Celtic Tiger. It is made up of several industries such as accountancy, legal services, call centers and customer service operations, finance and stock broking, catering, and tourism. Many US firms (such as IBM and Apple Computer) located their European customer service operations in Ireland due to the availability of a young, highly educated, English speaking workforce. The Irish tourism industry attracts over five million visitors annually and employs over 100,000."
And their GDP rank, worldwide, is 32. Between Norway, and Israel.
Small, quaint, and picturesque is nice.
Odd, Fatom Events showed The Quiet Man yesterday (3/13) on the big screen. My wife and I went to see it.
I don't think of his portrayal of the Irish as indolent and lazy, but of a people who move according to their own internal clocks. Iwas was supposedlu set in the mid 1920a (IIRC) and that may account for it seeming dated even by early 1950s standards. But the old ways died hard in some places. My people are Scots Irish-English Appalachian, and some of the old customs were held to into the 1960s.
And yes, in this; and many of Ford's movies the music is as much a character as any of the actors.
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