John Ford biographer Joseph McBride, late last night on Facebook: “This is my favorite shot in the cinema — even more beautiful in motion, naturally. Winton Hoch may have moved that rock to balance the composition at the left, as he told me he often did on John Ford Westerns, much to Ford’s impatience.
“Just before making The Searchers in 1955, Ford told Jean Mitry that he’d ‘like to do a tragedy, the most serious in the world…[a tragedy] that turns into the ridiculous” He explained that he liked “to discover humor in the midst of tragedy, for tragedy is never wholly tragic. Sometimes tragedy is ridiculous.'”
McBride: “What makes it for me is the wind blowing Vera Miles‘ dress as she runs ecstatically into the shot, unable to wait any longer for Jeffrey Hunter‘s Martin to come home (it’s only been five years, after all). The wind is an ancient symbol for the presence of God, and as François Truffaut wrote upon Ford’s death, “Since Ford believed in God, [may] God bless John Ford”.”
HE response: “Respect and admiration offered to Ford but, dismissive denigrations of ‘old goat’ Mose aside, there isn’t a single genuine moment of ridiculous humor in this entire film.
“Plus Henry Brandon‘s Scar has surely been sexually plundering Natalie Wood‘s Debbie since she came of age and she’s not a mother? Why wouldn’t she be? She’s certainly a far different person — most likely hardened, bruised, cynical — than she was before her parents’ murder and her subsequent kidnapping. All is not serene at the end.
“Plus there are no crops or grass or cows or cattle or goats or pigs in Monument Valley. Because it’s all reddish moon dust without lakes or rivers or forests or any sort of decent soil. Life is always hard, but five years is way, WAY too long for Vera Miles to wait for Jeffrey Hunter to return.
“I just don’t believe any of it. I never have.
“And Winton Hoch’s boulder or boulders. One, how were they moved? With some kind of large tractor or backhoe? Two, for a finer sense of balance they needed to be moved another 10 or 15 feet to the right and much closer to the camera.”