{"id":9232,"date":"2009-04-06T11:46:43","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T15:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9232"},"modified":"2010-07-01T16:17:15","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T20:17:15","slug":"that-first-entrance-in-stagecoach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9232","title":{"rendered":"John Wayne\u2019s First Entrance in Stagecoach<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WayneStagecoach01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\nGirish’s fascinating post about “narrative synthesis”<\/a> includes a discussion of John Wayne’s first appearance in John Ford’s Stagecoach<\/i>, one of my favorite “first appearances” of all time.<\/p>\n

Make sure to read the whole thing, but Girish writes:<\/p>\n

John Wayne’s first appearance in the film, unusual because it takes us by surprise, forsaking Ford’s customary style for a second by dollying in for a close-up, the camera not even able to maintain perfect focus as it lunges forward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is that slight flaw – the camera blurring out for a bit because it moves in too fast – that truly makes this one of the most memorable moments in American cinema.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the fact that John Wayne was not yet a movie star when he made Stagecoach<\/i>, although he had been working in films for quite some time by that point. Stagecoach<\/i> was his breakout, and seriously – with his first appearance in the film, it is not hard to understand why.<\/p>\n

If I tried to break down what he was doing<\/i> in these 2.5 seconds, I could probably write 20 pages about what I see. But ultimately, what he is doing<\/i> is simple, open, unbelabored, and free. It doesn’t look like work, it doesn’t look planned. It looks real.<\/p>\n

What he had as an older man in his later roles, he has here, before he was even known, before his “persona” was set.<\/p>\n

His essence could not be killed, manipulated, or cheapened. And (most interesting to me) it was there from the beginning. It didn’t NEED stardom to bring it out. He had it already. He happened<\/i> to become a star, but here he is – in his first appearance in Stagecoach<\/i>, not a star yet … and it is all there already. Everything that would carry him through his long career. His personality, his machismo, his handsomeness, his unselfconsciousness with gesture (nobody beats John Wayne in that department- nobody<\/em>), and then – with that last little spontaneous change of expression as the camera pulls right into his face – the vulnerability. It still has the power to take my breath away, what he does in that last second. Like – what?<\/p>\n

He had a gift for this stuff. He knew (on some level beyond words, I’m sure) in that moment: “Okay, the camera is at point-blank range now – so don’t keep the face closed, don’t act, but also don’t hold back, open open open it up … ”<\/p>\n

Whoosh – open, sesame.<\/p>\n

It’s a gut-level understanding of what a closeup is. Watch how he does it.<\/p>\n

And it is the vulnerability that makes John Wayne the slam-dunk that he is. Without it, those moments we love so much (the closeup in the trading post in The Searchers<\/i>, the last moment in The Searchers<\/i> with his arm crossed over his chest – uhm, the whole effing performance in The Searchers<\/i>) would not be possible. The toughness, the stoicism, the man-of-action, the bold gestures … all of those things are essential to explaining his appeal. But that small glitch of vulnerability, humanity – that comes at the very end of that first closeup in The Stagecoach<\/i> – still surprises me, and still makes me think: Who the hell is this guy? I want to see more.<\/p>\n

With that particular blend of qualities, he was (or “is” – because doesn’t he still seem so alive? Look at that little breath he takes there at the end) as rare as they come.<\/p>\n

The closeup in Stagecoach<\/i> always reminds me of this beautiful paragraph from Peter Bogdonavich’s book Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors<\/i><\/a>\"\", in the essay on John Wayne:<\/p>\n

To me, Duke had always seemed slightly out of breath, as though he hadn’t yet caught up on the last twenty years, not to mention the last twenty minutes. Both [John] Ford and [Howard] Hawks truly loved him, of course, and even knowing him a little, as I did, it was pretty difficult not to like him. All this, and a lot more, obviously communicated itself to the public — still the top American star more than seventy years since his beginning. His visual legacy has defined him as the archetypal man of the American West — bold, innocent, profane, idealistic, wrongheaded, good-hearted, single-minded, quick to action, not given to pretension, essentially alone, ready for any adventure — no matter how grand or daring; larger, finally, than life or death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First appearance in Stagecoach<\/i> below. It’s subtitled – but I chose it because it hones in on the closeup itself – the moment I’m talking about. One of my favorite moments in American cinema and it lasts maybe 2 seconds long. That’s all it takes.<\/p>\n


\n<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girish’s fascinating post about “narrative synthesis” includes a discussion of John Wayne’s first appearance in John Ford’s Stagecoach, one of my favorite “first appearances” of all time. Make sure to read the whole thing, but Girish writes: John Wayne’s first … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,4],"tags":[274,114],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14132,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9232\/revisions\/14132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}