German Blu-ray Cover for Red River
Red River was born in 1948, a monument to the centuries-old history of the American Western, and is one of the most important films in the history of American Westerns, with directors Howard Hawks (1896-1977) and Arthur Rosson (1886-1960). 1977) and Arthur Rosson (1886-1960) jointly for the 1940s western movie music on the most brilliant a rest.
Even John Ford (1894-1973), the master of the American Western, appreciated it. From the structure of the script to the reflection of nature, the film gives full play to the grandeur of western movies. The story line is very simple, John Wayne John Wayne (1907-1979) is still the absolute sense of the protagonist, but the film does not have any earth-shattering battle, or the occurrence of shocking life and death love, it is just about a betrayal and reunion, love and friendship between the small ripples.
Scenes from the movie Red River/War on the Red River Red River, with John Wayne (left) and Montgomery Clift
Howard Hawks's extraordinary storytelling skills make this Western, which shows cowboys transporting cattle, one of the The most visually stunning of the traditional film classics, his collaboration with John Wayne brought new life to the cowboy West, and Montgomery Clift's (1920-1966) performance is one of the film's highlights, with his bravado matched by John Wayne's composure throughout the movie.
This is a tragic tale of father-son rivalry and rebellion. The autocratic Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) leaves his lover for the cattle-ranching paradise of Texas, eager to make his mark. He adopts Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift), a boy who escaped from an Indian massacre, and treats him like a son.
Scene from the movie Red River/War by the Red River, Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift
A few years later, Matt Garth grows up to be a man, no longer tame, but fiercely defiant. A crisis is imminent. There's nothing like a father and son driving a herd of cattle to a foreign land, and this classic scene is a cold, arduous journey of heroic poetry, with dangers on the outside and tense characters on the inside, a bit like "Odyssey".
Critic Tim Dirks pointed out the similarity between their conflict and that of Capt. Bligh (Charles Laughton) and Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) in Mutiny on the Bounty. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) have similarities in their confrontations. In fact, Borden Chase's (1900-1971) unrivaled screenplay gives the Red River script itself even more depth and thought.
On the set of the movie Red River/The Great War Red River, from left to right, John Wayne John Wayne Howard Hawks Joanne Dru
John Wayne is a stubborn, headstrong old rancher, and adopted son Montgomery Clift, however, fights him over the slightest fiasco and then secretly drives away his 1,000 head of yellow cattle.
My God, you know, that's 1,000 live cattle, walking across the wilderness in great numbers, slowed down by cowboys, or terrified by wild animals and roaring. ...... The spectacular crossing of the Red River by the herd is the climax of the movie.
To know this big scene only in the early 1990s, only by Kevin Costner Kevin Costner in the "Dances with Wolves *** Dances with Wolves" (1990) to restore, the oldest and most primitive that scene is to let people remember the change of the times, to recall the vicissitudes of the great changes of no two magic weapons.
Scenes from Red River
It can be argued that the greatness of Red River lies purely in its small-concept structure of a big chase, which is one of the greatest attempts in the history of world cinema, and which brings a revolutionary sense of glory to the Western family.
The story is gentle but dark, the outcome predictable but ups and downs, it is easy for the audience to feel a sense of immersion, and the heart moves with it ...... John Wayne is like the embodiment of the old cowboy, from the appearance to the temperament of nothing like out of the same mold, a man of very strong principles is very easy to go too far in stubbornness, but we can understand and even love this kind of man, except that he is the only one who has ever been in a situation where he has to go too far, but we can understand. But we can understand and even love this kind of person, in addition to his own charm but also because we know that he has experienced the shock of the loss of his lover, the heart of the guilt but never expressed, until he met the girl who said the same thing with the deceased lover (the adopted son's lover), we can feel that the stubborn heart began to soften.
Promotional photo of the movie Red River / The Great War Red River, John Wayne
It's just that the principle forces him to give an account of himself, which is why there is a final physical fight, and the duel of the cowboys who gave up their guns means reconciliation.
Women appear at the beginning of the movie, but this beauty, two minutes after she starts, Howard Hawks immediately arranges for her to die. For the rest of the story, only men are seen. The cowboys drive their herds up mountains and through wind and rain.
This movie is absolutely perfect for popularizing "cowboy" knowledge: how cowboys came to be, what the cowboys' clothes were actually used for, such as what the neckerchiefs were used for, what the cowboys ate on the road, how hard and dangerous the cowboys' work was, the importance of teamwork...
This movie is a great example of how the cowboys were created, and what they did in the past, and what they did on the road. ...
Stills from the movie Red River
The cowboys in Red River return to the true nature of the cowboys, and are no longer the "cowboys" of many westerns, those who spend their days with a gun, looking for provocation, or to protect a beautiful woman, and who is faster than the gun. "Cowboys"; no longer for the sake of shooting and shooting martial arts movie.
This is an atypical western, but at the same time has many elements of the classic western. The horseback riding in the desert sands, the mentally tense fast gun duels, the western rules of the weak and the strong. These things make it maintain the original color of the western film, and the play on the basis of this gives it the key to achieve the classic.
The structure of the story is complex but clearly articulated, the plot progresses in close connection with the personalities of the characters, and the conflict is no longer from the outside (e.g., the Indians), nor is it about good and evil, but rather about an internal clash of principles.
Stills from the movie Red River/War on the Red River, Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift
It doesn't stick to a small view of the West, but rather starts from a larger historical perspective, both reflecting on the pains of the Civil War and evoking the Western pioneers' It reflects on the pain of the Civil War and evokes the collective memories of the pioneers of the West. Howard Hawks moves in and out of the big picture, but from the smallest of characters.
Although the film still has the macho vibe of a traditional Western, it's already reflective (John Wayne's machismo indirectly leads to the death of his lover) and focuses on the portrayal of the female characters, especially the girl whose sexuality is so fiery that she plays a significant role in resolving the conflict.
John Ireland
The positive characters in Westerns are often highly skilled in martial arts, which of course means fighting, killing, and so on. This means, of course, fighting, killing, and so on. Their personalities are similar in that they are quiet, don't get along, and like to do some very old-fashioned, eccentric behavior.
This characteristic comes from John Ford's cold-faced heroes, and many Hollywood tough guys have followed suit, such as Gary Cooper (1901-1961), Gregory Peck (1916-2003), etc. They are cold in appearance, but also in the way they look. Their appearance is cold, giving a sense of unassailable distance, even if you kneel down and beg him for help he is still indifferent.
Scene from the movie Red River/War on Red River
But ultimately they're going to have to go through the motions for you because, at heart, they're restless, mostly nosy, eccentric rangers.
Like Red River, the cowboys' true playground should be in Texas, where the thin prairies, with their vast lands, are a cattle rancher's paradise.
But such a place is limited to real cowboys, that is to say, the cattlemen who actually sell tame cattle, not the ruffians with their sidearms and their guns who break the law and live in New Mexico, where they're likely to bury their feet in wild California or New Mexico.
Scenes from the movie Red River
Compared to the real world, the heroes of Westerns are more heroic and the villains more badass. They are a mixture of violence, blood, peace and goodness. So it can be argued that westerns are simply the voice of the American spirit.
"Pass Mountain Flyover/Stagecoach/Seven Heroes Stagecoach" (1939), as a representative work of John Ford's directing, marks the maturity and perfection of the Western, which "carries on the past and opens the paradigm of the Western genre", and also further consolidates the Western's molding of the Indians. The first Western to be released in the United States was a film that was made in the United States.
About a decade later, Howard Hawks made Red River, another classic Western that André Bazin (1918-1958) called a "masterpiece.
Scene from Red River, with John Wayne (left) and Montgomery Clift
The Indians in this movie are also a symbol of savagery and evil. In the direct portrayal of the Indians, director Howard Hawks first arranged the white man in a dead silent woods, and let the Indians hide in the dark, at the same time through a variety of strange grunts to render the horror of the atmosphere of tension, and when the audience and the characters of the film as the same nerves tense to the limit, the Indians suddenly jumped out of the picture. They are almost naked, with feathers on their heads, open mouths, wielding knives and axes, like hungry beasts pouncing on the white man. The movie doesn't give much footage of the Indians, but there is a lot of sideways expression of their savage and horrible image.
Poster for the American stills version of Red River
In addition to this, Red River also portrays a man called "Quo" (played by Chief Yowlachie). another type of Indian.
He was grim-faced, raspy-voiced, stiff-lipped, and seldom spoke, but he was very calculating. The night before he follows the cowboys to Missouri, Quo wins a cowboy's false teeth while gambling, and later refuses to return them no matter how much he is begged.
At first, the cowboys couldn't figure out "what he needed the dentures for", but later, when the team was passing through the desert, Quo put the dentures in his mouth to protect them from the sand, and the cowboys claimed that without the dentures, the sand he ate could "cover the whole state of Texas".
Photos from Red River, with Chief Yowlachie
Quo reluctantly agrees to "pay up" for the teeth until he's willing to pay a high price to get them back.
And it's only when he's willing to pay a high price for the teeth that Quo reluctantly agrees to "pay up front" and give them to him. Through this character, the movie seems to show that the Indians were cunning, if not savage villains.
As you can see, the early classic Westerns always portrayed the Indians in a negative light, deliberately making them horrible and frightening, but when it came to the end of these characters, the Westerns tended to let them die at the hands of the white man.
Most early Westerns featured characters who specialized in killing Indians, such as the Confederates in Passover and the cowboys in Red River. The Indians, who were initially extremely fierce, would become very vulnerable and unbeatable in the face of a strong white force.
Movie "Red River / The Great War Red River" UK Eureka Eureka Blu-ray Poster Edition Cover
In "Flying Over the Passage", as soon as the Federal cavalry appeared, the Indians were immediately overwhelmed and fled like birds and beasts. The Indians who attacked the white man's caravan in Red River, despite their numbers, fled in terror when the cowboys came to their aid.
Such dramatic scenes, in addition to showing the Indians' fear of the white man, also hint at the white man's eventual subjugation of the aborigines. Not only that, but in filming the Indians being exterminated, Westerns had a particular tendency to meticulously show their ugly faces as they were shot.
"Passing Over the Mountain" used multiple close-ups to highlight the Indians as they were hit by bullets and thrown from the backs of their galloping horses. There are similar scenes in Red River.
Stills from Red River
The Westerns did reflect the vigor and enterprise of the early years of the United States, but they did so at the expense of history and the Indians. In this sense, we can say that cinema has played a very important role in the creation and dissemination of the model image of the Indian.
Not only were Indians an integral part of Westerns, but horses were also an important feature of Westerns. Presumably the men had aspirations of riding horses when they were children.
In the hearts of westerners, the horse is more important than anything else, so we see that in Red River, a father and son have rejected the woman who loved them dearly while drifting, but will always be devoted to their horse.
Scene from the movie Red River/The Great Red War Red River, Montgomery CliftMontgomery CliftJoanne Dru
The horse represents the dignity of the knight, which is why we see in Sunset Yellow SandsThe Wild Bunch (1969), where Pike (played by William Holden) breaks a stirrup and falls off his horse, and is immediately derided by his men, "What's the point of talking about unity when you can't even ride a horse?"
In Unforgiven/Unforgiven (1992), Clint Eastwood tried to regain his former dignity, but couldn't get up on the horse and made a mess of it.
The apotheosis of the Western is also the apotheosis of the horse, and the spirit of the horse is the same as the Westerner's spirit of never betraying his integrity.
Scenes from Red River
Red River has almost all the elements of the Western: gunfights, crowds, sneak attacks, hangings, betrayal, revenge, love, glory, and, most especially, John Wayne's brilliant acting. If John Wayne broke away from the lowbrow Westerns with Fly Away from the Mountain, then Red River catapulted him to number one box office stardom. The movie solidified his screen persona: irascible in tone, headstrong, rich in greatness, charming masculinity and inner appeal.
Montgomery Clift was a famous Hollywood actor of the 1940s and 1950s, who won stardom on Broadway at the age of 17. He made his screen debut in Red River, and became an instant hit with his superb portrayal on the big screen.
Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift's portrayal of Red River was a huge hit with women
And in Red River, which was full of gay subtext, Howard Hawks lent Montgomery Clift's own qualities to make the gay image of the movie a reality. The movie also set the tone for Montgomery Clift's off-screen persona! The atmosphere of any movie Montgomery Clift appears in is incredibly ambiguous. Those cows are so cute and that woman is so redundant ...... Except, of course, for Lang Lang / A Place in the Sun (1951).
Instead, it was Montgomery Clift's The Search (1948), starring Montgomery Clift, that was first released in the U.S. on March 23, 1948, and which attracted the attention of all the big directors and a host of stars in Hollywood upon its release.
Scene from the movie Red River / The Great War Red River, Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift
The director of the movie The Lone Ranger of Chaos was Fred Zinnemann (1907-1997); Red River was released nationwide on August 26, 1948, so in terms of timing, some people think that The Search was Montgomery Clift's first screen debut, but it wasn't.
Red River was actually filmed in 1946, but was shelved for 2 years because Howard Hawks ran into a lawsuit after filming it. So Montgomery Clift made his screen debut with Red River instead of The Lonely Brood of Chaos.
Scene from the movie Red River/War by the Red River with John Wayne
Critic Joseph McBride Joseph McBride points out that a look at Howard Hawks' treatment of the gradual collapse between John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River The gradual breakdown in detail between them is worth recalling.
John Wayne appears tall and steady at the beginning of the screen, but by the end, he's not only thin but his hair is graying and his eyes are full of fatigue; the transition is so slow that we don't even notice that he's wearing a white hat at the beginning and a black one at the end.
John Wayne has always been considered a kind of natural star, not an actor.
Stills from the movie Red River, John Wayne
When Red River was released, it not only made Hollywood "impressed" with John Wayne, even director John Ford was "impressed" after seeing Red River. Ford said to Howard Hawks after watching Red River, "I never knew that big asshole could act." The "big bastard" was John Wayne, who had appeared in several of John Ford's movies.
In the documentary Gay in the Movies/The Celluloid Closet (1995), directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the focus is specifically on a young Montgomery Clift in Red River and a young man named Cherry Valance in the show. Valance (played by John Ireland).
Scene from the movie Red River, with Montgomery Clift and John Ireland
The show doesn't do anything positive about the rivalry between the two cowboys, and doesn't convey what's really going on between them. what really happened between them, but simply puts them in a special kind of conflict with each other.
"That's a pretty cool gun, can I see it?" , Cherry said, pointing to the gun on Montgomery Clift's waist. Upon handing the gun to Cherry, "Yeah, that's a nice gun."
Cherry then asked Montgomery Clift, "Maybe you'd like to see my gun too," and said handing Montgomery Clift the gun on his waist as well. Cherry takes Montgomery Clift's gun and says, "You know what? There are only two things in this world that are prettier than having a good gun, a Swiss watch or a woman. Do you have a Swiss watch?"
Stills from the movie Red River/War by the Red River, with Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift and John IrelandJohn Ireland
Montgomery Clift was a withdrawn, introverted man who resisted all the pressures to quietly maintain his integrity. These qualities can be summed up in the words of Soldier Prewitt in Gone with the Wind/Gone with the Red Pink From Here to Eternity (1953), probably Montgomery Clift's best rebel role!
Montgomery Clift also became the most popular "fresh meat" in Hollywood at that time because of "Red River", how many women adored his refreshingly English on the screen, as if he did not eat earthly fire, completely unadulterated and greasy kind, even the big star Olivia de Havilland (1919-1985), who was the most popular actress in the world, was the most popular actress in the world. Havilland (1916-2020) also fell for him and invited him by name to act in The Heiress (1949).
Stills from the movie The Heiress The Heiress (1949), Olivia de HavillandOlivia de HavillandMontgomery CliftMontgomery Clift
And The Heiress, the movie that ended up making Olivia de Havilland another Best Actress win at the 22nd Academy Awards in 1950.
With the release of The Heiress, Montgomery Clift embodied a new type of man on the screen, beautiful, sensual, and vulnerable in a way that seemed to appeal to both men and women. Since the release of The Heir, Montgomery Clift has finally become Hollywood's hottest male star, adored by millions.
For the next few years, his only rival in this regard was Marlon Brando (1924-2004).
On the set of the movie Gone with the Wind/Gone with the Wind From Here to Eternity (1953), Marlon Brando Marlon Brando visits Montgomery CliftMontgomery Clift
At that time Montgomery Clift didn't realize that an actor just as new to Hollywood as he was had set his sights on him, and it was none other than Marlon Brando.
Marlon Brando made director Fred Kinneman's The Men (1950) in 1949, and in director Fred Kinneman's memoirs, he specifically talks about how Marlon Brando asked him about Montgomery Clift several times during the making of The Men.
At this time, James Dean (1931-1955) and Paul Newman (1925-2008) were still on their way to Hollywood, but the intricate "relationship" stories of the four great Hollywood stars of the 1950s were just beginning to unfold. The story of the complex "relationships" of the four great Hollywood boys of the 1950s has just begun.
French Blu-ray Cover for Red River