For this response, I focused on the statement by Peter
Wollen: “The auteur theory does not
limit itself to acclaiming the director as the main author of a film. It
implies an operation of decipherment; it reveals authors where none had been
seen before” (566). As a director, I have witnessed how the role of the director strongly impacts the
entire narration of the piece. I control many of the crucial elements: mise en
scene, blocking/movement, character development, music, etc. Yet the
collaborative nature of theatre means that no matter what, the story is owned
by and articulated through various “authors,” namely the playwright, actors,
and spectators. While media is a different lens than theatre, these principals
of copious authorship are still relevant. John Ford’s film direction highlights
the influences and authorship capabilities of voice-over narration, scenic
shots, and film editing, which combine to represent thematic antinomies, such
as the “civilized” versus the “savage.”
Ford’s award-winning film, How Green Was My Valley, (1941) supports
Wollen’s critique of Ford’s exploration in authorship, particularly regarding
binaries and their complex function in storytelling for film: “the system of
oppositions is much more complex: instead of there being two broad strata of
film there are a whole series of shifting variations. In these cases, we need
to analyze the roles of the protagonists themselves, rather than simply the
worlds in which they operate.” This quote guided my viewing of this film, serving
as a tool for uncovering how Ford chose to structure Huw Morgan’s authorship of is own story, and his relationship with the world around him, both in the past and present. The opening voiceover of an adult Huw—“I am packing my
belongings in the shawl my mother use to wear when she went to the market. And
I’m going to my valley. And this time, I shall never return”—and the viewing of Huw as a young child, immediately
establishes that the rest of the film will be the recapitulation of Huw’s
childhood, and an exploration into how the green valleys have become overtaken
with the blackness of the coal mines. Thus the physical exposure of the
green-now-black valley creates this antinomy of a once civilized, yet now
savaged world that has caused Huw to long for his childhood.
The rest of the film is a flashback
of Huw’s young life, and the many tragic events that occurred, such as the mining
strike, and death of his brother (Ivor) and father (Gwilym). By having the
protagonist be a young child who mainly observes, it causes the authorship to fall into the
hands of the older characters: Huw’s parents, brothers, sister, sister-in-law,
teacher, and Mr. Gruffyd the new preacher. Thus even though
these are Huw’s memories, he is more of a witness of the world around him. A
protagonist is normally described as the one with the strong objectives,
bringing about the main action in the story. Yet here, quite the opposite is
taking place. So as we experience the film, should we reflect more on the older
Hugh with his blackened valleys, or the younger Hugh with his greener valleys?
It is intriguing how Ford has directed this film to reveal two different “authors” within the same character. This highlights the
importance of narration and its relationship to time, which also highlights the
binary relationship of the civilized and the savage, since this town goes from
one to the other over time.
To elaborate further, by setting up
this film as a memory tale where Huw is narrating his past (as the audience
experiences it in the present), Ford is reflecting the concepts of Roland
Barthes in The Death of the Author,
who addresses two opposing views on storytelling in relation to time: “the
author, when we believe in him, is always conceived as the past of his own
book…that is, he pre-exists it, thinks, suffers, lives for it.” He then adds
his rebuttal: “Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born
simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which
precedes or transcends his writing…there is no other time than that of the
utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now” (4). In other
words, once the piece is written, the author “dies” and their writing will always
be experienced in present time, with the reader viewing things with their own
mindset, opinions, and realities. The author’s existence does not factor into
how their work will be received or interpreted. Likewise, as we view Ford’s
film in real time, Huw (the “author” and narrator) basically fades into the
background of his own story. The major events that happen are often not his
doing, therefore, he is not depicted like the author or protagonist at all. Our
experience with his memories is less about him, and more about the world in
which he lives, and how we experience his past in the present. Yet with the
narration of grown-up Huw, and the images of the valley at the beginning and
end, Ford is directing us to recall this protagonist throughout the film, and
reflect on how his actions, influences, and surroundings have caused him to
long for his valley in present day.
In conclusion, binaries are
definitely at play in Ford’s film: the author is “dead” enough to allow us the
chance to experience his memories in real time, without the constant feeling
that we are living through one character’s memory and feelings the entire time.
Yet through the narration, older Huw remains the observant yet omniscient center
of the entire film. This mixture of the past and present emphasizes how the civilized has become savaged over time, thus establishing a clear thematic binary, which is Ford's unique style: “My own view is
that Ford’s work is much richer than that of Hawks and that this is revealed by
a structural analysis; it is the richness of the shifting relations between
antinomies in Ford’s work that makes him a great artist, beyond being simply an
undoubted auteur” (575).
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