Not the greatest installment in Ford’s catalogue. The story never really reaches an apex and feels like it ends several times. However, Ford still manages to be incredibly expressive and evocative. Winton C. Hoch, the film’s cinematographer, won the Oscar for best color cinematography at the 1950 Academy Awards, and one can clearly see why. The gallery below compares Hoch’s cinematography with the paintings of Frederic Remington, who greatly inspired the look of this film.
Unlike some of the previously screened films in the Ford Fundamentals series at Secret Movie Club, Yellow Ribbon lacks in Ford’s most fundamental technique – story. It’s hard to say why, but I don’t think this movie particularly works outside of this central flaw much at all. Sure, it’s beautiful to look at in its Technicolor glory and obviously Hoch was a master at manipulating color and hue into something as expressive as this film. I’m thinking specifically of the graveyard scenes tinged with red twilight. But are movies just pretty pictures? Isn’t there something more we as an audience need?
