John Ford and Graham Greene are like two sides of the same coin. One Irish-American, one English, both deeply influenced by Catholicism. Ford seems the ultimate conduit for Greene’s work given their spiritual proclivities. Yet, the only time Ford adapted his work was in The Fugitive, based on (arguably) Greene’s best novel, The Power and The Glory. One wonders, had this film been more successful on release, what other Ford/Greene adaptations could we have gotten? So why wasn’t this film really successful?
Part of this series is finding out what doesn’t work as well as what does. And I don’t think this film particularly works or holds up, mainly because of the Production Code and the ways in which the film strays from the novel. I have not read The Power and the Glory but I understand that the book had more of an edge, and the “whiskey priest” main character was more complex than Henry Fonda’s portrayal. In the book, he’s a drunk, has an illegitimate child, and is on the run. In the film, he’s just on the run. The Code would never allow a mainstream film of this caliber to pass with the intricacies of the book tied into it.
Fundamentals:
Gabriel Figueroa & Lenses:
Ford loved this film more than most of his others because of Figueroa’s photography. Figueroa was trained under Gregg Toland and learned how to photograph Mexico from his close relationships with other Mexican artists, such as the muralist Diego Rivera. According to an account Figueroa describes in American Cinematographer in 1992, Ford knew the exact frame each lens would produce. Like Sidney Lumet would recount years later in his 1995 memoir Making Movies, the intellectual use of lenses to tell the story would become a vital part of his filmmaking technique. He describes the “lens plot” of 12 Angry Men, where he progressively uses tighter lenses as the film draws on to underline the feeling of the deliberation room getting smaller; the characters more suffocated by the space closing in around them, their faces growing more distorted. These are the brilliant fundamentals that Ford’s work inspires. Though later in his career Ford always downplayed his craft, he had tremendous command of every aspect of the process, like a baseball player with 5-tools.
There’s a specific shot at the end of the film, before (spoiler alert!) Fonda is executed. He is sitting in his jail cell next to the Lieutenant who has been trying to find him (Pedro Armendariz). The Lieutenant stands next to him, his face completely covered in shadow, while Fonda’s face is lit more high-key, so we can see his features. It’s a shot that really says so much and strays from the majestic beauty of Figueroa’s landscapes and wides exteriors. The use of shadows and light can convey so much emotion with so little effort.
