John Ford, where are you?
America IS the home today of the risk averse man. Except for Sandy Berger who risked 20 years in prison, probably to destroy evidence and warp forever history as it should be, namely the heritage of the guilt ridden (see the reaction to Chris Wallace and his 'little smirk', possibly the most GUILTY reaction I have ever seen on live TV) ex President Clinton, the most risk averse man to occupy the office since ....well....since.....since, never mind I can't think of anyone.
In 1993 18 non risk-averse Americans were killed when rangers risked their necks to save those trapped in Mogadishu by a helicopter crash post RPG ambush, while helping feed starving Somalians, who were too busy importing jihadis and killing each other in a welter of entropy laden stupidities and civil violence to notice anything but hunger and warlords and foreigners. The 18 lost army rangers was too much risk for Mr. Clinton, who then pulled American armed forces out of Somalia, and then in turn eventually placed that risk on the american civilians at home who were to be protected by the rangers and their actions.
We don't want our young people maimed and killed for a bunch of grievance ridden, religious warring, jihadi freaks who by the way are stealing our moneys as they run out at night planting shaped charges wherever americans might pass by, while busying themselves otherwise kiling and maiming their semi co-religionists.
Fine.
But let's face it, failure to do so will place that risk those young people undertake right back on people like those sitting on the edge of their desks on a fine clear sunny tuesday morning one September.
Film makers and stars bemoan the risk our young people take. Imagine how they would have been whining over our horrific provocations of the Japanese, a nation with few natural resources, struggling to rise above it's third world back ground, and deprived of it's place in the sun by the aggressive, intolerant, imperial Roosevelt administration and its influential war hawking neocons (can anyone say Morgenthau and the rest of 'THEM', you know who, right (KKK ALERT) ?)
Let's imagine the reverse, though, John Ford, today.
What movies would John Ford, or Frank Capra have made today?
Would his movie have been like Syriana in the midst of this war?
Or would it have used "Because They Hate" for the basis of a screenplay?
Would he have bemoaned fate like Tony Kushner, and Steven Spielberg's Munich in an (false) orgy of all killing is evil, and subtle (or not) question about post 9/11 justice and war? Or perhaps would it have been exultation in the real life of the "Wrath of God" team, and their attempt at justice in world indifferent to televised murder and beheadings?
Would a John Ford have Howard Zinn'd the freeing of Afghanistan like a Sean Penn, or Tim Robbins? Or would we have seen a modern version of They Were Expendable
Often we see the complaints about the NY Times, but far more complicit in the elitist snubbing of meaning and value, of history and self exposure to honorable motives, of arrogant self hate and running to accept evil via moral cowardice, or the bland delusion of control given by blaming one's self or countrymen are those who make and star in movies that reach millions every day.
Today we have no John Ford, or Henry Fonda, no Gregory Peck or John Wayne, no Gary Cooper or Frank Capra, instead we have Gary Busey and Billy Zane
Someone had better wake up.
Freedom is a good.
Freedom of religion is a good.
Freedom of expression is a good.
None of them lead to perfection.
But John Ford's spiritual secret was his inner knowledge that the perfect is not the enemy of the good, and his pride in exposing this knowledge, that yearning for those thing which can never yield perfection, and will always yield mistakes, is far better than anything else yet presented for examination on this planet.
Hollywood has lost itself.
Sometimes we need to exult in and inspire shamelessly those stunningly imperfect values which have been given at great expense from one generation to another, so that we can remind ourselves and each other of the risks we need to run, the chances which must be taken to continue the chain to what follows.
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Fantastic post. Very well put.
Good article. You may know this, but I did not until recently: John Ford was quite liberal. Yet he made terrific films and worked with people far on the right such as John Wayne. Taken in moderation, there is something to the "good old days."