For the most recent season of TCM and Novel’s “The Plot Thickens” podcast, host Ben Mankiewicz grew to become a treasure hunter. Perhaps a part of him all the time was, because the job of a movie historian is commonly to search out and showcase work that’s been misplaced. Taking it a step additional, introducing others to any new movie for the primary time could make one really feel like Indiana Jones discovering the Ark of the Covenant and Mankiewicz emulates that have with “The Plot Thickens.” In Season 5, Mankiewicz examines the life and works of filmmaker John Ford, utilizing audio conversations with Katherine Hepburn, Woody Strode, John Wayne, and others to light up our understanding of the masterful, but mercurial director. However there’s an added journey inside Mankiewicz’ journey in the direction of understanding Ford that sees the critic and character cross oceans, courageous harsh climate, and are available face-to-face with the horrors of the previous.
One of many nice items of misplaced cinema is John Ford’s movie of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Although Ford’s documentary quick movie “The Battle of Halfway” was revered for its brutal, but gorgeous imagery and skill to make struggle a actuality for People an ocean away, many consider his D-Day movie was too horrifying for public consumption. In previous interviews, Ford himself referenced the movie and acknowledged its grotesque content material, however archivists all over the world have been unable to find a single copy. For “The Plot Thickens: Decoding John Ford,” Mankiewicz threw his hat within the ring as properly, touring to London to view footage, in addition to bearing witness to Omaha Seashore, one of many key touchdown websites of the Normandy Invasion.
Although the search is just one a part of the narrative this season attracts up, it’s a reminder of the worth Mankiewicz and others place in preserving not solely movie historical past, however Ford’s legacy. Talking to IndieWire for an unique on the brand new season, Mankiewicz stated Ford and his movies have been stuffed with “contradictions” and “myths” that ended up negatively shaping our notion of how this nation got here to be, but the wonder and humanity of his movies rise above all judgement.
“There are a litany of criticisms you can lay out when discussing Ford and so they should be mentioned, and they need to be mentioned, and so they’re true, and not one of the that takes away from the reverence that he’s additionally due,” Mankiewicz stated. “For not solely creating one actually essential, emotional movie after one other, however for being the chief propagandist for our personal picture of what it meant to be an early American.”
Regardless of various written items and documentaries which have lined Ford’s historical past and profession, Mankiewicz felt drawn to bringing the director again into the highlight after uncovering tapes of him and others that only a few had heard.
“Ford’s story was — it’s not prefer it hasn’t been advised — however not in a very long time and not likely anyplace besides in a sequence of fairly well-researched and well-written biographies, no query, which we culled an incredible quantity of knowledge from,” he defined. “However none of that may’ve occurred with out discovering all this audio that definitely has not been heard by anybody outdoors individuals selecting to go take heed to it, has not been distributed, and has not been curated into one thing like this.”
He added later, “Listening to from Ford himself, listening to from Katherine Hepburn discuss him — the compassionate manner you’ll hear her discuss him — it modifications how you consider him. I’m not saying it makes him higher or worse, it simply makes him extra human and John Ford, I feel in some ways, was extra human than any of us. All the pieces he did was along with his strengths and flaws and his humor and his aggression and his self-loathing and his brilliance all blended up in a single.”
And Mankiewicz isn’t the one one with reverence for Ford and his movies. His latest TCM collaborators, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson have additionally been outspoken with reference to their affection for the director, with Spielberg even paying homage in his latest movie “The Fabelmans” to a second he shared with Ford early in his profession. In his dialog with IndieWire, Mankiewicz additionally revealed a backstage second that happened between the three TCM curators.
“Throughout the great assist these three administrators have given us at TCM — on one of many Zoom calls that we had with them a few yr in the past as they have been speaking about what they needed to see on TCM in 2024 — a lot of which, you’re going to see on TCM in 2024 — there was only a second, and I hope I’m not betraying something by revealing this, the place the three of them have been having a dialog at one other time about, after seeing one in every of their films, about who amongst them had made probably the most John Ford-ian movie,” he stated, smiling. “Initially that they had stated that it was and I feel they nonetheless suppose it’s ‘There Will Be Blood,’ that Paul had made probably the most John Ford-ian movie. However the query was, is ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ extra John Ford-ian than ‘There Will Be Blood?’ And I used to be like, ‘It is a actually enjoyable dialog.’”
With out revealing the outcomes of Mankiewicz’s search, it may be stated that this new season of “The Plot Thickens” finds a terrific deal. Utilizing newfound recordings and offering skilled commentary, Mankiewicz pulls listeners again into the previous and finally ends up drawing a fuller image of John Ford as an individual than maybe anybody else has earlier than.
“I feel he made films as a result of he fancied himself an artist, although I don’t suppose he’d ever use these phrases,” Mankiewicz stated when requested what he thought motivated Ford to be a filmmaker. “He might paint. He might draw. And this gave him a chance to be an artist and to be in cost and to be the commander. This was the place he was the captain. And I’m gonna guess that it bought him away from residence for a time, although I’m certain he needed to return again. And it created that sense of group that he so desperately needed. The merciless irony is that his method of behaving on the set saved him from being a full a part of that group.”
As a result of this wouldn’t be a dialog with Mankiewicz with out speaking about films, when requested what his favourite Ford movie was, he responded, “‘The Final Hurrah.’ A part of that’s motivated by, I’m certain, a need to not give a solution that different individuals give, however I find it irresistible. I like political movies and my dad cherished that film. From his reminiscence as a child, probably the most, form of, correct political movies that resonated probably the most from that period when he was then a younger man have been ‘All of the King’s Males’ and ‘The Final Hurrah.’ He simply thought that was the very best marketing campaign movie ever.”
Hearken to “The Plot Thickens: Decoding John Ford” beginning on June 6 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and watch the trailer for the season beneath.