Authors and After Words

At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the southern states were devastated. Agriculture was at a standstill; starvation was a common threat. Texas had escaped the devastation, and the ranchers there had produced huge herds of cattle, which ironically, were worth little since there was no way to get the beef to eastern markets. The railroad was being constructed at the time, running through Missouri and Kansas but that only meant that the herds would have to be driven northwards from as far south as the Rio Grande. Red River (1948) is the story of the first of those cattle drives along the Chisolm Trail.

Red River was directed by Howard Hawks. It was his first collaboration with John Wayne and was also Montgomery Clift’s first film. John Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a man who leaves a westbound wagon train to seek his fortune in Texas. He promises to come and get his fiancé once he is settled, but sadly, she is killed in an Indian raid. The only survivor of the raid is a young orphan named Matthew Garth (Mickey Kuhn), whom Dunson takes under his rough wing. They and Dunson’s sidekick, Groot Nadine (Walter Brennan) cross the Red River, the border between Oklahoma and Texas, and head south to the Rio Grande where Dunson acquires a vast spread of land. Fourteen years later, young Garth, (now all grown up into Montgomery Clift) returns from the Civil War to find Dunson and the other ranchers holding thousands of cattle that aren’t worth a damn if they can’t be sold. So Dunson, Garth, and their crew round up the herds and head north. Things get more and more difficult; Dunson becomes more bull-headed and autocratic. Like Fletcher Christian, Matt Garth leads a mutiny and takes over the drive. Like Captain William Bligh, Dunson is left behind, threatening that “Some day you’ll turn around and I’ll be there; I’m gonna kill ya, Matt.”

So, Dunson gathers a posse while Matt heads the drive on up to Abilene. Along the way, he and his men chase off a band of Indians harassing a wagon train and Matt meets and falls in love with a feisty young woman named Tess Millay (Joanne Dru). Like Dunson before him, he leaves her and heads on up to Abilene where he meets an honest broker who buys his beef. In the meantime, Dunson and his posse intercept the wagon train and Dunson meets Tess. She heads off to Abilene with him to try to fend off the showdown that Dunson is determined to carry out. We will return to the plot momentarily.

The land and the beasts: The herds that were driven north from the southern ranches were huge, and so is the herd that is featured in this film. The landscape over which they were driven was vast as is the landscape in this film. Hawks is meticulous in the way he features them both for they are, it could be argued, the most significant "characters" in the story.

In photographing the land, Hawks uses long shots with the horizon low in the frame to emphasize the big sky pressing down upon the open land. The effect is to provide a scale that serves as a reference throughout the film. This allows him to maintain a contrast in the more intimate mid-shots and close-ups which accentuate the vulnerability of the men, especially in the drenching rain sequences. The night scenes, actually photographed in daylight through dark lenses, often feature huge cloud formations to remind the eye, even in the "dark," of the vastness of the land.

As with the landscape, Hawks uses the herd to continually place the men in scale against the colossal undertaking. Many of his long shots will feature the herd moving through the frame, a single behemoth creature, held only barely under control. When he brings the camera closer, as in the shots of the herd crossing the Red River, the power of the mass and the vulnerability of the men on horseback amidst this horde is dramatically reinforced. Then, in what is arguably the most remarkable sequence in the film, the stampede at night places the camera in the midst of the roil, tracking the power of the beasts in panic running through each frame with the force of a hurricane. Finally, using both medium and long shots to show the herd coming into and filling up the town of Abilene, Hawks underscores the immensity of Matt’s accomplishment.

This is exquisite film making. Hawks’ plays his camera like a virtuoso musician, but it must be said that his visual euphony is matched by the score written by Dimitri Tiompkin. Between the two of them, Hawks and Tiompkin, there are moments when the plot is almost, but not completely superfluous.

Oedipus denied: The critical reactions to this film usually rave about the cattle drive, but generally give short shrift to the plot – especially the ending. Yes, Dunson catches up with Matt in Abeline but instead of having a shoot out Matt refuses to draw his gun. This means that they must go fist to fist – which, on the surface, is totally ludicrous since John Wayne was much larger than Montgomery Clift. Nevertheless Clift manages to hold his own until the fight is broken up by Tess Millay. Once she brings the "father" and "son" to their senses, with the implication that she and Matt will indeed become husband and wife, Dunson takes Matt into full partnership, restores the family and ensures the future.

The most serious reaction by critics was that Red River would be a better film if Matt would actually face his "father" in a real gun duel and kill him so that the old man would pay the full price of his hubris. This objection suggests a classical Greek tragedy with the standard Freudian twist. But there is another way to look at it.

Consider Red River as a variation on the biblical story of "Abraham and Issac" wherein the father is bent on sacrificing his son to his god, but that god has been replaced by a god of love and forgiveness. The son refuses to fight, lays down his gun and offers himself as a sacrifice indeed, but not to anger but for love. With a fistfight to prove his manliness, his love overcomes the father’s anger. In this new vision of the proper balance between father and son, forgiveness may cost a bloody nose and a few sore muscles, but the miracle occurs nevertheless. Here is the quintessential myth of the American West. Eden will be restored in the New World, generations will be reconciled and the family made whole, Oedipus be damned. This is what it means to be endowed with life, liberty, and good, hard, feminine common sense, all in the pursuit of happiness.