Community and the Individual in John Fords The Quiet Man Essay

Community and the Individual in John Fords The tranquillity Man John Fords The Quiet Man is a romantic funniness that demonstrates Fords world-view by way of symbolic visual devices as well as in the basic plot the outsider being indoctrinated into a fellowship through the gradual understanding of rituals and rites of passage, as well as the weeny nuances of everyday animation. John Ford, a filmmaker with a strong Irish ancestry and pride in his roots, directed this film about the cede of a retired boxer to the town of his birth, Innisfree the plot is just the backbone of a film which is fleshed out by the ideas Ford expressed throughout tot whollyy his films the value and meaning of community, communicated with a unique salient hertz. This dramatic rhythm follows a pattern of assertion - underground - accommodation. Ford also uses many a(prenominal) icons (specific visual imagery repeated throughout many of his films which have a consistent meaning and/or function for F ord) to express his ideas, such as the use of doorways, which represent a boundary between a condom area and a dangerous one, and the watching/waiting shot, which shows someone in the throes of hope or sorrow, and demonstrates homecomings or departures. Other icons found in the film, and the bigger body of Fords work, include the horizon shot, which shows the passage from one mode of feeling to another, and the parade/procession, which displays community consistency, usually used in a exhibit of community success. Also used is the reaction-shot, which serves to appraise the importance of a dramatic happening through the reactions of various characters, and lastly and very importantly, the shared drinking of spirits, which is part of any sound celebration in Fords world. The opening sce... ...mily makes life easier and more pleasurable. Ford uses his icons to show the passing from one situation or lifestyle into another (such as horizon shots from the American life to the Iris h, or from the single life into the married) or to show the community in harmony (processions/parades, and shared spirits). His unusual dramatic rhythm is felt on a larger level (Seans assertion into the community, the resistance of Red Will and subsequent Mary Kate, the accommodation of the donnybrook and the final dinner scene) as well as in each individual scene this progression from assertion to resistance to accommodation, paired with the iconography, gives The Quiet Man a flavor and style all its own, and with the gorgeous Irish countryside as backdrop, the result is an essay on the supreme ideal situation of community harmony and the individual sacrifice it takes to pass it.