9 Reviews from the Land of JBU Cinema: "How Green Was My Valley"

Written for various prompts in and out of my Cinema classes at John Brown this past semester, these reviews/analyses seemed to warrant inclusion here.

Much can be said of "How Green Was My Valley," directed by John Ford in 1941, that is outside of the suggested range of topics. I, for one, found it to be surprisingly moving, if an early example of what contemporary pundits dub “Oscar bait.” The criticisms I have of its plot devices echo those I recently had for “The King’s Speech” – “How Green Was My Valley” is a skilled exercise in heartstring-pulling, but definitely errs on the side of melodrama. Indeed, my own cynicism almost blinded me to some of the rich spiritual nuggets that could be found from time to time throughout. It is best enjoyed outside the constraints of more modern storytelling sensibiliies.

I digress, however. Arthur Miller’s cinematographic style is quite striking, and serves at many points to highlight key thematic elements and tonalities. Yes, it is more photographic in nature than one might expect. However, at least from a technical standpoint, not many of the elements here that one might deem photographic are necessarily foreign to cinematography. We see long depth of field often, as well as high contrast, especially in older films such as this one. 

The most striking photographic element for me, aside from frequent (and brilliant) uses of contrast (the smokestacks belching noxious black fumes vs. the idealized countryside) and visual repetition (the houses leading up towards the mine, itself practically a main character in the story), was the feeling that so many of Miller’s establishing shots were carefully composed to act almost as tableau. In fact, the extreme contrast we see in so many frames is borne of great lighting, almost on the order of what you’d see in use in a studio as a portrait was being shot. It is almost as if Miller aims to take a “portrait” of every key setting or scene; every element in the frame is arranged just so, and everything is in crisp focus. It seems counter-intuitive at first to consider this idea in the context of Huw’s longing for a more naturalistic, freer past, but don’t you idealize your childhood now that you’re an adult? I know that my earlier memories and Miller’s cinematography seem very similarly stylized.

 

Another feature of tableau that I sensed (though individual perception and opinion regarding this will likely vary) is that in Miller’s wider establishing shots, relatively few of the elements in frame are actually in dynamic motion. Think of the shot where the crowd of miners walks down the lane away from the mine. The lighting is steady. The houses are stationary. The mine broods silently atop the hill. The smoke billows overhead, of course, but this is hardly startling movement. Even the miners, perhaps through the use of a longer lens, seem like they move their feet more than they actually progress down the hill. Again, this would fit thematically. Huw, like most of us, remembers his life in carefully polished images barely more than still-frames.