"Pilgrimage" is sadly one of John Ford's least appreciated masterworks. I think this one is better than Ford's other film of the year, "Doctor Bull" (his first collaboration with Will Rogers). "Pilgrimage"'s undeserved obscurity is due to the fact that most pre-1935 Fox films are highly inaccessible and very hard to find on video. This is something to be lamented because this is such a lovely piece of work in need of reappraisal.
For me, what is so fascinating about "Pilgrimage" is the scene in which Hannah Jessop, a hard-hearted mother who mistakenly enlists her son Jim to the army, talks to her son on his grave. Hannah asks Jim to forgive what she did to him and she falls on his grave in a fog-covered, Murnau-inspired tracking shot. This is hardly an aberration. In Ford's work, the living often communicates with the dead in complex ways.
In "Judge Priest", there is a marvellous scene where Will Rogers talks to his wife on her tombstone. Far from affirming his long-lost wife and her children, the scene illustrates Priest's loneliness and celibacy and the transitory attitude toward his life. As much as reconciling and healing tensions, Ford's heroes are extremely lonely and sometimes their loneliness often leads to self-destruction (a classic example is Ford's sublime swan song, "7 Women"). In "Young Mr. Lincoln", Abe Lincoln talks to Ann Rutledge on her graveyard. By doing this, Lincoln finally surrenders to her and carries her past spirit into his mythic status.
Ford's most personal works feature a deeply felt Catholicity. He redeems the dead as much as the living, and a new era is built on past mistakes and sacrifices. But what's so remarkable about "Pilgrimage" is that unlike Lincoln and Priest, Hannah forgets her status as a true mediator and creates a disharmony that purports to be order. Lincoln and Priest's roles as mediators are far more subtle and complex in their grasp of their own intolerant communities. Still, Hannah recovers and after her pilgrimage, she finally meets Jim's son and embraces him. And in the end a sense of harmony and security is born of Hannah's pilgrimage and self-discovery.
For me, what is so fascinating about "Pilgrimage" is the scene in which Hannah Jessop, a hard-hearted mother who mistakenly enlists her son Jim to the army, talks to her son on his grave. Hannah asks Jim to forgive what she did to him and she falls on his grave in a fog-covered, Murnau-inspired tracking shot. This is hardly an aberration. In Ford's work, the living often communicates with the dead in complex ways.
In "Judge Priest", there is a marvellous scene where Will Rogers talks to his wife on her tombstone. Far from affirming his long-lost wife and her children, the scene illustrates Priest's loneliness and celibacy and the transitory attitude toward his life. As much as reconciling and healing tensions, Ford's heroes are extremely lonely and sometimes their loneliness often leads to self-destruction (a classic example is Ford's sublime swan song, "7 Women"). In "Young Mr. Lincoln", Abe Lincoln talks to Ann Rutledge on her graveyard. By doing this, Lincoln finally surrenders to her and carries her past spirit into his mythic status.
Ford's most personal works feature a deeply felt Catholicity. He redeems the dead as much as the living, and a new era is built on past mistakes and sacrifices. But what's so remarkable about "Pilgrimage" is that unlike Lincoln and Priest, Hannah forgets her status as a true mediator and creates a disharmony that purports to be order. Lincoln and Priest's roles as mediators are far more subtle and complex in their grasp of their own intolerant communities. Still, Hannah recovers and after her pilgrimage, she finally meets Jim's son and embraces him. And in the end a sense of harmony and security is born of Hannah's pilgrimage and self-discovery.