Fort Apache

John Ford - 1948
The first film of the calvary trilogy, this struck me as a masterful, powerful Western. The tiny figures careering, but then quite still, through monument valley, the black and white steam from the horses. The gorizon is usually about halfway up the screen, but Ford doesn't use that shot too much.
A couple of thoughts on the action scene in Ford. There are maybe upwards of five camera positions, and Ford speeds up the edit between them. His camera doesn't get shaky, often just pans in a quick little motion across a rather small angle as a shot fires or a horse flies over. And then there are of course the shots where the camera is presumably on some kind of vehicle. These are so exhillirating, so smooth, so steady, amidst the fanfare.
This struck me as an anti-war film, critical of parts of the American attitude. Henry Fonda is an insane warmonger; O.K. the Indians are pcitures in cliched and proto-racist manners, but this seems to stem from a lack of understanding, a refusal to listen; there is no suggestion they are naturally 'savage'. Indeed, it is capitalism, in fact, that is ruining everything.
Ford does idealise the community, the comradeship of the cavalry, but there is nevertheless a great power in the nuanced dances he gives the (often deluded) people. There is something of that affectionate criticism most famous in Renoir.