Red River

Howard Hawks - 1948
It is difficult to talk about just how beautiful parts of this film are. Figures are often sillohuetted, of cows, horses, or people. They sky they are against is, whenver impossible, itself a complex organism of dark clouds and billowing patterns. Underneath them are the great waves of mist, heat and breath floating above the cows. Shapes and people can dissappear into this.
One of the great shots is surely the 270' ish pan across the whole lot of the cows. They are often shot from above, in contrast to looking up at the cowboys. The skyline is usually just a touch above halfway up the screen (compare to 'Earth' and 'Where Is The Friend's House?'). We are in a place, but always focussed on who is there.
Again, the issue is never really resolved. We have a crazy lust for land, not really covered over by the ending. If classicism is a certain 'everything's fine' at the end, then Hawks isn't classical. We also have other Hawks themes; the violence that institutes the law (seemingly approved of as a necessary undercurrent), with Wayne's shooting just so he can have other people's land. We also have at once a wish to get women out of the way and a complete terror of their 'lack of dignity', i.e. gruffness, intrusion of male bonding. Hawks' groups of men are loyal, here there are Stalinist purges of dissenters.