The House Next Door

By Kevin B. Lee

[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]

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Often cited as John Ford’s favorite film, this turn-of-the century period piece about folksy Judge Priest, the de facto patriarch of a sleepy Kentucky town, at first seems hopelessly dated with its unrepentant nostalgia for a Confederate society whose implicit bigotry enables a cavalcade of dubious stereotypes, not least of which is the embarrassing jigaboo schtick of African American cultural albatross Stepin Fetchit as Priest’s servant. But on formalist terms, this may very well be one of Ford’s most perfect achievements, in which he masterfully orchestrates the rites and rituals that govern a small community into a 90 minute cinematic circus. Each scene brims with Ford’s inimitably attentive playfulness with decorum, decoding and sometimes debunking the social assumptions guiding each character’s interactions, and the sheer beauty of how Ford films bodies moving through space in a civic ballet is a joy to behold. Ford acknowledges and embraces the contradictions of humanism and prejudice governing class, gender and race relations, such as distinguishing one form of vigilantism (shooting a rapist businessman in the back instead of arresting him) as acceptable while another (lynching a helples black man) is strongly condemned). Progress and tradition are locked in a perpetual duel over the life of this town, most vividly in the contrasting protocols of local Confederate and Union army veteran meetings and the scandalous funeral of a prostitute where Judge Priest, at risk of losing his job, takes a principled, proto-feminist stand under the guise of common decency. Tensions finally give way to a prolonged procession—bubbling with music and devoid of words—involving the various factions of the entire town. Filled with collective joy and private sorrow, it strikes a mournal grace note that simultaneously commemorates and laments the man-made forms that maintain and constrict this microcosm of society.
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