the actor firmly on his feet

In “The Infernal Pursuit”, John Ford often frames him full-length, all legs. The actor’s performance owes a lot to this slender silhouette. He is praised in the documentary “Henry Fonda, justice as his motto”, also to be seen this evening on Arte.

D‘no one swears by Cyd Charisse’s legs in All on stage or Let’s sing in the rain. None, for me, equal those of Henry Fonda, to whom Arte devotes an evening. I doubt I have ever seen them uncovered, but I find in them an eloquence comparable to that of his clear gaze which a little is enough to darken. John Ford, who directed him in seven films, was enamored of the actor’s approach. “He could have [le] watching people walk along a street”, tells us Winston Miller, screenwriter of The Infernal Pursuit (stupidly translated from My Darling Clementine), which opens the evening. If John Wayne, with whom the director filmed around twenty westerns, undulates his buttocks with relaxation, Fonda’s style is aristocratic in nature: legs extending the bust and creating a slender silhouette, which Ford exploited like no other. In this 1946 masterpiece, where the actor composes a Wyatt Earp of unexpected delicacy, the filmmaker delights in the play of his lower limbs, frequently framing him at full length to give free rein to their upright expression and relaxing. The way he walks the main street of Tombstone or stretches his canes from the barber’s chair contributes to the definition of his character, a virility tempered by a suave elegance.

Broadcast in the second part of the evening, the documentary Henry Fonda, justice as his motto said of him that he reconciles “the ancient demands of masculinity with new, subtle and refined fragrances”. Two scenes from The Infernal Pursuit support this assertion: the one where, clean-shaven and perfumed to accompany Clementine to the ball, he finds himself dancing with her, raising his knees too high so as not to lose a little dignity; and the recurring one which shows him rocking backwards on a seat. It then begins like a dance movement, his boots alternately resting on a post of the awning under which he is located. The slightly phallic verticals of the decor (cacti, posts) are matched by the horizontality of footwork which contradicts them in a childish way – it couldn’t be less virile.

s The Infernal Pursuit on Arte, Sunday November 3, at 9 p.m.
q Henry Fonda, justice as his mottoon Arte and Arte.tv, Sunday November 3, at 10:35 p.m.