Four Sons. 1928. USA. Directed by John Ford. Written by Philip Klein, based on a story by I. A. R. Wylie. With Margaret Mann, James Hall, Charles Morton, George Meeker, Francis X. Bushman, Jr. Silent, with music track. 16mm. 97 min.
In one of his few surviving silent films, John Ford depicts a German mother who sees her children divided by World War I: her eldest, who wants her to join him in the US, where he has immigrated, and her remaining three children, who are drafted into the German army. A powerful tale of grief and solitude—for which F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise played an aesthetic influence (rarely has Ford moved his camera in such ways)—Four Sons is a remarkable early example of the American director’s interest in the moving intersections between hope, violence, love, and grief behind every face and nation.