The Taking

The majestic vista of Monument Valley has long proved a fertile playground for countless filmmakers looking to capture a sense of grandeur in their work. But perhaps no one name is more synonymous with these sandstone buttes on the Arizona-Utah border than John Ford. Utilising the filmmaker’s celebrated westerns as a central theme, Philippe’s fascinating documentary explores the ways in which cinema has transformed the location into an almost mythical landscape, imposing meaning on it and informing cultural perceptions in the process, whilst at the same time erasing Native American histori...