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John Ford 

 

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 TOP 100 

 
 Pantheon Director 
 
The 5th Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker Poll)
 
Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)
 
New York Film Academy's 20 Great Movie Directors
 
Premiere's 10 Directors Who Changed Cinema
 
Jean-Pierre Melville's 64 Favourite Pre-War American Filmmakers (Cahiers du Cinema, October 1961)
 
Fred Camper's Top 10 Directors
Chris Fujiwara's Top 10 Directors
Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors
David Robinson's 5 Best Directors
Angel Fernández Santos' 5 Best Directors
Kenneth Turan's 5 Best Directors
 
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Budd Boetticher
Peter Bogdanovich
Michael Curtiz
Edward Dmytryk
Allan Dwan
Clint Eastwood
Henry Hathaway
Howard Hawks
Sergio Leone
Anthony Mann
John Sturges
Raoul Walsh
View video clips relating to this director at YouTube.com
Director / Producer
1894 - 1973
Born February 1, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, USA
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Drama, Western, Traditional Western, Adventure, Biography, Cavalry Film, Adventure Drama, War, Epic Western, Revisionist Western, Romance, Rural Drama
Key Collaborators: Ward Bond (Leading Character Player), Jack Murray (Editor), John Wayne (Leading Player), John Carradine (Character Player), Frank S. Nugent (Screenwriter), Dudley Nichols (Screenwriter), Bert Glennon (Cinematographer), James Basevi (Production Designer), Harry Carey Jr. (Character Player), Merian C. Cooper (Producer)
Highly Recommended: The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), My Darling Clementine (1946), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Recommended: 3 Bad Men (1926), The Informer (1935), The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), Stagecoach (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), They Were Expendable (1945), The Fugitive (1947), 3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), Wagon Master (1950), When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950), The Wings of Eagles (1957), The Last Hurrah (1958)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Reel Classics ] [ Films on Disc Article ] [ Gerald Peary on John Ford ] [ Senses of Cinema Article ] [ Rouge Article (2005) ] [ American Masters ] [ Senses of Cinema Article (2007) ] [ Premiere Article (2007) ] [ DVD Beaver Article by Jonathan Rosenbaum (2007) ]
Books: [ John Ford: Interviews ] [ Searching for John Ford: A Life ] [ About John Ford ] [ John Ford: A Bio-Bibliography ] [ Pappy: The Life of John Ford ] [ John Ford: The Complete Films ] [ Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford ] [ John Ford and the American West ] [ John Ford (Peter Bogdanovich) ] [ John Ford: The Man and His Films ] [ John Ford Made Westerns: Filming the Legend in the Sound Era ]
DVD's: [ Amazon ]
1,000 Greatest Films: The Informer (1935), Stagecoach (1939), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Tobacco Road (1941), They Were Expendable (1945), My Darling Clementine (1946), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), Wagon Master (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Sun Shines Bright (1953), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Seven Women (1966)
 
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)My Darling Clementine (1946)The Quiet Man (1952)The Searchers (1956)
 
     
  "In portraying, throughout a long and prolific career, the history of the United States from the Revolutionary War to World War II, Ford continually resorted to a deeply, personal, nostalgic form of legend. If there is no doubt of his importance to the development of the Western, his uniquely sentimental, poetic glorification of the white American's conquest of the wilderness is both picturesque and reactionary." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)  
     
  "Belligerent, grandiose, deceitful and arrogant in real life, Ford seldom let these traits spill over into his films. They express at their best a guarded serenity, a sceptical satisfaction in the beauty of the American landscape, muted always by an understanding of the dangers implicit in the land, and a sense of the responsibility of all men to protect the common heritage." - John Baxter (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)  
     
  "Emotionalism is a strong factor in many of Ford's films which, in his later days, showed a nostalgic longing for things past and old values. These may only have existed in Ford's eyes or hazy recollection, but nonetheless they make for skilfully appealing entertainment." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1983)  
     
  "Themes of courage, loyalty, rugged individualism, and the American spirit pervade the films of John Ford. The natural vistas in his Westerns hold a romantic view of history with the earmarks of poetic realism. Ford very well may be the greatest director of Westerns in cinema history." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
  "Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes." - John Ford  
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau   "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed." - Stanley Kubrick