TSPDT - John Ford

John Ford

Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)

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

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) ] [ Undercurrent Feature 2009) ]

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), Fort Apache (1948), 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 Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Seven Women (1966)


	"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