Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
John Ford
by Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington
(0 vote)Average rating:
| 0 | rating |  = We can do without |
| 0 | rating |  = Good book |
| 0 | rating |  = Excellent book |
| 0 | rating |  = Unique / a reference |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Orson Welles was once asked which directors he most admired. He replied: "The old masters. By which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." A legend in his own time, John Ford (1894–1973) received a record four Academy Awards for best director, and two of his World War II documentaries won Oscars for the US Navy. He directed 136 films in a career that lasted from the early silent era through the late 1960s. Ford is celebrated throughout the world as the cinema's foremost chronicler of American history, the leading poet of the Western genre, and a wide-ranging filmmaker of profound emotional impact. His classic films—including Stagecoach (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)—remain widely popular, and he has been acknowledged as a major influence on filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Samuel Fuller, Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas.
In this groundbreaking critical study, Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington provide an overview of Ford's career as well as in-depth analyses of key Ford films. Analyzing recurring Fordian themes and relating each film to his entire body of work, the authors insightfully explore the full richness of Ford's tragicomic vision of history. This new and revised version includes a study of the twenty-seven Ford silent films now known to survive in whole or in part (more than double the number available when the original edition was published); essays on three controversial aspects of Ford: his tragicomic sensibility, his views of race, and the influence of his Irish heritage; and an expanded version of McBride's interview with Ford on the last day of his career.
About the authors:
Joseph McBride is the author of twenty-four books, including the biography Searchingfor John Ford (hailed as "definitive" by the New YorkTimes and the IrishTimes), biographies of Capra and Spielberg, three books on Welles, and critical studies of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. A former film and television writer as well as a reporter, reviewer, and columnist for Daily Variety in Hollywood, McBride is a professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University. Michael Wilmington (1946–2022) was a renowned film reviewer for the Chicago Tribune and other publications, including the Los AngelesTimes, LA Weekly, L.A. Style, Movie City News, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, and Isthmus. While at the Tribune, Wilmington won two Peter Lisagor awards for arts criticism. The National Society of Film Critics, of which Wilmington was a longtime member, dedicated its 2022 awards to his memory. He was also a celebrated stage actor and teacher and a reviewer on cable television.
Press Reviews:
"The first intelligent, informed, and informative critical study in English on one of the only American directors who was also a poet."―Peter Bogdanovich
"Extraordinarily fine . . . an achievement as close to classical ease in critical writing as some of Ford's films are in cinema. . . . If I had to choose only one book on Ford . . . this is the one I'd choose."―Roger Greenspun, FilmComment
"The best book yet written on the master. . . . The old curmudgeon might even have liked this book."―Film Quarterly
"An important and engrossing study. . . . There will be other books on Ford, but this one will not be superseded."―Gavin Lambert, Films and Filming
"A pioneering critical study, greatly enhanced by McBride's updates and second thoughts a half-century later."―Jonathan Rosenbaum
"McBride and Wilmington's classic work of Ford criticism has been wonderfully expanded by McBride, who is also Ford's definitive biographer. Packed with new information and insights."―James Naremore, author of The Magic World of Orson Welles
"McBride has been a screenwriter, a film historian, biographer, and, most importantly, shared the company of John Ford. In short, McBride provides an inside narrative while pursuing his work as a scholar who teaches at San Francisco State University. This new edition retains a focus on 14 key films, but adds material about Ford's silent films and treatment of his Irishness and comedy, as well as an expanded version of an interview with Ford conducted on the day in 1970 when he decided to retire."―Carl Rollyson, New York Sun
"This isn't a light overview of the life of John Ford (1894-1973). It's a scholarly look at key films in Ford's career with analysis of themes and insights. . . .The essays are smart and give perspective to Ford's filmography."―Cinema Sentries
See the publisher website: University Press of Kentucky
See the complete filmography of John Ford on the website: IMDB ...
> Books with the same or similar title:
> From the same authors:
The Whole Durn Human Comedy (2022)
Life According to the Coen Brothers
Subject: Director > Coen Brothers
What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? (2022)
A Portrait of an Independent Career
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? (2006)
A Portrait of an Independent Career
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
> On a related topic:
John Ford in Focus (2007)
Essays on the Filmmaker's Life and Work
Dir. Kevin L. Stoehr and Michael C. Connolly
John Ford's Westerns (2006)
A Thematic Analysis, with a Filmography
Three Bad Men (2013)
John Ford, John Wayne, Ward Bond
How the West Was Sung (2007)
Music in the Westerns of John Ford
Back
