Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford

A great way to start an interesting debate is to ask, "Who was the best director of all time?". I think that Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood are the two best living American directors. I know that I looked forward to every new Alfred Hitchcock movie with more anticipation than movies from any other director. I still stand in awe of "Citizen Kane" and the brilliance of the young Orson Welles. I've seen all but 4 of Akira Kurosawa's films. I could go on and on but, if I were to judge the sum total of a director's work, my choice for the greatest director is John Ford. Ford made a ton of films the majority of which, I'm sure, were silent films. He made some of the greatest movies ever made including "Stagecoach", "The Grapes of Wrath", "How Green was my Valley", and my two favorites "The Quiet Man" and "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance". There was a sense of purpose, of community, of ethics etc. in most every film and the lessons learned were so subtle that many of us didn't even realize there was a message. We watched the movies because they were good entertainment. I think it wasn't until the third time I watched it that I discovered what a devestating message was in "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance". Now I can't look at the obituary page without wondering what the story of these lives were and if anyone remains to tell it.

Well, I could go on and one but it is the book, not the man, that is the proper subject of this review. Scott Eyman has done a masterful job in telling the story of John Ford. He covers his youth, his family, his films, his stock of actors, and his ever-present ornery personality. Ford's early work as a director were certainly of interest but I became more and more engrossed as the book moved into more familiar territory (film-wise). I really had a hard time putting it down and I was genuinely sorry when the book had reached the end. I had read two other biographies of Ford some years ago. That gave me some familiarity with the subject and awareness of Ford's "personality". However, Eyman deserves a lot of credit for the way he immersed the reader into the man, warts and all. I kept wondering what made Eyman's biography so compelling. I realized it was the multiple perspectives that the author used. A vast array of actors, techicians and others weave in and out with their Fordian insights. I also realized that it was the way that Scott Eyman kept the story moving along with good direction supplemented with side issues. I also realized that he was able to touch the reader by giving us incidents and anecdotes that brought the subject to life. I realized that Eyman, in short, did an excellent job directing the story as an author with the same skills that Ford used as a director. This is the Ford biography that is most worthy of the man.

Many books were written about Jonh Ford.
All of them tell the story and the profile of the man.
But John Ford was more than that.
His life is the beginning, but the book doesn?t take it as a experience or example for his films.
The exploration is a long trip in this book.
The readers are going to find the artist who control
everything around and his mind to think faster than others.
He made no more than one take, sometimes to have completely control about the film, not suffering the torture of the film process and the editing.
It?s a strange story about the man who won four Academy Awards?
for Best Directing but he never won an Oscar for one of his western films.
The book explores how he created the images and how he felt involved in those stories so different from cowboys, horses and
shots: 'The grapes of Wrath', 'How green was my valley', 'The informer' and 'The quiet man'.
His camera was different in all these ones.
But finally you can see the horizon, the actor,
the music and the ending.
It is a film directed by John Ford.
Thanks to him, the movies were different in style.
He had the conception of an artist.

Scott Eyman has written an outstanding book on John Ford! Ford
was the second generation son of an Irish bartender from Portland Maine who followed his brother Frank to Hollywood.
In over 130 films from such silent classics as Iron Horse to
his four Oscars for best director: The Informer; How Green Was My
Valley; the Grapes of Wrath and The Quiet Man Ford chronicles
the life of ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances.
Ford made Westerns better than anyone as witness his classic
cavalry trilogy: Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; Rio Grande and the peerless The Searchers.
John Ford was a bristling porcupine guy who could dish out insults, reduce strong actors to tears and cover his sensitive,
melancholic, brooding intellectual Irish soul with a veneer of
toughness and macho maleness.
Ford was a complex man isolated and in conflict with famly who made great films for over 50 years in the Hollywood jungle.
He was an admiral who loved the military serving with distinction in World War II.
You may not like Ford after reading this fine book but you will be in awe of one of Hollywood's giants.
Eyman gives a sketch of each of Ford's top films and charts the choppy waters of his long marriage to wife Mary and the difficult relationship he had with his daugher and son.
John Ford will always ride tall in the saddle of Film History
as we travel with him to Monument Valley, meet such Ford stars
as John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara and the other excellent actors in the Ford acting troupe.
Anyone claiming to be knowledgable about film who does not know about John Ford (1894-1973 should read this fine biograhy.
Readers may also wish to peruse Joseph McBride's lengthy biograpy of Ford "In Search of John Ford." Both books are well
done.

Having read a fair number of biographies in my time, in subjects from Science to American and military history, this book is as fine a work as I've seen. It is quite probably the best work of its kind on John Ford and pulls few punches when presenting the dark side of this complex man's character.

Genius often goes hand-in-hand with madness, and the odd juxtapositions of cruelty and sensitivity, visciousness and generosity within in the same man leaves it difficult for the reader to like him, much less understand the deep love so many of his peers and actors had for him.

The vast limits of his brilliance as a film maker are far clearer to me now and the more so since reading other works on the man's work and times ("Tis Herself" by Maureen O'Hara and "John Ford, the Man and his Films" by Tag Gallagher, to name two).

I am a recent "student" of film after years in other pursuits, and I have always considered Ford's pictures to be the best of the best, among which are "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Quiet Man" and "The Searchers".

It is apparently popular for current budding directors to attempt to attempt to emulate the work of the current crops of popular directors (generally those of the preceding five years or so) without paying sufficient attention to the classics; perhaps even trying to ride their stylistic coattails to success.

I believe that in order to be successful in any discipline, it is imperative to study closely the great works of past generations, just as most successful musicians should have a background in classical music.

I can recommend this work unreservedly both to the casual film fan (it's a damned good read!) and to the serious film student.

I've read other books on this great Hollywood director, and while I can't comment on their relative accuracy, I can say that Eyman's book is the most readable I've found. He writes with a wonderfully fluid style, finds exactly the right balance between enough detail and too much, and mixes in some penetrating observations about the films and their style. He really captures that curious paradox of how artistic genius and personality disturbance can coexist within the same mind.