History Creator / JohnFord

* ChristianityIsCatholic: A huge aversion. While Ford, like many Irish Americans, was RaisedCatholic, his movies pay considerable attention to the diversity of Protestant beliefs in America, especially his westerns. There are Baptists, Quakers, Episcopalians,and in the case of ''Wagon Master'', Mormons (who are treated sympathetically). The one film which Ford made that dealt with Catholicism was ''The Fugitive'' (which might be why Ford was personally fixated on that movie).

* SignatureSong: The hymn "Shall We Gather at the River?" turns up in at least eight of his films.

Ford's Westerns were largely set in Monument Valley Utah and he used the Navajo tribe in the region as extras which he cast in all his westerns. Ford's films aided the economy for the Navajos and he paid them fair wages on union scale in a time of segregation. For this the Navajos gave him the honorific ''Natani Nez''. Ford's films like ''Film/FortApache'' and ''Film/TheSearchers'' highlighted the injustice and violence of the landscape, with the latter film even subverting Creator/JohnWayne's image as TheHero, even addressing the hypocrisy of MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome years before his time. His final western, ''Film/CheyenneAutumn'' also subverted the genre and addressed the OldShame of Native American oppression in a way few Westerns did. Ford passed away in 1973.

* ''Film/CheyenneAutumn''

Ford's Westerns were largely set in Monument Valley Utah and he used the Navajo tribe in the region as extras which he cast in all his westerns. Ford's films aided the economy for the Navajos and he paid them fair wages on union scale in a time of segregation. For this the Navajos gave him the honorific ''Natani Nez''. Ford's films like ''Film/FortApache'' and ''Film/TheSearchers'' highlighted the injustice and violence of the landscape, with the latter film even subverting Creator/JohnWayne's image as TheHero, even addressing the hypocrisy of MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome years before his time. His final western, ''Cheyenne Autumn'' also subverted the genre and addressed the OldShame of Native American oppression in a way few Westerns did. Ford passed away in 1973.

* ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1964)

* ''Rio Grande'' (1950)

* TheWestern: What Ford is best known for. His classics - ''Film/TheIronHorse'', ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', ''Film/SheWoreAYellowRibbon'', ''Film/FortApache'', ''Rio Grande'', even ''Film/TheSearchers'' - was the TropeCodifier for the "Classic Western", defining Creator/JohnWayne's screen persona. They also featured UnbuiltTrope that would later typify the revisionist westerns, with even ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'' subverting the black-and-white morality of many Westerns and ''Film/FortApache'', ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'', and ''Film/TheSearchers'' already blurring the BlackAndWhiteMorality to [[GreyAndGrayMorality grey]] areas. Ford's Westerns were also highly unusual, in in that there's not a lot of action, there's an equal, and at times greater, focus on community building, ritual, emphasis on dance sequences and SettlingTheFrontier in literal terms, that is depicting the values and institutions that build civilization in the west. He also tends to focus a lot on common, everyday people as much as cowboy heroes. He generally stays away from mythical heroes of the kind that later westerns traffic in. The one exception was ''Film/MyDarlingClementine'' which was a highly inaccurate look at Wyatt Earp but also a TropeCodifier for later depictions. Years later, in ''Cheyenne Autumn'', he offers a DeconstructiveParody of Wyatt Earp years ahead of the time, showing the famous lawman as an amoral sleazebag and pimp (and casting Jimmy Stewart no less).

* ''Film/YoungCassidy'' (1965)(uncredited, left the production due to ill health and was replaced by Jack Cardiff)
* ''7 Women'' (1966)

* AmbiguouslyGay: Miss Andrews (Creator/MargaretLeighton) in ''7 Women'' is a, well, not terribly ambiguous but heavily repressed lesbian, with a giant crush on Emma (Creator/SueLyon, Film/{{Lolita}} herself).

** Despite being a Catholic himself, provided an aversion in his final film, ''7 Women'', where Dr. Cartwright (Creator/AnneBancroft), an atheist doctor working in a religious mission ends up performing a HeroicSacrifice. The film makes the religious characters deeply unsympathetic while Dr. Cartwright is present as a DistaffCounterpart to John Wayne's usual characters. In the film her atheism doesn't really provide any personal baggage for her and it's simply presented as normal while emphasizing and respecting her humanism. John Ford explained her simply:

* TheLadette: Normally, this character type is more typical of Creator/HowardHawks films, but Ford's films occasionally provide examples: Ava Gardner's performance in ''Mogambo'' (where Ford is more or less channelling Hawks anyway) and most notably, Anne Bancroft in ''7 Women'' with Dr. Cartwright, an atheist doctor alcoholic who is also a BoisterousBruiser and is presented as a DistaffCounterpart to Creator/JohnWayne's usual characters.

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!! Provides examples of:
* AmbiguouslyGay: Creator/MargaretLeighton in ''7 Women'' is a, well, not terribly ambiguous but heavily repressed lesbian, with a giant crush on Creator/SueLyon (Film/{{Lolita}} herself).

** He was economical to the point of mathematical precision, refusing to shoot extra shots and "cutting on camera" to prevent extra footage available to editors(who worked with producers), which forced the editors to arrange the film as [[BatmanGambit a jigsaw puzzle]] with the pieces scattered to form Ford's pre-determined vision.

--> '''John Ford''': ''"People are incorrect to compare a director to an author. If he's a creator, he's more like an architect. And an architect conceives his plans according to precise circumstances."''

--> ''"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."''
* HollywoodAtheist: Despite being a Catholic himself, provided an aversion in his final film, ''7 Women'', where Anne Bancroft, an atheist doctor working in a religious mission ends up performing a HeroicSacrifice. The film makes the religious characters deeply unsympathetic while Anne Bancroft is present as John Wayne's DistaffCounterpart. In the film her atheism doesn't really provide any personal baggage for her and it's simply presented as normal while emphasizing and respecting her humanism. John Ford explained her simply:
--> '''John Ford''': She was a doctor--her object in life was to save people. She was a woman who had no religion, but she got in with this bunch of kooks and started acting like a human being.

* TheLadette: Normally, this character type is more typical of Creator/HowardHawks films, but Ford's films occasionally provide examples: Ava Gardner's performance in ''Mogambo'' (where Ford is more or less channelling Hawks anyway) and most notably, Anne Bancroft in ''7 Women'' with Dr. Cartwright, an atheist doctor alcoholic who is also a BoisterousBruiser and is presented as Creator/JohnWayne's DistaffCounterpart.
* PrimaDonnaDirector: He was ''not'' an easy man to work for, viciously insulting his cast and crew to motivate them. John Wayne was the usual butt of Ford's abuse; Ford enjoyed forcing Wayne to take a three-point stance and kicking his backside. While shooting ''They Were Expendable'' he was so cruel to Wayne that costar Creator/RobertMontgomery refused to continue filming until Ford apologized. He also needled Creator/WoodyStrode with racial epithets while shooting ''Sergeant Rutledge'', though Strode treated it as a motivational technique. On ''Film/MisterRoberts'' he punched Henry Fonda in the face during a heated argument. Fonda forgave Ford, but refused to work for him again.

--> ''"We used to call him the meanest S.O.B. that ever was. But he was our S.O.B. We adored him. A difficult old devil, but the greatest director that the picture business has ever known."''
-->-- '''Creator/MaureenOHara'''

* SceneryPorn: Ford's films are remarkable for its visual beauty, in both colour and black-and-white. The exterior photography, be it the West in Monument Valley Utah or [[Film/TheQuietMan Ireland in County Mayo]], or the African Savanna[[note]]which was mostly shot by Second Unit but under his guidelines anyway[[/note]], will provide you with some of the most ''gorgeous shots'' in film history. Many cinematographers who worked with him recieved Oscars for their work. Ford who was inspired by painting[[note]]Western painters Charles Schreyvogel and Remington, and also fellow Maine artist, Winslow Homer[[/note]] are admired by film-makers for its eye for composition and framing that pays attention to character movement, lighting and narrative and provides characterization by camera placement and blocking. As per an anecdote by Creator/StevenSpielberg[[note]]As retold in the documentary, ''Directed by John Ford'', the young Creator/StevenSpielberg got a rare chance to meet John Ford in an office with a lot of Western paintings. Ford noted that the young Spielberg wanted to be a director and in a bit of SecretTestOfCharacter asked him to look at the paintings and tell him where the horizon was in each picture, at the top or the bottom of the frame. Spielberg noted that the horizon was never in the middle[[/note]], Ford once said said:
--> '''John Ford''': If you come to the conclusion, that it's more interesting to put the horizon at the top or the bottom of the frame, and ''never in the middle'' you might become a good picture maker.

--> '''Mrs. Jorgensen''': "It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin' but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next. Maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll be forever. Some day, this country's gonna be a fine good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come."
* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Surprisingly common in Ford's work, notably the drunken actor reciting ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' in ''Film/MyDarlingClementine'' and Peabody declaiming the [[Theatre/HenryV St. Crispin's Day speech]] in ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance''.
* TheWestern: What Ford is best known for. His classics - ''Film/TheIronHorse'', ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', ''Film/SheWoreAYellowRibbon'', ''Film/FortApache'', ''Rio Grande'', even ''Film/TheSearchers'' - was the TropeCodifier for the "Classic Western", defining Creator/JohnWayne's screen persona. They also featured UnbuiltTrope that would later typify the revisionist westerns, with even ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'' subverting the black-and-white morality of many Westerns and ''Film/FortApache'', ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'', and ''Film/TheSearchers'' already blurring the BlackAndWhiteMorality to [[GreyAndGrayMorality grey]] areas.
** Ford's Westerns were also highly unusual, in in that there's not a lot of action, there's an equal, and at times greater, focus on community building, ritual, emphasis on dance sequences and SettlingTheFrontier in literal terms, that is depicting the values and institutions that build civilization in the west. He also tends to focus a lot on common, everyday people as much as cowboy heroes.
** He generally stays away from mythical heroes of the kind that later westerns traffic in. The one exception was ''{{Film/My Darling Clementine}}'' which was a highly inaccurate look at Wyatt Earp but also a TropeCodifier for later depictions. Years later, in ''Cheyenne Autumn'', he offers a DeconstructiveParody of Wyatt Earp years ahead of the time, showing the famous lawman as an amoral sleazebag and pimp (and casting Jimmy Stewart no less).

* AmbiguouslyGay: Margaret Leighton in ''7 Women'' is a, well, not terribly ambiguous but heavily repressed lesbian, with a giant crush on Sue Lyon (Film/{{Lolita}} herself).

[[caption-width-right:350:''"My name's John Ford. I make {{Western}}s."'']]]]

''[[caption-width-right:350:"My name's John Ford. I make [[{{Western}} Westerns."]]]]''

** Of course, some of Ford's collaborators (including actors Anna Lee, Creator/ShirleyTemple and Hank Worden) claim Ford's outbursts were exaggerated in the telling. Worden explained that Ford only picked on actors he felt could handle his ribbing; if an actor was non-responsive, Ford would use gentler techniques.

* RatedMForManly: In John Ford's World, Real Men ride horses, drink whiskey, start fights, love their women, and save the planet. Usually by Thursday, Friday at the latest. At least that's how he was seen for the majority of his life. But this is a {{Flanderization}}, his films on careful viewing with attention to context and his great technique show that he developed a MythArc in his Westerns and Non-Westerns about older communities being replaced by modern, soulless ones, and minorities playing a major role. His Westerns moreover constantly highlight the violence and hypocrisy that went into the building of America.

In his lifetime, Ford was regarded almost unanimously as America's greatest film-maker, with all his contemporaries having nothing but respect and admiration for him. He also had an international following such respectable film-makers as Creator/AkiraKurosawa, Creator/IngmarBergman, Creator/JeanRenoir and even outsider film-makers like Creator/JeanLucGodard admitting to his importance and influence. As one of the founders of the DGA, Ford also encouraged young film-makers, serving as TheMentor to the likes of Creator/OrsonWelles, Creator/EliaKazan, Creator/SamuelFuller and many others. Years later, Creator/StevenSpielberg would recall a meeting with the older Ford who gave him a brief lesson on the values of good composition.

* AuteurLicense: Like most "journeymen" directors who were not producers of their films in the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood Golden Age]], Ford did not have contractual AuteurLicense on the vast majority of the films he directed. However research has shown that Ford evolved a strategy to exert autonomy and control while working in the system.

John Ford (born John Martin Feeney, February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American director whose lengthy career was one of the most honored in Hollywood history. Four Oscars for Best Director, which is still the record. Filmed some of the most iconic [[TheWestern Wild West]] and [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII war movies]] of the age.

* PrimaDonnaDirector: He was ''not'' an easy man to work for, viciously insulting his cast and crew to motivate them. John Wayne was the usual butt of Ford's abuse; Ford enjoyed forcing Wayne to take a three-point stance and kicking his backside. While shooting ''They Were Expendable'' he was so cruel to Wayne that costar Creator/RobertMontgomery refused to continue filming until Ford apologized. He also needled Woody Strode with racial epithets while shooting ''Sergeant Rutledge'', though Strode treated it as a motivational technique. On ''Film/MisterRoberts'' he punched Henry Fonda in the face during a heated argument. Fonda forgave Ford, but refused to work for him again.

* ''{{Film/Mogambo}}'' (1953)

* AuthorAppeal: Ford was ''very'' proud of his Irish heritage worked it into his films, even managing to convince the studios to let him make two films in Ireland: ''The Quiet Man'' and ''The Rising of the Moon", the first American director to do so. Many members of his famous stock company Creator/MaureenOHara, Creator/BarryFitzgerald, and Arthur Shields were Irish. In fact he had such a reputation for hiring Irish actors, Anna Lee made up an Irish grandfather for her audition to impress Ford for ''How Green Was My Valley''.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: From ''Stagecoach'' onwards, Ford shot all his westerns in Monument Valley, Utah, a location that became a SignatureStyle but was unique because he tended to shoot all his exteriors in the region, which is actually smaller than it looks. This becomes absurd in ''TheSearchers'' where all of Texas and parts of Mexico take place in a single valley that the actors keep circling around. For Ford, Monument Valley was a mythical landscape, not a realistic one. The only Western which actually takes place in Utah and the region is ''Wagon Master'' which Ford cited as one of his personal favorites.

* ''3 Godfathers'' (1948)

* ''They Were Expendable'' (1945)

John Ford was an American director whose lengthy career was one of the most honored in Hollywood history. Four Oscars for Best Director, which is still the record. Filmed some of the most iconic [[TheWestern Wild West]] and [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII war movies]] of the age.

Born John Feeney in 1894 (or 1895) in Maine to a large Irish family, he traveled with his older brother Francis to Hollywood during the early years of film-making. Changing their last names to Ford, Francis went to work as an actor while John found himself finding work behind the camera. By the 1920s and 1930s, John Ford was working on small-time, quickly made Westerners but was moving on to bigger and better projects. He won his first Best Director Oscar for ''The Informer'', a political thriller about the [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles IRA]] which cemented his reputation as a great director. Then in 1939 he directed ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', considered for decades to be the greatest Western ever made. He went on to win three more Best Director Oscars, more than any other film-maker. (Although, ironically, none of them were for the westerns he was so well-known for. This is understandable since it would take 'till the '90s for Westerns to get OutOfTheGhetto and be taken seriously as dramatic works.)

John Ford is an American director whose lengthy career was one of the most honored in Hollywood history. Four Oscars for Best Director, which is still the record. Filmed some of the most iconic [[TheWestern Wild West]] and [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII war movies]] of the age.

Ford's Westerns were largely set in Monument Valley Utah and he used the Navajo tribe in the region as extras which he cast in all his westerns. Ford's films aided the economy for the Navajos and he paid them fair wages on union scale in a time of segregation. For this the Navajos gave him the honorific ''Natani Nez''. Ford's films like ''Film/FortApache'' and ''Film/TheSearchers'' highlighted the injustice and violence of the landscape, with the latter film even subverting Creator/JohnWayne's image as TheHero, even addressing the hypocrisy of MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome years before his time. His final western, ''Cheyenne Autumn'' also subverted the genre and addressed the OldShame of Native American oppression in a way few Westerns did.

* PrimaDonnaDirector: He was ''not'' an easy man to work for, viciously insulting his cast and crew to motivate them. John Wayne was the usual butt of Ford's abuse; Ford enjoyed forcing Wayne to take a three-point stance and kicking his backside. While shooting ''They Were Expendable'' he was so cruel to Wayne that costar Robert Montgomery refused to continue filming until Ford apologized. He also needled Woody Strode with racial epithets while shooting ''Sergeant Rutledge'', though Strode treated it as a motivational technique. On ''Film/MisterRoberts'' he punched Henry Fonda in the face during a heated argument. Fonda forgave Ford, but refused to work for him again.

In TheSixties and TheSeventies, Ford's films fell under scrutiny on issues of representation of Native Americans and African Americans in his Westerns and dramas. The fact that many of them featured Creator/JohnWayne, a prominent supporter of the VietnamWar and other conservative causes didn't help. In matter of fact, for most of his life, Ford was a liberal. A supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy, who personally opposed the RedScare, publicly denounced pro-blacklist filmmaker Creator/CecilBDeMille at a meeting of the Director's Guild and helped blacklisted actors and writers find work. Later in life however, Ford identified himself as a "Maine Republican" and supported both Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was also highly intelligent, speaking several languages including the Navajo language.