- Paperback: 880 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (April 5 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312310110
- ISBN-13: 978-0312310110
- Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 15.6 x 4.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 912 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,475,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
After being called the "greatest poet of the Western saga," film director Ford responded, "I am not a poet, and I don't know what a Western saga is. I would say that is bullshit." Yet Ford--who made such classic westerns as Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--helped define the idea of the western as a quintessential American story for audiences around the world. This first full-length critical biography presents a complex, fascinating portrait of a troubled and conflicted artist and man. Born John Feeney, he was an Irish outsider in Yankee New England. He began working in the film industry in 1914 as a studio ditch digger, but was soon acting in films and, a few years later, directing them. By the early 1930s, he had achieved considerable artistic and commercial fame with The Informer. McBride (Frank Capra) elegantly and cogently weaves Ford's personal life into the fabric of his career. He is at his best describing how Ford's political sentiments emerged in his work (especially the antiracism of Steamboat Round the Bend and The Searchers) as well as the director's move from liberal to conservative politics during Hollywood's red-baiting years and the HUAC hearings. He gives an equally astute delineation of Ford's emotional life--a tempestuous marriage, a possible affair with Katharine Hepburn, his reputation as a tough guy and his alcoholism. Drawing upon a wealth of critical material plus more than 125 interviews with Ford's colleagues, family and friends, McBride has produced a fine, long-needed biography of a pivotal American artist.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library Journal
"My name's John Ford. I make Westerns." Ford preferred to let his work speak for itself, and his abrasive encounters with film scholars have become legendary. In fact, "Pappy" Ford, who fancied himself a journeyman director, would probably have been perplexed by these two recent additions to the rapidly growing library of Ford film criticism. Arriving hard on the heels of Scott Eyman's comprehensive Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (LJ 10/1/99), McBride's weighty tome, several decades in preparation, paints a similar portrait: Ford was an insecure alcoholic whose gruff, even sadistic treatment of family, friends, cast, and crew masked his sensitive, sentimental nature. Complex and contradictory like many of his films Ford was a man who stood up to McCarthyite blacklisters but later churned out crude propaganda in support of the Vietnam war. He celebrated tradition, family, and community but was a miserable failure as husband and father. As Eyman did, McBride (Frank Capra; Steven Spielberg) draws on exhaustive research and interviews, but he has the advantage of a few memorably brief meetings with the Great Man himself. Ford left an impressive if uneven body of work, and McBride does it justice, examining each film in illuminating detail. Still, although McBride's book is very deserving, public and academic libraries that cannot collect both biographies should stick to Eyman's more streamlined telling. Studlar (film and English, Univ. of Michigan) and Bernstein (film, Emory Univ.) take readers into academic territory, offering nine essays on the work plus a "dossier" of articles on the man and filmmaker. Robin Wood leads off with a classic critique, questioning whether Ford's late films measure up to his early work. Other essays discuss the role of women and religion in Ford's film universe, and the hotly disputed controversy about whether his last epic Cheyenne Autumn was a "mea culpa" for previous insensitive portrayals of the American Indian. Westerns is recommended for academic collections. Stephen F. Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
ONE PARISH OVER" from America, as the saying goes, is the barren, windblown west coast of Ireland, the region of Connemara. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
ONE PARISH OVER" from America, as the saying goes, is the barren, windblown west coast of Ireland, the region of Connemara. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Searchin' Way Out There"...,
By
This review is from: Searching For John Ford: A Life (Paperback)
I don't know why anyone interested in the seminal American director, John Ford, would not find this book utterly fascinating. McBride illuminates Ford's early life and the beginnings of his long career with detailed care. He explores his problematic character with skill, compassion and insight without ever being patronizing and without ever holding back about the darkest aspects of Ford's personality and behavior. For instance, McBride makes it very clear that Ford does not deserve as much credit as he usually gets for what was really an ambivalent attitude toward the notorious Hollywood "blacklist" during the anti-communist hysteria of the 1940s and '50s.McBride's book is packed with vivid anecdotes from associates, observers of Ford and members of the legendary "Stock Company" (Harry Carey, Jr.'s stories are really wonderful!), and his own critiques of the films are sophisticated and augmented by quotes and assessments by other major "Fordians." McBride is generous with his inclusion of other critics' views and when he disagrees he himself is never mean or dismissive. His illuminations of the significance of the post-WWII western, his accounts of the intricacies of the "blacklist" and his sympathetic understanding of Ford's last films and what they represented are especially valuable. There may indeed be other biographies just as good as McBride's but this is a captivating, comprehensive and intellectual volume for the Ford aficionado. It is immensely satisfying!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Monumental Job,
By
This review is from: Searching For John Ford: A Life (Hardcover)
This is a very good biography of Ford. Yes, McBride relies on Sarris and Carey Jr. a good bit of the time, yet this book remains very interesting and does a thorough job covering the many films Ford made.Strengths of the book include an eye-opening look at Ford's WWII service, (How many other guys were at both Midway and D-Day and managed to get to Burma and Yugoslavia as well?) a clear presentation of Ford's relations with the different studios (the list of "better" titles for The Quiet Man the head of Republic tried to force on Ford is hysterically funny) and an evenhanded evaluation of Ford's behavior during the blacklist era. Perhaps the evenhandedness of McBride's tone is what I liked the most about the book. One could take Ford's life and turn it into a straightforward case of hero-worship, or one could take an axe to him up and down the line, pointing out his failures in family life, his bigoted comments, his questionable actions in some controversial issues. McBride avoids falling into either extreme camp. We get Ford warts and all here, and it is left up to us to decide. My only complaint is that the book is too short. I would have liked more discussion on a few films, and I would have liked a chapter on Ford's posthumous reputation. McBride raises the issue in his introduction that Ford is being forgotten by the new generation of writers and filmmakers, but he never quite tells why. Still, this was a fine book, one that I read quickly despite its length.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Three Stars for the Effort,
By
This review is from: Searching For John Ford: A Life (Hardcover)
This is not a great biography of Ford. It doesn't add anything new, and it's probably 100 pages too long(I never thought I'd say that about a book on Ford)! Read Scott Eyman, Print the Legend, and you won't even want to bother with this book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
