Director, producer, screenwriter. Real name: Sean Alois O'Firna. Born February 1, 1895 at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, died August 31, 1973.
There are few masters in the cinema of the United States who would sing this distant continent: its nature, history, people, their traditions, principles, tastes. Love and tenderness for them permeate the best films of this director, elevating to the level of high poetry - both lyrical and epic. Its immediacy and sincerity fascinates even the most avid skeptics.
Ford began with a Western, the most American genre, and his first real success was Iron Horse (1924), which told about the construction of a transcontinental railway through the vast expanses of the Far West of America. (By this time, he had been working in film for 10 years, studying under his older brother Francis, also a director.) Along with the successful use of traditional canons (the drama of the plot, the external dynamics of the development of the action, field shooting, etc.), the film also had something that was usually absent in adventure tapes: the psychologicalization of the characters of the characters. Not only the main characters, but also secondary characters turned out to be expressive and memorable here. A characteristic feature of Ford’s further work is his ability to work with actors. However, more than 10 years pass, during which he puts uninteresting commercial tapes before his paintings again attract the attention of critics and the public.
The downside of almost all of Ford’s early films was the lack of a sound dramaturgical basis. The creative collaboration of the director with the talented screenwriter Dudley Nichols, which arose in the early 30s, was very fruitful for both of them. Already one of the first joint films - "The Lost Patrol" (1934), the plot basis of which was later used in our film "Thirteen", attracted attention with its internal drama (almost in the absence of external action), deep penetration into the inner world of the characters. These same features of Ford and Nichols’ creative method were particularly evident in their next film, The Whistleblower (1935, Oscar). Although its action takes place during the famous Dublin uprising of Irish patriots against English rule (1922), the director, filming the famous novel by Liam O'Flaherty, refused to show the true historical events and focused on the analysis of the psychology of a traitor who sold his comrade for money and gradually began to realize the meaning of the act. The skillful creation of a general, gloomy and increasingly condensing atmosphere, the slow rhythm that enhances the impression of an impending tragedy, the magnificent use of noise and music, the excellent camera work, the expressive use of details (it is impossible to forget the announcement of the award for betrayal nailed to the feet of the hero by the wind) and the masterful performance of the main role (Victor McLaglen) brought the film numerous praises from critics.
However, even in this best period, Ford’s work was very uneven. Along with the already mentioned masterpieces, he in the thirties put and ten very mediocre tapes ("Little Willy Winky", "Four Men and Prayer", "Prisoner of Shark Island", etc.), which were only slightly better than Hollywood mass production of different genres: melodrama, adventure and criminal films. Only comedies weren't there: Ford shunned humor.
The director achieved the highest achievements in the films Stagecoach (the Journey will be dangerous, 1939) and Grapes of Wrath (1940). However, along with the use of purely cinematic techniques (fast rhythm, skillful editing, expressive camera work), the director managed to move away from the usual plot schemes of dividing heroes into virtuous and villains, give lively and full-blooded images of stagecoach passengers. The picture bizarrely combines subtle irony over representatives of various social strata of the distant frontier and a clear romanticization of American history.
The position of “going into the past”, which Ford held almost throughout his work, in the late 30s ceased to satisfy him. In Grapes of Wrath (1940, Oscar) he addresses one of the most pressing issues of modern reality, raised in John Steinbeck’s best-selling novel of the same name: the tragic plight of landless American farming. This film not only preserved the main storyline of the acclaimed literary source, but also gave vivid, exciting images of the heroes - members of the friendly and hardworking farm family Jouds. Unlike a number of other works, including his own Tobacco Road (1941), Ford was able to convincingly show that it was not the farmers themselves but the social conditions that were to blame for the misfortunes that befell them.
During the war years, Ford, despite his poor eyesight (he spent his whole life wearing very dark glasses or with a black blindfold on one eye), was in the Pacific theater, where he made several documentaries, two of which (The Battle of Midway and December 7) were awarded Oscars. In the postwar period, especially after the "Hollywood trial" in 1947, the director again returned to the production of westerns ("My Dear Clementine", "Fort Apache" (both - 1947), "Rio Grande", 1950, etc.), war films ("When Willy comes marching home", 1950, "This is Korea", 1951) and sentimental melodramas ("The Sun Shines Bright", 1953, "Mogambo", 1953, etc.), which are not of great artistic interest.