Ford, John (1894-1973)
Film director John Ford is a profoundly influential figure in American culture far beyond his own prolific, wide-ranging, and often impressive output in a 50-year plus cinema ca...
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She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Director John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) is the first color feature film shot in Monument Valley, Arizona, and the second of three films Ford made about the...
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John Sean O'Feeney Ford (ca. 1895-1973) was an American film director who, with other pioneers in the movie industry, transformed a rudimentary entertainment medium into a highly personalized and expr...
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Critical Essay by Louise Wallace Hackney
[While] cinematic quality is one of the most important tests, if not the most important, that can be applied to a moving picture, the increasing filming of wel...
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Critical Essay by Bosley Crowther
In whatever whisps of foliage are left on Director John Ford's head, he wears a yellow ribbon—and, in the spirit of that rousing soldier song, he wears ...
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Critical Essay by Lindsay Anderson
Ford has always found his true image of reality in this world, not in the deliberately fashioned symbolism of a literary invention; his symbols arise naturally out o...
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Critical Essay by Lindsay Anderson
Wagonmaster is the nearest any director has come to an avant-garde Western. To use this word of a film by Ford may sound strange; take it, though, not as implying an...
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Critical Essay by Gerald Cockshott
Towards the end of 1947 in the second number of Sequence there appeared a study of some of the films of the Hollywood director John Ford. Although the author did not...
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Critical Essay by Andrew Sarris
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a political western, a psychological murder mystery and John Ford's confrontation of the past; personal, professional and his...
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Critical Essay by Ernest Callenbach
"Liberty" Valance is a pathologically vicious, whip-wielding outlaw; the man whose reputation came from shooting him didn't do it; the reign of...
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Critical Essay by Peter Wollen
[Wyatt Earp, Ethan Edwards, and Tom Doniphon] all act within the recognisable Ford world, governed by a set of oppositions, but their loci within that world are very dif...
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Critical Essay by Otis Ferguson
The picture that John Ford has made out of Liam O'Flaherty's "Informer" opens a lot of new possibilities for Hollywood, tackles something th...
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Critical Essay by Robin Wood
One way of defining the relationship of Ford's late films to his previous work would be to compare The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with My Darling Clementine. One&...
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Critical Essay by John Baxter
On all levels of Ford's work, Catholic dogma, philosophy and imagery play an important role. At the most basic, religious morality affects his choice of plots; spe...
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Critical Essay by FranÇois Truffaut
Ford was an artist who never said the word "art," a poet who never mentioned "poetry."
What I love in his work is that he always ...
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Critical Essay by John P. Frayne
Ford's strength lay in the treatment of powerful, simple themes—the value of friendship, the loyalty to a cause, the virtues of honor, courage, fortitude...
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Critical Essay by James Shelley Hamilton
[The] movies have rarely tried to look at modern Ireland with modern eyes, in spite of the riches of dramatic material to be found there….
Which is one ...
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Critical Essay by Bosley Crowther
The majesty of plain people and the beauty which shines in the souls of simple, honest folk are seldom made the topics of extensive discourse upon the screen. Human c...
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In the following essay, Leech contends that despite displaying a generally refined dramatic technique, Ford nevertheless is unable to imbue the tragic events in Love's Sacrifice, The Broken Hea...
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In the review below, De Jongh applauds Michael Boyd's 1995 staging of The Broken Heart at London's Barbican Theatre as "a spectacular but truthful performance, brimming with sardo...
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In the following review, Murray commends Michael Boyd's production of The Broken Heart, asserting that "the serious work has all gone into the characters and the elaborate, darkly ironic...
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In the review below, Nightingale praises Michael Boyd's 1995 staging of The Broken Heart, arguing that the di-rector made a taut production out of a generally diffuse play.
Many people know the...
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In the essay below, Anderson offers a detailed survey of The Broken Heart, focusing on the play's major themes, dramatic structure, and sources.
I The Story and Its Sources
Although the order i...
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In the following essay, Waith examines the thematic device of struggling to remain calm on the part of the major characters in The Broken Heart as a key to understanding the play's dramatic str...
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In the essay below, Anderson examines the theme of kingship in Perkin Warbeck, particularly focusing on the political interplay between Warbeck, Henry VII, and James IV.
John Ford is not generally con...
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In the following essay, Barish contends that Ford intentionally departed from his historical sources when creating the character of Perkin Warbeck in an effort to enhance dramatic interest in the prot...
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In the essay below, Kaufmann identifies jealousy as a tragic motif in The Queene, Love's Sacrifice, and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, commenting on how this theme manifests itself thro...
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In the following essay, Muir maintains that despite the overt, sensational presence of aberrant sexual passion in Ford's major plays, the tragic events and outcomes of the dramas indicate the o...
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In the essay below, Bergeron explores brother-sister relationships in Love's Sacrifice, The Broken Heart, and "Tis Pity She's a Whore, arguing that Ford logically and consciously ...
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In the following prologue to Perkin Warbeck, first published in 1634, Ford states his reasons for attempting to revive the unfashionable history play genre.
Studies have, of this nature, been of late,...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1888, Ellis maintains that while Ford was a master of dramatizing passionate emotions, the rest of his technique was careless and uninspired.
Deep in a ...
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In the following essay, Saintsbury contends that while Ford demonstrated some poetic genius in his plays, nevertheless his characters are artificial and his low-comedy scenes are humorless.
John Ford,...
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In the following essay, first printed in 1935, Sargeaunt discusses the relationship between setting and the characters' emotions in Ford's plays.
‘Shakespeare and his contemporari...
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In the following essay, Sensabaugh proposes that Ford can be viewed as a prophet of modern thought in that his dramas explore the nascent issues of scientific determinism and extreme individualism.
I
...
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In the following essay, Leech discusses Ford's drama within the context of Jacobean tragedy, asserting that in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore Ford comes closest to recreating the Jacobea...
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In the following essay, Anderson argues that Perkin Warbeck presents a lesson in kingship, where the character of Henry VII represents the ideal ruler.
John Ford is not generally considered a politica...
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In the following essay, Ornstein examines the moral design of Ford's major tragedies, arguing that they represent a flexible morality which is constantly shaped by the dynamic nature of human r...
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In the following essay, Stavig argues that Ford integrated a sophisticated satirical commentary on contemporary moral, ethical, and religious issues into the traditional moral design of 'Tis Pi...
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In the following essay, Greenfield examines how Ford uses language in The Broken Heart to convey the process of feelings and actions that create a tragic chain of events.
“Ford does not,”...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1974, Rosen discusses 'Tis Pity She's a Whore within the context of Antonin Artaud's application of the tragedy to his theory of th...
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In the following diary entry dated March 3, 1669, Pepys recounts seeing The Lady's Trial, deeming it a “sorry play.”
So to Unthankes and there took up my wife and carried her to t...
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In the following essay, Atkinson asserts that the theme of moral knowledge serves to unite the seemingly disconnected Mother Sawyer and Frank Thorney plots in The Witch of Edmonton.
A familiar view of...
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In the following essay, Foster and Foster argue that Ford intended to draw an historical and political analogy between mythological Sparta in The Broken Heart and Elizabethan England, concluding that ...
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In the following essay, Nogami examines Ford's sophisticated use of dualities in The Lady's Trial to achieve unconventional dramatic effects.
The assumption that John Ford, as a Renaissa...
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In the following essay, Hopkins maintains that Ford's Perkin Warbeck encodes a form of sexual deviancy that may be subtle to modern readers and spectators but would not have been lost upon Ford...
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In the following essay, Langbaine provides a brief overview of Ford's dramatic works, singling out for censure Ford's treatment of incest in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
A Gent...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1764, Baker comments on Ford's The Lover's Melancholy and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, noting that the former was warmly receive...
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In the following essay, which was originally published in 1811, Lamb rhapsodizes about Ford's profound ability to dramatize tragic passion in The Broken Heart.
I do not know where to find in an...
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In the following essay, which was originally published in 1820, Hazlitt describes Ford's dramatic technique as artificial and lacking imagination, but notes that such deficiencies are often ove...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1845 and written as a fictional dialogue between the characters of Philip and John, Lowell acknowledges Ford as a talented playwright but not one of the...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1875, Ward praises the harrowing intensity of Ford's tragic figures, but contends that the tragic outcome in his plays is often insufficient in t...
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In the following essay, originally published in Essays and Studies in 1875, Swinburne recognizes Ford's distinctive dramatic style and characterizes him as a poet worth remembering.
Whenever th...
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Ford, John (1894-1973)
John Sean O'Feeney Ford
