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 career that began in the silent era with The Tornado (Universal, 1917). Despite the variety of subject matter he tackled for the screen, he remains historically, critically, and in the public consciousness, as the architect of the Western, the genre on which he cut his teeth during the silent era. It was, however, not only the numerous popular and acclaimed Westerns he made for which he is important: his romantic, émigré's vision of the Old West and the pioneering spirit has crept into the perception of American history, blending idealized fiction into the harsher truth of fact for generations of Americans and, certainly, for non-Americans in the many countries where his work is regarded as a classic staple of Hollywood cinema at its best.
John Ford is the most decorated director in Hollywood history, and his four Academy Awards as best director in part illustrate his range while, curiously, ignoring his westerns (from which he took a decade-long break from 1927). He won his first Oscar for a return to the political roots of Ireland with The Informer (RKO, 1935), a tale of a simple-minded Irishman (Victor McLaglen) who betrays an IRA leader.
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