Directed by John Ford (1971)

Director:

Peter Bogdanovich

Guionista:

Peter Bogdanovich (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A documentary on the life and films of director John Ford.

Plot Keywords:

Anecdote | Interview | Independent Film | Character Name In Title

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Bogdanovich's documentary tries to analyze Ford's work, and provide anecdotal insights of the great director.

Cast

Orson Welles	...	Narrator (voice)
listado alfabético del resto del reparto:
Ward Bond	...	(archive footage)
Harry Carey	...	(archive footage)
Harry Carey Jr.	...	Himself
Clint Eastwood	...	Himself
Katharine Hepburn	...	Herself (archive footage)
Walter Hill	...	Himself
Jeffrey Hunter	...	(archive footage)
Maureen O'Hara	...	Herself (archive footage)
Martin Scorsese	...	Himself
Steven Spielberg	...	Himself
Richard Widmark	...	(archive footage)

También conocida como:

Director: John Ford (Venezuela) [es]

Duración:

99 min | USA:110 min (2006 version) | 110 min (restored longer 2006 version)

País:

USA

Idioma:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Center for Advanced Film Studies, American Film Institute - 2021 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

American Film Institute (AFI)

Movie Connections:

Features Mary of Scotland (1936)

Bogdanovich's documentary tries to analyze Ford's work, and provide anecdotal insights of the great director.

Made the same year Peter Bogdanovich created his masterpiece, "The Last Picture Show," one might expect great things from this somewhat unconventional documentary on John Ford. After all, how wrong can one go with interview footage of John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and the director himself? And if that's not enough "star power," consider that no less than Orson Welles narrates. But things often go horribly wrong in this uneven, inconsistent work that's more of a random, love-letter to the director, than an insightful peek into his world.

Rather than tell the story of his life, Bogdonavich focuses on the work of John Ford. In fact, he relies heavily on film footage. It isn't all the typical sound-bite clip one comes to expect from documentaries, but often long scenes, or sequences of scenes. This works well sometimes, but all too often, the clip is simply longer than it needs to be. It makes its point, and then keeps going, and going, and going. This wouldn't be so bad if Bogdanovich, a former film critic, put more commentary into the scenes, but he usually doesn't.

Then there is the interview footage, the real reason to watch. There are some wonderful anecdotes and insights here, but they are too often constructed in disjointed, dare I say, amateurish ways.

Indeed, the whole film is inconsistent. It lacks focus, and shifts rather uneasily from one way of looking at things to another. Taken as isolated pieces, such as the the way it surveys the historical scope of Ford's work, it's wonderful, but as a whole, it's potential is never realized.

If anyone is to get anything out of this, one would probably have to possess some familiarity with the work of Ford. As a fan of the great director, I certainly found this worthwhile, but too sloppy. Those unfamiliar with Ford's work will probably find nothing of interest here, and their time would be better spent watching the actual works of Ford, than this work about Ford.