John Ford, Revised and Enlarged Edition

Bob Dylan used to introduce his drummer as "the only drummer better than no drummer at all". That pretty well sums up this John Ford book. What you can't see from home is that the book is truly tiny, about a quarter inch thick and six inches square. It's only 144 pages long; the last 35 of those pages are a John Ford filmography and the first 35 are a Bogdanovitch essay. The interviews in between are similarly miniature, and in typical Bogdanovitch fashion they revolve more around anecdotes and personalities than film making and theory. For instance, here's what Ford says about my nominee for his best film, My Darling Clementine: "I knew Wyatt Earp. In the very early silent days, a couple of times a year, he would come up to visit pals, cowboys he knew in Tombstone; alot of them were in my company. I think I was an assistant prop boy then and I used to give him a chair and a cup of coffee, and he told me about the fight at the O. K. Corral. So in My Darling Clementine, we did it exactly as it had been. They didn't just walk up in the street and start banging away at each other; it was a clever military maneuver." And that's it. A good story. But a short one. Not much about the film itself, though, is there? The longest statements go on for about one full page. Ford's thoughts on film making are scattered throughout, and it's good stuff: -On his dislike of close-ups: "We've got this big screen - instead of putting a lot of pockmarked faces on it...play a scene in a two-shot. You see people instead of faces." -On actors: "If you get the first or second take, there's a sparkle, an uncertainty about it; they're not sure of their lines, and it gives you a sense of nervousness and suspense." -On film music: "I don't like to see a man alone in the desert, dying of thirst, with the Philadelphia Orchestra behind him." Ford talks about almost every film he ever made, including most of the silents that no one's ever seen. You can read the book in one sitting, and by the end you'll have a sense of who John Ford was and what he was all about. Since Ford hated giving interviews, but was very patient with Bogdanovitch, this one is something of a standout. It's a good book, I just wish there was more of it. (A poster below slags the Hitchcock/ Truffaut book; don't listen to him, that book is marvelous.)

I love film interview books. There has become a great tradition of directors interviewing directors for all of posterity. Bogdanovich was successful at getting a great number of the leading directors on the record. This was his attempt at debriefing John Ford.John Ford was quite an elusive character. He was considered a great artist inside and outside of Hollywood during his life. This short book isn't a bad attempt to have him comment on those films most precious to him and to us. Unlike Orson Welles, who made only a few films over 40 years, and spoke on them extensively with Bogdanovich, Ford speaks just a sentence or two or maybe a paragraph on some of the greatest films of all time. Grapes of Wrath? "I liked the idea of a family going out and trying to find their way in the world." She Wore a Yellow Ribbon? "I tried to copy the Remington style there." The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? "I think they were both good characters and I rather liked the story."I hope I haven't made it sound too simplistic, because Ford actually reveals the most important parts of his films with very few words. Just reading a sentence or two and watching the film gives you the idea of what Ford was trying to convey. It may even give these films new meaning.

This book by Bogdanovich is the first attempt to portray the art of this truly great poet in cinema. If you are looking for the facts about his life, just forget this book. But if you are REALLY interested in what kind of person he was, this classic book still remains one of the most poignant portrait of a great filmmaker. Ford rarely tells the truth, and many things that he said in this book is now considered or confirmed to be untrue by biographers and scholars. But it is not only the facts that makes a man. Through the "lies" (if you may called it), you learn a lot about his great sense of sarcastic humour, and his way of capturing people's heart: in many occasion, Ford makes fun of Bogdanovich, yet without hurting his feelings. How many people can talk to somebody like this? I, personally, have never met. Telling stories is itself an art, for somebody like Ford. And through him telling stories, you can feel the poet inside him. Actually, Ford is more honest than most of the directors of his generation. Think of Alfred Hitchcock's self-glorification as he was interviewed by Truffaut. Ford doesn't do that. He is humble and never tries to boast about his "art". He says, he just put the camera before something he found interesting. He never tells about all the difficulties he had to go through to achieve that, but you if you are a careful reader, and somebody who knows his films, you can just feel it. Bogdanovich's introduction, describing the great artist at work during the shooting of Cheyenne Autunmn is so beautiful and sad it will bring tears to your eyes.