JOHN FORD
Name: John Martin Feeney
Born: 1 February 1894 Cape Elizabeth, Maine, U.S.
Died: 31 August 1973 Palm Desert, California, U.S.
John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director
of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The
Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The
Grapes of Wrath. His four Best Director Academy Awards (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952)
is a record still unmatched, although only one of those films, How Green Was My
Valley, won Best Picture.
His style of film-making has been tremendously influential, leading colleagues
such as Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles to name him as one of the greatest
directors of all time. In particular, Ford is a pioneer of location shooting and
the extreme long shot which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and
rugged natural terrain. Ford has further influenced directors as diverse as
Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah,
Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone, Wim Wenders, David Lean, Orson Welles, Ingmar
Bergman, Francois Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.
Name: John Martin Feeney
Born: 1 February 1894 Cape Elizabeth, Maine, U.S.
Died: 31 August 1973 Palm Desert, California, U.S.
John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973) was an American film director
of Irish heritage famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach and The
Searchers and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The
Grapes of Wrath. His four Best Director Academy Awards (1935, 1940, 1941, 1952)
is a record still unmatched, although only one of those films, How Green Was My
Valley, won Best Picture.
His style of film-making has been tremendously influential, leading colleagues
such as Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles to name him as one of the greatest
directors of all time. In particular, Ford is a pioneer of location shooting and
the extreme long shot which frames his characters against a vast, harsh and
rugged natural terrain. Ford has further influenced directors as diverse as
Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah,
Peter Bogdanovich, Sergio Leone, Wim Wenders, David Lean, Orson Welles, Ingmar
Bergman, Francois Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.