Character introduction of John Ford

He always likes to show the lives of men in the American West, their plight and responsibilities, their dreams and glory, and their weaknesses and sorrows in movies. Some people say that if you have not watched his "The Searchers", you may not have watched a Western...

When it comes to Westerns, there is a master who cannot be bypassed no matter what. He is of Irish descent. American director John Ford. He was the first master of Western films, and it was he who made people realize what a true Western film is. But what’s interesting is that during his half-century-long Hollywood career, he won the American Academy Award for Best Director four times, but not once for a western.

John Ford always liked to show the lives of men in his movies. In his lens, the men's dilemmas and responsibilities, their glory and dreams, as well as their weaknesses and sorrows are truthfully presented one by one.

In real life, he is also such a man. John Ford didn't like to sit down and read quietly since he was a child. He longed to make a career in the world. After graduating from high school at the age of 18, he dismissed college, thinking that "this is the time for a man to enter the world." It happened that his brother Francis Ford was a director in Hollywood, so he ran to Hollywood. But Hollywood is full of talent, and he has no skills, so it's really hard to find a job. John Ford had a miserable time in Hollywood, working as a handyman for Universal Pictures: he moved various artificial sets back and forth every day according to the director's arrangements.

After several minor roles in Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" and a stint as an assistant director to his brother, John Ford's opportunity finally came: in Francis ·In a certain western film directed by Ford, there was a scene in which "the shepherd boy fell from his horse" was shot by John, and this was noticed by the boss of the studio.

In 1917, John Ford began his independent film directing career.

In the beginning, John Ford was not very noticeable until he made "The Iron Rider" at the age of 29.

"Ride" is a film with a very grand scale and scenery, and a very spectacular momentum. It is also a masterpiece of Ford's silent film era. This movie uses the historical background of the construction of the great railroad that crosses the east and west in the United States and depicts the dream of Americans looking for a better life. The film's depiction of the beautiful scenery of the wild American West is unforgettable and quite penetrating. He made full use of the movement of the camera in the shooting of this film, making it a masterpiece of early western films.

In just a few years, Ford accumulated a lot of experience in western films, and finally produced the epoch-making classic "The Passage" in 1939 using a "transplantation" technique. The film is adapted from the novel "Stage Train to Roseburg" by Ernst Heikos, and the story of the novel is based on the short story "Ball de Suif" by French writer Maupassant. In the western United States, a stage coach carrying prostitutes, bankers and fugitives traveled through the western wilderness. They were attacked and intensely chased by Indians along the way. The gripping plot and the majestic mountains and rivers of the American West, coupled with a powerful cast... all of this makes John Ford a member of the film history.

After that, he made several more films, all of which achieved good results: he won three Oscars for "Flowers of Anger", "Returning Home" and "Green Mountains and Green Valleys" Best Director Award, his film career reached the pinnacle of honors. "Flowers of Wrath" is adapted from the work "The Grapes of Wrath" by Nobel Prize winner and American writer John Steinbeck. This is a feature film that depicts the American lower class people who left their hometowns and struggled to survive in the West during the Great Depression. The completely realistic scenes in the film are moving, especially the image of a mother, which is even more unforgettable. "Green Hills and Green Valley" is a film based on the life of miners. In order to shoot real scenes, John Ford even took the film crew across the ocean to shoot in the mining areas of Wales, England.

Although his literary films have won him awards one after another, ordinary movie fans still prefer to watch his western films - of course, studio bosses are more happy that his films can sell for high prices. So, after the war, John Ford, who retired with the rank of major general, re-entered Western films and filmed new classics of Western films such as "My Darling Clementine". A "stable duel" scene in this film was imitated by many later Western film directors. After that, he won the Oscar for Best Director for the fourth time with the film "The Quiet Man". Small towns, stagecoaches, taverns, gunslingers and duels...the classic style of western films has taken shape in the hands of John Ford.

But the master is the master. He is never satisfied and always tries to break through the existing model. John Ford also used the frontier cavalry as the theme and filmed the "Cavalry Trilogy", a Western film with a strong romantic color, which greatly expanded the vast territory of western films. When he was 61 years old, he directed another very thoughtful western film - "The Searchers". In the film, he created a man who was different from the heroes of his past westerns, a character full of inner contradictions. In the film, the protagonist recovers his niece who was snatched away by the Indians, but he must accept the reality that she has become an Indian woman.

This is still a tribute to the American wild west, but the difference is that the characters' emotions and inner world are more complicated. The film is hailed as the best film in the history of Western films and has an irreplaceable influence in the minds of a new generation of Hollywood filmmakers, including George Lucas's "Star Wars", Steven Spielberg's "Star Wars" The content of "The Searchers" has been directly mentioned or quoted in films such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". The Yangtze River always pushes back the waves ahead. In 1973, John Ford died of cancer.