If the Western is the vehicle with which contemporary filmmakers investigate the past to understand the present, then Liberty Valance illuminates how unrest in the 20th century reached back to the 19th century to uncover the lies America has been telling itself ever since. Continue reading THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
The magnificent stranger rides in from nowhere and with no destination. He sports brown boots, shrunk-to-fit dark jeans, and a forest green serape with a white pattern. He’ll give the name “Joe” when asked, but names don’t really mean much … Continue reading A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
When Orson Welles was asked what filmmakers he admired, he responded, “I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” Born John Martin Feeney in Maine in 1894—though he disputed two of those … Continue reading Decoding John Ford
Joseph McBride has written extensively on the Hollywood director, always when Ford’s legacy needed rescuing. His first book on the filmmaker, which he co-authored with Michael Wilmington and first published in 1975, has been revised and expanded and will be re-released by the University Press of Kentucky on Dec. 5. Continue reading JOHN FORD
I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. When it comes to cinematic landscapes, few are as iconic—or at least as mined—as Monument Valley. Located in northern Arizona, home to the Navajo Nation, Monument Valley was placed in the geography of cinema … Continue reading THE TAKING
Young Mr. Lincoln might be John Ford’s greatest film. And that’s saying something. Especially considering Young Mr. Lincoln was one of three films Ford made in 1939 alone. The other two: Stagecoach is cited by many to be the best western an American studio ever … Continue reading YOUNG MR. LINCOLN
It’s 1950, and John Ford wants to make a movie: The Quiet Man, from a story by Maurice Walsh, about a retired boxer who returns to his birthplace in Ireland and falls for a vivacious redhead. The movie will star John Wayne … Continue reading RIO GRANDE
This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. That line from John Ford’s seminal 1962 western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, doesn’t just encapsulate the movie’s theme, Ford’s overall career, or even the entirety of the … Continue reading Print the Legend: Westerns at the Sie Film Center
Michael J. Cinema 
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