Talk:John Ford

Proposal to split article

I've completed the core work on the text of this article although it still needs more inline references, so if anybody can assist with that I'd be very grateful. The section on Ford's directing career has turned out fairly long, so I'd suggest that it be split off into a separate article e.g. "The Films of John Ford", or something to that effect.

Any objections or other suggestions? I'll leave this a week or so and if there are no objections I'll move that section into a new article and boil it down to a short summary for the existing page. Dunks (talk) 05:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

External link to a relevant library collection

I'm new to wikipedia, so please forgive the question. I added an external link to this article on John Ford. It was removed because it didn't comply to the guidelines for external links. The link went to the decription of the John Ford papers at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. I work there, so I am not a totally disinterested party, but it seems like this is relatively neutral information that would be very useful to someone interested in the director.

Wouild it be more appropriate to add it to the article somewhere, rather than as an external link? Or I am I totally off base?

Thanks. Erikad (talk) 17:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Erikad, and welcome to wikipedia.

You can see our guidelines on external links here. Generally speaking, we prefer to keep external links to a minimum, even those which are not overtly promotional or commercial in intent- guiding principle is, ext links should contain notable, substantial and reliable information relevant to the subject at hand, that is not otherwise accessible in the article or cannot readily be covered in the article. As you may imagine, wikipedia articles attract lots of edits adding external links, many of which do not add all that much to the article's info.

That said, I don't see any particular problem with the link added in this specific case. However, I think it would probably be best to have this information incorporated into the article text itself, at some relevant spot. Something like, a sentence or so mentioning that a collection of Ford's papers is held at that library. You could then provide the link as a citation for the fact (see WP:CITE and WP:REFB for ways to do this). That shld hopefully be satisfactory to all. Kind Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

John Ford's cinematography

Several years ago, while watching Ford westerns on the late, great American Movie Classics, I noted that some scenes seemed to have been shot as if Ford was working in 3D. That is, there were obvious, clearly separated planes of grouped objects or characters. This isn't something one commonly sees.

Watching the magnificent Blu-ray of The Searchers really brought this home. Scenes, both interior and exterior, have two, three, or four planes, with those closest to or farthest from the camera in less-than-perfect focus. This is used to great effect in some of the Monument Valley scenes.

I assume this was all quite intentional. Is there an expert on Ford who might discuss this in the article? WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 23:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

First off, John Ford was not a cinematographer, unlike his brother, director Francis Ford, who had operated a camera in his time. That said, Ford like his contemporary William Wyler were known for creating three planes -- front, middle, and rear. This is more apparent in Wyler's films, like JEZEBEL & THE LITTLE FOXES. They both used Gregg Toland as a lighting cameraman. Interestingly, Tag Gallagher, who is extensively quoted in this article, says in his Senses of Cinema article "Brother Feeney" about Francis Ford (whom John said he learned everything from), "Also anticipating John, Frank often organises shots in three planes of depth, with characters in the middle."Shemp Howard, Jr. (talk) 21:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Disney was well aware of multiple planes when he developed the multi-plane camera. Cinematographers use different planes through "selective focus". 63.192.100.202 (talk) 21:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days.--Oneiros (talk) 22:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

World's foremost movie directors in 1940?

I'm currently translatin this article into Finnish (great job, by the way, - and with sources :) ), but the statement "by 1940 he was acknowledged as one of the world's foremost movie directors" struck me as odd. I always thought John Ford's real rise to fame came with the Auteur theory in the late 50s and early 60s. Please correct me if I'm wrong.--Nedergard (talk) 09:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

At one point, THE INFORMER was considered the greatest sound film ever made. Hard to believe now. Ford won his first Academy Award for THE INFORMER, and then his 2nd and 3rd in 1941 & '42 (for THE GRAPES OF WRATH & HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY). So, he was pretty much established as the foremost American director other than Frank Capra (who had segued into his own hybrid of comedic films by 1940), who racked up three Oscars by 1940. Shemp Howard, Jr. (talk) 21:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a reference will help to support this view - can anyone assist? - but I think the point is pretty much borne out by the article -- by the early '40s his films had won a slew of major awards including numerous Oscars, and he was one of the highest-paid paid directors in the world - in fact (as I note) he was earning more than the US President. Dunks (talk) 11:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

John Fords silent movies

20110130 by Pandion: I just viewed "Upstream" a 1927 silent film directed by John Ford at the NY premiere at the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, NY of the restored print found in the New Zealand Film Archives . The handout for the screening said that John Ford directed over 60 silent titles and only about dozen films survive. I would like to add this to the opening sentence of this article if no objects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandion (talk • contribs) 02:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)