![]() It’s not just that Ford traded the burnt orange awe of Monument Valley for the verdant seductions of the Emerald Isle. It’s that brightness, and an enduring, penetrating charm, that’s made The Quiet Man endure as a classic alongside The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and it’s proof of the director’s oft-forgotten versatility.īut the impact of The Quiet Man goes beyond that of a flexible director taking his “job of work” approach to yet another genre in yet another vibrant location. There’s a naked emotion to the film, and a contrast that comes when placed alongside Ford’s other collaborations with Wayne, that makes The Quiet Man sing with a brightness that Ford always had in moments, but rarely displayed for an entire feature. The film that won Ford his fourth and final Oscar for Best Director (still an Academy record) feels like an outlier among his best-known works, even when placed alongside the light-in-the-darkness vulnerability of The Grapes of Wrath or the bittersweet wistfulness of How Green Was My Valley. To many, he’s that guy who made The Searchers and Stagecoach with John Wayne, and little more. That attitude, along with his instrumental role in shaping the Western into a cinematic art form, sanded away many of the finer details of Ford’s life and work in American pop culture. He wasn’t prone to romanticizing his films beyond what you see onscreen, calling directing “a job of work” and often retreating from questions about his cinematic output as a form of art (in interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, for example, he famously offered one-word answers and called “cut” rather than respond to certain questions). In his later years, with his eyepatch and pipe, he looked more like a field general than a luminary of the cinema, and depending on who you asked, his on-set behavior backed that image up. Of the directors who still loom large in Ford’s era, Frank Capra is usually the one we most often associate with gauzy, treacly views of life and love, while Ford is painted with a broad brush as the gruff technician, sitting behind the camera with a scowl while capturing the brutal beauty of the American West. The way marriage was handled back then is a fascinating subject matter.Sentimentality is not a word we often associate with John Ford, at least not the version of John Ford that the popular imagination has conjured in the years since the legendary director’s death. And if you're into boxing/MMA, you may very well appreciate it, too. Children will find the third act especially fun. It's not the greatest John Wayne movie, but, by God, it's the very definition of underrated. It is a prime example of the beauty of technicolor, and the wardrobe is on-point. I say "drama", but this movie is so upbeat with its Irish charm and humor, I would say it's a cozy watch if you want to get in a good mood. Her brother, however, doesn't take kindly to Thornton, and, as a result, drama ensues. Sean Thornton (John Wayne) travels back to Ireland, the land of his fathers, after being raised in the US, only to find himself in love with the redhead Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara). Her brother, It's not particularly profound, but holds up so well as an all-around family movie. ![]() ![]() It's not particularly profound, but holds up so well as an all-around family movie. ![]()
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