Cinema Station

Favorite Quotations from Directed by John Ford

Peter Bogdanovich’s tribute the contested greatest American filmmaker, John Ford, is itself one the best films ever made about filmmaking. Watching it again, I found some of these quotations about the “man who made Westerns” to be worth repeat.

Martin Scorsese: John Ford is the essence of classical American cinema and any serious person working in film today is effected by him, whether they know it or not.

Clint Eastwood: He was not influenced by a politically correct generation that we live in today. He could go flat out. And I think that was an imprint of Ford’s, where Ford was afraid of nothing.

Harry Carey Jr.: He kept saying, you’re going to hate me when the movie’s over, but you’re going to give a good performance. Well, I hated him after the first day.

Walter Hill: He always said I had a thousand fights with the Studio and I lost them all. But then there’s Grapes of Wrath and My Darling Clementine. I’d like to lose some fights like that.

Maureen O’Hara: He was an instinctive con-man. It was impossible to know when to believe him and when to disbelieve him.

-TM