An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
EN
“Ford is one of the great artists of cinema. Not only because of the composition and the light of his shots but more deeply, because he shoots so quickly that he makes two movies at the same time: a movie to ward off time (stretching his stories, for fear of ending) and another to save the moment (the moment of the landscape, two seconds before the action). He enjoys the show ‘before’. So, with Ford there is not point looking for characters who, in front of a beautiful landscape, would say “How beautiful!” The character is not to whisper to the spectator what he should see. That would be immoral.”
Serge Daney1
“Mystery and fascination of this American cinema… How can I hate John Wayne upholding Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of The Searchers ?”
Jean-Luc Godard2
- 1Serge Daney, “John Ford for Ever,” http://sergedaney.blogspot.com, 1988. First published in Libération, 18 November 1988. Translation by Laurent Kretzschmar.
- 2Jean-Luc Godard cited in Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington, John Ford (London: Secker & Warburg, 1973).