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John Ford Goes to War (2002)

Review by HEFILM

John Ford Goes to War

4/10

Just okay, a disappointment

You do get to hear Oliver Stone trash John Ford for being a government shill. That and an overabundance of talking heads who talk and talk but sometimes don't say much slow this down. You finish the film thinking, I didn't really see much of what Ford actually did on film during the war and what you do see leaves you with the impression that if this is the best stuff from those films maybe you don't need to see anymore. It's kind of impressive the people they got to interview but what they chose either to ask or to use from what they said is not impressive--and mostly impersonal.

It's great they made this film but the writing assumes too much in some cases, making a case that John Ford was a drunken bastard wanna be as a personality, but not letting us appreciate the war films or understand just how it (the war) affected him. Though the voice over says it changed him there is no answer as to how.

Most interesting footage is home movie footage of the elusive Ford on his boat and at some vet functions. You get to watch him guzzle a beer and flip off the camera. Kris Kristopherson offers his own, last stool at the end of the bar, style narration that seemed to fit the Sam Peckinpah documentary more than it fits this. Again though the fault may mostly be with the writing here.

Some of the other most interesting footage is that cut out of the December 7th movie, cut by Ford. The long version of the film, Dec 7 that is, looks like a strange curio in deed and I didn't know that Greg Toland the DP really wanted to direct--though it seems the relative failure of this wartime film helped stop that from happening.

Peter Bogdanavich adds a funny and revealing story (and impersonation) about Ford during the end credits. Too little too late.
  • HEFILM
  • Mar 15, 2006

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