Cinéastes de notre temps (TV Series) John Ford, entre chien et loup (1966) User Reviews

A Good Example of the Fallacy in Interviewing a Director

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 22 July 2018]

A cranky ,aging John Ford has his fun in this half hour segment of the Cineastes De Notre Temps series,but many of the factual questions addressed to him by critic Jean Narboni which are of a biographical nature could have simply been researched elsewhere,and those on how the artist feels about his own work don,t get very far,as Ford like a number of great directors expresses himself primarily through his films and is not that comfortable philosophizing about them.He does however,make some interesting points about the Western genre.First,that he is more at ease going out on a location to do a film of this type than staying in a studio.Second,his high estimation of the value of westerns in general.And third,his feeling that in his own body of work his best titles were such as Young Mr.Lincoln,The Sun Shines Bright,and The Long Voyage Home none of them Westerns.(He takes special pride that the latter was regularly screened by Eugene O,Neill,whose writings it was based on.) He dismisses The Searchers,now regarded by most as his masterpiece,as "just a Western." Ford also is well disposed toward the people who work in Hollywood,despite the sometimes scandalous way the media cover them. The documentary consists of only 4 takes,which are presented in succession without editing,moving in for a closer view of Ford sitting on his bed at times.At one point the camera runs out of film but we continue to hear Ford talking over a black image. The French title of this film is an expression for twilight,the time of day when night falls and it is hard to tell the difference between a dog and a wolf.In fact,it was shot between 7:30 and 8 p.m.in one evening.The idiom suggests an ambiguity and vagueness about Ford,s character and how he feels about his achievement.And one can easily find other interviews where Ford contradicts some of what he says here and has different opinions altogether.