Schoenberger mines the close yet turbulent friendship and creative relationship between actor John “Duke” Wayne and “man’s man” film director John Ford. Narrator Kimberly Farr maintains a measured tone and pace in her thoughtful narration. The work includes heavy doses of theorizing on the creation and maintenance of American values through film. The heart of the volume features criticism of masculinity and culture that occasionally veers toward the pompous and overblown. Make no mistake, the creative chemistry of the two principals—resulting in such beautiful screen efforts such as THE QUIET MAN and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON—is well explored and chronicled. One must accept the didactic parts to enjoy the creative insights. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero
Narrated by Kimberly Farr
Nancy SchoenbergerUnabridged — 7 hours, 43 minutes
Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero
Narrated by Kimberly Farr
Nancy SchoenbergerUnabridged — 7 hours, 43 minutes
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Overview
*
For more than twenty years John Ford and John Wayne were a blockbuster Hollywood team, turning out many of the finest Western films ever made. Ford, known for his black eye patch and for his hard-drinking, brawling masculinity, was a son of Irish immigrants and was renowned as a director for both his craftsmanship and his brutality. John “Duke” Wayne was a mere stagehand and bit player in “B” Westerns, but he was strapping and handsome, and Ford saw his potential. In 1939 Ford made Wayne a star in Stagecoach, and from there the two men established a close, often turbulent relationship.
* * *Their most productive years saw the release of one iconic film after another: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But by 1960 the bond of their friendship had frayed, and Wayne felt he could move beyond his mentor with his first solo project, The Alamo. Few of Wayne's subsequent films would have the brilliance or the cachet of a John Ford Western, but viewed together the careers of these two men changed moviemaking in ways that endure to this day. Despite the decline of the Western in contemporary cinema, its cultural legacy, particularly the type of hero codified by Ford and Wayne-tough, self-reliant, and unafraid to fight but also honorable, trustworthy, and kind-resonates in everything from Star Wars to today's superhero franchises.
* * *Drawing on previously untapped caches of letters and personal documents, Nancy Schoenberger dramatically narrates a complicated, poignant, and iconic friendship and the lasting legacy of that friendship on American culture.
Editorial Reviews
"John Ford and John Wayne taught us how to be men," the director John Milius observes on the opening page of Wayne and Ford. Schoenberger spends much of her swiftly paced, elegantly written book trying to unlock why.
05/01/2017
Schoenberger (Furious Love) has tremendous affection for her subjects here, John Ford and John Wayne, who made seven major westerns together. Her book focuses equally on their individual career trajectories and director Ford’s mentoring of the actor who was shaped into “the ideal of the American hero.” While Schoenberger addresses some relevant themes—boys becoming men, codes of masculinity, and feminized men—there is more recounting of plots and quoting of published source material than analysis of the films. The sections on Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are adequate but not overly illuminating. Schoenberger has an unfortunate tendency to repeat herself, yet she fails to emphasize her points. What is of interest here are some of the more gossipy tidbits: rumors that Ford was gay, stories about his tormenting of actors and irascible nature on set, or an account of Wayne stepping into the director’s chair on The Alamo and relegating Ford to second-camera duties. The photos, of the young Wayne especially, are good, but overall this appreciation of the careers of these legendary men is underwhelming. Agent: David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects. (Oct.)
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
"A swiftly paced, elegantly written book."
—New York Times Book Review
"A top-notch new book about the Wayne-Ford Westerns . . . Schoenberger efficiently details the lives and careers of the men, including on-set anecdotes as well as sharp critical observations . . . [Wayne and Ford] impresses with its insightful, enthusiastic appraisal of a cinematic collaboration par excellence."
—Columbus Dispatch
"Arguably, no collaboration has been more fulfilling for audiences or more influential for narrative filmmakers than John Wayne and John Ford . . . [Wayne and Ford] serves as a lean and energetic introduction to a pair of moviemakers who are central to understanding American cinema."
—Associated Press
"A wide-ranging exploration of Westerns, the evolution of the film business and the meaning of masculinity that never loses sight of its central theme: the making and unmaking of a great partnership."
—Hollywood Reporter
“For a tightly focused study of two men and a handful of movies they made together, Wayne and Ford covers an awful lot of ground. We see the Western genre mature, perspectives on the myths of the Wild West shift, and ideas of masculinity interrogated and recast on the big screen. John Wayne’s life and work, especially, have an elegiac quality here that contemporary accounts missed . . . A fascinating two-hander.”
—William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days
“A closely-observed and supremely engaging account of a difficult friendship and an inspired creative partnership. Whether dissecting a particular film or commenting on the American Western as a genre, Nancy Schoenberger consistently has interesting and original things to say. Half-elegy, half-cutting-edge analysis, this is a book for anyone interested in film and the ways in which it reflects and effects the larger culture around it.”
—Daphne Merkin, author of This Close to Happy
“Nancy Schoenberger analyzes and dissects the intricate blend of pride, dignity, courage, and violence that defines American masculinity as depicted in Ford’s films and embodied by Wayne’s characters. And she locates the hidden depths of vulnerability and self-doubt that help to explain and humanize these brilliant, troubled icons.”
—Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend and High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
"This look into the films of Ford and Wayne and their friendship and why it eventually became tattered is a provocative addition to Hollywood history."
—Booklist
08/01/2017
Director John Ford and actor John Wayne made 23 films together in a long, often difficult partnership. Though often generous, Ford was also mean-spirited and cruel to Wayne and members of his "stock company." This dual biography examines the contradictory personalities of both men. Wayne graduated to roles in Hollywood "B" Westerns after starting as a stunt and prop man. Ford long had his eye on Wayne but waited for the right project: his 1939 classic Stagecoach. In Ford's "cavalry trilogy," his Irish romance The Quiet Man, and in the 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, Ford allowed the Duke to project depth and sensitivity. He also mocked Wayne for not serving in World War II and derided his acting abilities. The book describes Ford's affinity for male bonding on and off-screen, his conflicted sexuality, and his self-destructive binge drinking between assignments. Away from Ford's direction, Wayne's films were sometimes marked by a shallow, self-righteous patriotism. Despite Ford's rough treatment, Wayne was grateful to the "old man," absorbing lessons on acting. He eventually combined both men's personalities in his Oscar-winning turn in 1969's True Grit. VERDICT Some of this has been told before, but Schoenberger's (Dangeous Muse) brisk narrative is recommended for classic film fans. [See Prepub Alert, 4/24/17.]—Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA
Schoenberger mines the close yet turbulent friendship and creative relationship between actor John “Duke” Wayne and “man’s man” film director John Ford. Narrator Kimberly Farr maintains a measured tone and pace in her thoughtful narration. The work includes heavy doses of theorizing on the creation and maintenance of American values through film. The heart of the volume features criticism of masculinity and culture that occasionally veers toward the pompous and overblown. Make no mistake, the creative chemistry of the two principals—resulting in such beautiful screen efforts such as THE QUIET MAN and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON—is well explored and chronicled. One must accept the didactic parts to enjoy the creative insights. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-06-27
Biography of the two figures, actor and director, who defined the Western film genre.John Wayne (1907-1979) started in film, as Schoenberger (English and Creative Writing/Coll. of William and Mary; Dangerous Muse: A Life of Caroline Blackwood, 2001, etc.) observes, as a "mere stagehand." However, by the time director John Ford (1894-1973) caught up to him, he had already made a few small films as a lead or supporting actor—unsuccessfully, to be sure. Tyrannical and exacting—and, the author posits late in the book, tied up in knots by sexual-identity insecurity—Ford led Wayne to stardom through seven major Westerns, including Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, that are held up today as canonical. Ford's contributions were many. Apart from the technical aspects of his directorial work, he also had a nuanced sense of storytelling and of the grays between the black and white edges of morality that made his films more interesting than those Wayne made on his own, such as the simple-minded epics The Green Berets and The Alamo, "derailed by his ultrapatriotism," Schoenberger remarks while enumerating the masculine-virtue qualities Ford helped Wayne express. "No other director and actor created the ideal of the American hero more than Ford and Wayne," writes the author, going on to illustrate her case with those major films while noting other waypoints in Wayne's career, such as Mark Rydell's The Cowboys and Don Siegel's The Shootist—both films in which Wayne's character dies, something contemporary audiences didn't much care for. Allowing that she is "not alone among women" in enjoying Westerns, Schoenberger serves up an intelligently crafted narrative that never runs as deep as it might. For that, readers are better served by Scott Eyman's John Wayne (2013) and especially Glenn Frankel's The Searchers (2014), the latter of which covers much of the same ground more compellingly. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but compleatist fans of Wayne and Ford will enjoy revisiting the films discussed.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169151619 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 10/24/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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Chapter 2 - The Good Bad Man
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