The great director John Ford (1894-1973) is best known for classic westerns, but his body of work encompasses much more than this single genre. Jeffrey Richards develops and broadens our understanding of Ford's film-making oeuvre by studying his non-Western films through the lens of Ford's life and abiding preoccupations. Ford's other cinematic worlds included Ireland, the Family, Catholicism, War and the Sea, which share with his westerns the recurrent themes of memory and loss, the plight of outsiders and the tragedy of family breakup. Richards' revisionist study both provides new insights into familiar films such as The Fugitive (1947); The Quiet Man (1952), Gideon's Way and The Informer (1935) and reclaims neglected masterpieces, among them Wee Willie Winkie (1937) and the extraordinary The Long Voyage Home. (1940).

A study of John Ford's films beyond the canonical Westerns for which he is best known, through the lens of some of Ford's abiding preoccupations.

About the Author
Jeffrey Richards is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at Lancaster University, UK. He is the editor of the 'Cinema and Society' book series and author of a number of books on cinema and cultural history, including The Golden Age of the Pantomime (2014).


Book Information
ISBN 9781350114708
Author Jeffrey Richards
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 664g