John Ford - Influence

Influence

Ford is widely considered to be among the most influential of Hollywood's filmmakers. He was listed as the fifth most influential director of all time by MovieMaker. Below are some of the people who were directly influenced by Ford, or greatly admired his work:

  • Ingmar Bergman – Said of Ford, "the best director in the world."
  • Peter Bogdanovich
  • Frank Capra – Referred to Ford as the "king of directors"
  • Federico Fellini
  • Jean-Luc Godard – Once compared the ending of The Searchers to "Ulysses being reunited with Telemachus"
  • Howard Hawks
  • Alfred Hitchcock – "A John Ford film was a visual gratification"
  • Lloyd Kaufman
  • Elia Kazan
  • Satoshi Kon took inspiration from Ford's Three Godfathers for his animated film Tokyo Godfathers, a riff on Ford's western, set in contemporary Tokyo.
  • Akira Kurosawa – "I have respected John Ford from the beginning. Needless to say, I pay close attention to his productions, and I think I am influenced by them."
  • David Lean took inspiration from The Searchers for his film Lawrence of Arabia
  • Sergio Leone
  • Satyajit Ray – "A hallmark is never easy to describe, but the nearest description of Ford's would be a combination of strength and simplicity. The nearest equivalent I can think of is a musical one: middle-period Beethoven."
  • Jean Renoir – After seeing The Informer, he reportedly told George Seaton: "I learned so much today ... I learned how to not move my camera."
  • Martin Scorsese
  • Steven Spielberg
  • François Truffaut
  • Orson Welles – When asked to name the directors who most appealed to him, he replied: "I like the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford."
  • Wim Wenders

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