John Ford - Der Mann, der Amerika erfand

As others have posted, I eagerly sat down to watch this bio of Ford.

As others have also posted, what we saw was a hodgepodge of left wing academia and for some odd reason, multiple French eggheads, put their modern day spin on Fords work.

The worst part was someone claiming Ford put manly men on film because he was afraid of his own feminine side. Where they dreamed up this gem is beyond me, and of course they don't provide any proof of their weird claim. Another gem was claiming the Searchers only shows the savagery of the American Cavalry, because of the devastation left behind in a village of Indians, while completely ignoring the reason for Ethan Edwards search, which arose from the Indians savagery of his family. But the most laughable part was telling us about Ford having failed cataract surgery in his right eye, causing him to wear a patch on his right eye. While showing him in closeup wearing his eye patch on his left eye.

This is not a true bio of a great American director, but an exercise in pushing a set of beliefs disguised as a documentary.

10 minutes into this, the narrator declares Ford gave John Wayne his first starring role in Stagecoach. Which any amateur film fan knows is COMPLETELY WRONG. Not only did Raoul Walsh do that in 1930 (9 years earlier), but Wayne had starred in B Westerns all through the thirties.

This documentary can't even get it right about which eye Ford lost. They don't know that John Wayne got his big break from Raoul Walsh in 1930 but because The Big Trail" was such a box office flop (personally I liked it) Wayne ended up playing endless B westerns. The documentary ignores Ford's long term relationship with Walter Wanger (the guy who backed Ford on Stagecoach and other films). Apparently they don't know that Ford learned about westerns working with Thomas Ince, the man who was called the "Father of the Western". And I could go on and on. John Ford was one of the best directors ever. He deserves better.

I enjoyed the film footage, and the interviews with Ford, if for no other reason than they revealed his personality, but who needs the opinions of all of the other people that are totally irrelevant. That's what brought my rating down to a 5. And why on earth bring politics into this documentary about a director? Give us a break.

How sadly disappointing this is. Why is it so many feel that EVERYthing has to be politicized today? I didn't tune into this in order to view and listen to the same sort of tripe one can find on any cable news channel 24 hours a day. If this is a biography or documentary of John Ford new definitions are needed for each in the dictionary. Call me naïve if you will, but the last thing I expected when anxiously tuning into this was political drivel and sour grapes more than three years after the 2016 election. Twenty minutes in and my wife and I, enormous John Ford appreciators, can't take any more. Sadly it is not even worth staying tuned in for the potential nugget of John Ford information because it is laced with far too much current politics and far too little content about the supposed subject. If you genuinely want to know something about John Ford I recommend you skip this and read one of the number of biographies readily available.