John Ford's image will reportedly be the first to grace a "forever stamp" in a series commemorating great American film directors next year, according to the Los Angeles Times, with illustrator Gary Kelley doing the visual honors. It's appropriate that Ford—arguably the finest and most influential of American auteurs, and the first recipient of AFI's Life Achievement Award, in 1973—is to be the first director honored.
For the uninitiated, Ford 's body of work is a veritable must-see list of classics: How Green Was My Valley (Best Picture and Director Oscars, 1941), The Searchers, The Quiet Man (Best Director, 1952), My Darling Clementine, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Grapes of Wrath (Best Director, 1940), Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, They Were Expendable, The Informer (Best Director, 1935), to name a few of the most luminous, in no particular order.
It would be well worth your time to Netflix any two or three of the above the next time a free weekend crops up. Though accessibility levels vary, all reward more richly with repeated viewings.
You'll thank me someday.
You'll thank me someday.
© Jon Oye, 2011
