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Analysis Of John Ford's They Were Expendable

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Analysis Of John Ford's They Were Expendable
The Academy Award-winning director, John Ford, is considered one of the best filmmakers of all time. Ford achieved in fifty years of filmmaking a unique capacity in American culture in which he put throughout his films. The author Andrew Sinclair stated “he was a practical man who saw his job as showing the mass of the American people the truth of what he recreated about their past” (Sinclair 41). As a man, he concealed his true personality from the public, who built this whole legend of toughness around him to protect his softness as person. From his lack of emotional expression, his films are his way of expressing those feelings through emotionalism. Ford uses a strategy called docudrama. “A docudramas basis in truth actually launches the …show more content…
It captures the daring of the handful of Navy men who threw their fast PT-boat squadron against the Japanese in the first days of war. “Ford’s formal intention was to shoot within the realist conventions, a war, time battle epic about people and conditions that was authentic, recognizable, to Ford’s own actual considerable World War II was experiences” (Purcel 30). This film was produced as the war was going allowing it to be based on actual events, drawing on the historical memory of the audience. “They Were Expendables is John Fords more direct war film, with both the national and personal nearness to the war” (Sickels 91). The emotionalism is primary emphasized on the honor and courage of a small group of ordinary men in the face of defeat and a high demand. In the film, there are no emotional speeches but sacrifices, which the audience is able to experience because actions are more understood than words. “People are moved by this film because it reflected on something that their emotions still have not comprehended” (Everson 91). John Ford earned two Academy Awards for his World War II documentary because of dedication to duty and sacrifice of the men and created a stronger American society to remain strong during times of war. Another one based off the Korean War then followed this

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