Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948) is one of the greatest Westerns. Starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, Red River is the story of the first cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene, Kansas. In Hawks’ hands, however, a movie about an episode in the history of America’s livestock business becomes mythic, epic,... Read More

John Ford’s last great film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) enjoys the status of a classic. I find it a deeply flawed, grating, and often ridiculous film that is nonetheless redeemed both by raising intellectually deep issues and by an emotionally powerful ending that seems to come out of nowhere. The stars of... Read More

Since the beginning of the twentieth century one of the newer art forms and expressions of our culture has been cinema—“motion pictures.� It was the novelty of live theater and acting captured as moving images in film and presented on a screen. In many respects, like other art forms, film represents what is happening in... Read More