David Meuel: 3 books

While John Ford (1894–1973) remains one of the most influential and revered directors in film history, he is also one of the most frequently misunderstood. One widespread assumption is that he was almost exclusively a man’s director, dismissive of, or at best not well attuned to, the stories,...

Beginning in the mid–1940s, the bleak, brooding mood of film noir began seeping into that most optimistic of film genres, the western. Story lines took on a darker tone and western films adopted classic noir elements of moral ambiguity, complex anti-heroes and explicit violence. The noir western...

When the movie business adopted some of the ways of other big industries in 1920s America, women—who had been essential to the industry’s early development—were systematically squeezed out of key behind-the-camera roles. Yet, as female producers and directors virtually disappeared for decades,...