Customer Reviews

John Waynes America

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone even remotely interested in John Wayne, John Ford, Westerns, or pop culture in general might want to add this fine book to their "to read" list. While Wills's book is full of biographical info. and is arranged (more or less) chronologically, it is much more concerned with tracing the formation of a truly larger-than-life public image. One of Wills's purposes is to debunk some of the myths that have clouded the public's view of (the former) Marion Morrison, but he clearly admires Wayne as a unique, commanding presence on the screen. Those who stubbornly refuse to think of Wayne as anything other than a manly, gun-loving superpatriot might want to steer clear. But most thinking people are more likely to be intrigued, even fascinated. The author's reading of Wayne--his life and films (THE BIG TRAIL, STAGECOACH, RED RIVER, and TURE GRIT in particular)--is always on target and lucid. While I don't recall disagreeing with Wills on a single critical point, I occasionally grew tired of his painstaking analysis of John Ford's background and various relationships and how they were inserted into his films. I realize that Ford played a huge role in the mythologizing of John Wayne, but I--again, occasionally--found myself asking whether Wills had lost his focus. Even so, the Ford sections are interesting; for example, I had no idea that he was such a sadist and fabricator. Over the course of the book Wills indicates that Ford was a complicated man, while Wayne was rather simple ("Wayne couldn't even spell [the word] politics," Henry Fonda says in one of the book's quotations). Though not perfect (I'd give it a 4 1/2 if I could), this is a great, fun book on a great (and overdue) subject.

This is a maddening book, so full of promise it never really delivers on. Yet I've read it twice, something I don't usually do. Though some might argue, the subject is an important one: the mythic stature of John Wayne as American hero. Given his unparalleled popularity over the years, Wayne's elevation poses some serious questions. Namely, how did this fame come about, and what does the elevation of a cowboy actor to national icon reveal about ourselves. Understanding this revered status should at least tell us something about the mind-set of American men, if not women (Wayne has never been as popular with the latter as with the former, Wills observes). I think it helps to get at the way Wills presents the Wayne phenomenon to target three levels.

First, there is Wayne the person, the man. Wills doesn't devote much space to this level, though the book's subtitle, i.e. "The Politics of Celebrity", might suggest otherwise. Very little is presented of Wayne's personal life or controversial political stances. Most of what is presented are efforts to either debunk popular fictions from the early years, or to pass along opinions of others, which about the man are usually unflattering, (Ford's disapproval of Wayne's lack of war service). Clearly the author believes Wayne's mythic status comes from the screen and not from the private individual.

The second level is Wayne the actor, the commanding screen presence. Despite many insights along the way, Wills falters badly by spending way too much time on seemingly irrelevant details of John Ford's personality and film style, many of which (the diagrams of seating arrangements in "Stagecoach", for example), shed no light on Wayne the actor. Wills' s preoccupation with Ford to the exclusion of Wayne is a serious defect, which may imply that the author found Ford the more compelling of the two, and could not restrain himself. Yet it is not Ford who is enshrined in the national consciousness, it is Wayne.

The third level is the most important: Wayne the mythic figure, the mirror in which we catch our own reflection. Here Wills both succeeds and fails. He succeeds by linking the Wayne figure with some of our most enduring national myths: unbounded western horizons, uncorrupted primitive, Jeffersonian ideal. But here in the book's last chapter, which should bring together the preceding 300 pages but which is only 12 pages long, there is no real synthesis of what has gone before. There is no effort at showing how, despite the many pages given over to him, Ford' romanticized vision of the Old West shapes the Wayne myth, or how that same vision embodies enduring national myths, or how to a lesser degree Hawk's vision taps into those same legends through the Wayne figure. In short, Wills fails at this crucial third stage to adequately fill in the blanks between Wayne the actor and Wayne the myth.

I get the feeling the author intended a deeper work than is there in the result, but instead got sidetracked on underdeveloped details that end up shedding little light on the Wayne phenomenon. Too bad, because there is an important project still unfulfilled. Certainly Wills has the skills to bring it off. I only wish he had.

What a super book! There are multiple levels to this book, and one can love all or only a few of them. On one level, the book is an analysis of the career of John Wayne the movie star (as opposed to John Wayne the private individual, though the two cannot be completely separated). So you can enjoy learning about Wayne's days at Columbia pictures, or his relationship with Yakima Canutt, or the formative influence of Harry Carey, or Wayne's film with and connection to John Ford and Howard Hawks. On another level, the book contains brilliant discussions on a number of the important films in Wayne's career, like STAGECOACH or my favorite Wayne and John Ford film THE SEARCHERS. On another level, the book contains marvelous socio-political analysis of the function the concept of John Wayne plays in American life. And on yet another level the book is an essay within cultural studies. One has to admire the many areas and subjects that Wills handles with ease.

My favorite parts of the book were those that dealt with the mythmaking that went into the creation of "John Wayne," the symbol of everything best about America and those dealing with his films and relationship with John Ford. Although extreme fans of Wayne may be somewhat offended by some parts of the book (e.g., Wayne's stringent avoidance of military service in WW II and the misinformation about his early life, such as his being a potential football star felled by an injury, when in fact he was dismissed from the USC football team for not being very good), I think everyone will come away from it having a better sense not only Wayne's shortcomings but his very real accomplishments. A fine book in every way.

Anyone seriously interested in John Wayne's position as America's icon needs to read this book, which is filled with information about the making of his films and the evolution of his career.

But for the rest of us, the book doesn't come into focus until its conclusion, which, while thought-provoking, comes as an anticlimax. Only at the end does Wills discuss the relationship of Wayne's dominant screen persona with America's self-image. Up till then it's mostly movie-making. All of Wayne's key films are discussed, but almost always with the emphasis on who did what and how. Wills approaches the meaning of the individual films with surprising diffidence for a tough-minded political commentator.

Straightforward and fair-minded though it is, "John Wayne's America" doesn't fulfill the promise of its title.

John Wayne's America is a book for the true John Wayne enthusiast. Throughout the book, Gary Wills traces the creation of an American icon through the movies and directors that formed it. Wills uses seemingly every "John Wayne" movie ever made citing specific examples for his points. Needless to say, unless one has some base in John Wayne's movies or a SEVERE interest in cinematography, Wills' dialogue can be a somewhat challenging reading. Although director John Ford played a major role in the making of the American icon, Wills seems to lose focus and starts chasing the career of Ford. As hard as this book was to read, it was written well, and should be included in any collection of biographies of this truly American legend.

I enjoyed the book to some extent but I have a few problems with it. Too often I get the feeling that Wills is driving a tack with a sledge hammer. Far too much on the directors in Wayne's career, especially John Ford, and not enough on Wayne himself. Too much buildup here.
I also disagree with Will's accessment of some of the "important" films in Wayne's career. "Big Jake" was just another "let's crank out a John Wayner" in my opinion. The familiar tension with the female lead that we usually saw with Wayne, a mundane plot, and Richard Boone's portrayl of the villain is so bad it borders on parody. And "Rio Bravo". Critics of Wayne's films seem to love this movie for some reason. It is by far the best of the later Hawks movies. But that isn't saying much. It's an okay movie but that's all. On the other hand I was pleased to see Wills give some ink to "Tall in the Saddle". It amazes me how many so-called John Wayne fans I have encountered who aren't familiar with this film. This is more or less an extended "B" movie but it was well filmed and just plain fun to watch. It was important to the development of Wayne as Wills points out. This book is a good read but could have been a lot better. It's very thick in the middle and very thin at the end.

John Wayne's America is based on the figure John Wayne. Garry Wills has put so much backgound into this book that it really blowns u away. Not in a bad but the reading of some 300 pages with discriptions of just about everything kinda gets boing after a while. I grew up watching John Wayne with my father and the way that Garry Wills describes him is not what I would picture the duke as being. The book was good though to pass the winter of kansas by. So I'm sure that a more experienced read would come to say that my review was false. However, this is an opinion review and that was my opinion of this book. Garry Wills is a good writer he just doesn't show his best work in this book.

Heard the taped version of John Wayne's America by Gary Wills . . . this was not a typical biography . . . it gave some background information on Wayne, but most of the emphasis was about how his life acquired a larger political meaning . . . the author effectively traced this, using Wayne's appearance as a young, individualistic cowbody hero (Stagecoach) to middle-aged authority figure weighed down with responsibility (Sergeant Stryker) to cool, determined patriot in the midst of cold war danger (Davey Crockett) to elderly lone survivor of past heroic time (True Grit) . . . this book helps explain why John Wayne remains one of our most popular American heroes--even after his death . . . I know look forward to revisiting some of "The Duke's" movies, but will now view them in a somewhat different context.

I like Gary Wills, and I don't write negative reviews on Amazon hardly a tall, but I thought this book was much less than it could have been. While it contains a great deal of information, it is a poorly organized hodge podge that can't decide whether it wants to be a biography of Wayne, a detailed history of the making of his motion pictures, or a meditation on pop culture.

Some passages are terrific, but it should have either been boiled down into a 60-80 page essay or had much more time and effort spent on whipping the manuscript into shape. It is probably strongest in its description of the interplay of personalities, art, and business in the making of Wayne's early films, and weakest in its description of how Wayne as an icon affected mid-century America.

Wills has always brought his classicist's training to timely exegesis of the American zeitgeist. He convincingly argues that Wayne is not the absurd figure that 60s and 70s Baby Boomers remember, but the icon of the imperial America of the 40s and 50s. The Western was the perfect analog for our era of national "greatness" (if you consider it that). What's also interesting about Wills' timing is that this book came just before a resurgence of the sort of film that Wayne often starred in. If you look at Gladiator, it's really a Western, if less complex than those directed by John Ford. Imperial America rises again on the tech bubble....from Nixon Agonistes to the Duke, Wills rocks.