By Wayne Allensworth The Searchers (1956), directed by John Ford, is a personal favorite of mine and a movie that influenced a whole generation of filmmakers, the generation of Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, and Scorsese. Spielberg has said that he watches The Searchers before beginning each new film project, and the opening doorway sequence (pictured below) has shown up in other films–notably...
By Wayne Allensworth March and April are special months for true Texans. March 2 is Texas Independence Day. March 6 is Alamo Day. And April 21 marks Sam Houston’s victory over Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. What follows is a speech I gave in San Antonio, Texas in November 2004. An associate and I were waiting for a flight to Washington, D.C. out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in...
By Wayne Allensworth The sun is hitting the porch directly now, and I pull my chair up into the sunlight on a bright, coolish April morning. My wife and I are at her parents’ place in Central Texas, preparing for the estate sale, cleaning up the property to put it up for sale, too. And it’s harder for my wife than she thought it would be, letting go of this place. Yes, I said to her, it’s hard...
From the Mad Men TV series:
By Wayne Allensworth Some readers have occasionally criticized my writing for amounting to “mere” nostalgia, which is apparently supposed to be a bad thing. To that I plead guilty. Americans have long been conditioned to think of themselves as living in the land of tomorrow, a tomorrow without any yesterdays. I look back to a past that never seems distant to me, as dreamlike as it can be. Without...
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