Famed Hollywood director Martin Scorsese has said ‘The Quiet Man’ is one of the greatest movies of all time and that the on screen relationship between Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne is very powerful. He was speaking in a new documentary ‘Dreaming the Quiet Man’ which has just been released to mark the 60th anniversary of the film.

He said: “The power of the woman in the motion picture is very strong and the nature of her resistance results in one of the greatest moments of all cinema.”

Scorsese remarked: “It is poetry. It was Jack Nicholson who said, when we were doing The Departed — ‘God gave the Irish the words and Italians the music.’

“I said ‘OK’. It’s Jack’s idea but listening to the words I said ‘yeah’. You just listen to it and it sounds like music and that film is filled with it, The Quiet Man.” 

But he said he gets angry when people criticize the scene where John Wayne drags O’Hara through the village as the locals cheer.

“It gets me angry to think people judging it and against it in this way when you don’t know where it comes from and who they are. You are taking it as a movie. It’s not a movie. It is a story and a work of art and a work of poetry and very unique and beautiful.” 

Maureen O’Hara also reveals she had to go to a local hospital when she hurt her hand slapping John Wayne’s face during their first kiss in the movie. 

Check out the original trailer for 'The Quiet Man' here: