John Huston S Filmmaking

John Huston's Filmmaking offers an analysis of the life and work of one of the greatest American independent filmmakers. Always visually exciting, Huston's films sensitively portray humankind in all its incarnations, chronicling the attempts by protagonists to conceive and articulate their identities. Fundamental questions of selfhood, happiness and love are intimately connected to the idea of home, which for the filmmaker also signified a congenial place among other people in the world. In this study, Lesley Brill shows Huston's films to be far more than formulaic adventures of masculine failure, arguing instead that they demonstrate the close connection between humanity, the natural world, and divinity.

Years after his death, American filmmaker John Huston (1906–1987) remains an enigmatic and compelling figure. This wide-ranging collection of new essays encompasses a variety of topics relating to Huston’s lifestyle, political activities and cinematic legacy. Fresh analyses of such films as Key Largo, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, The Misfits and Prizzi’s Honor are included along with insightful studies of Huston’s oft-overlooked literary adaptations In This Our Life, Moby Dick and A Walk With Love and Death. Also evaluated are Huston’s controversial World War II documentary Let There Be Light, and two a clef portraits of the “real” Huston in the films The Way We Were and White Hunter, Black Heart. Bookending these essays are revealing interviews with John’s actress daughter Angelica Huston and film producer Wieland Schultz-Keil.

Over thirty years of interviews with the American director of such classic films as The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Night of the Iguana

Argues that understanding Huston’s film adaptations of literary works is essential to understanding his oeuvre as a filmmaker. John Huston as Adaptor makes the case that adaptation is the salient element in Huston’s identity as a filmmaker and that his early and deep attraction to the experience of reading informed his approach to film adaptation. Thirty-four of Huston’s thirty-seven films were adaptations of literary texts, and they stand as serious interpretations of literary works that could only be made by an astute reader of literature. Indeed, Huston asserted that a film director should be above all else a reader and that reading itself should be the intellectual and emotional basis for filmmaking. The seventeen essays in this volume not only address Huston as an adaptor, but also offer an approach to adaptation studies that has been largely overlooked. How an adaptor reads, the works to which he is drawn, and how his literary interpretations can be brought to the screen without relegating film to a subservient role are some of the issues addressed by the contributors. An introductory chapter identifies Huston as the quintessential Hollywood adaptor and argues that his skill at adaptation is the mark of his authorial signature. The chapters that follow focus on fifteen of Huston’s most important films, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The African Queen (1951), The Night of the Iguana (1964), Under the Volcano (1984), and The Dead (1987), and are divided into three areas: aesthetics and textuality; history and social context; and theory and psychoanalysis. By offering a more comprehensive account of the centrality of adaptation to Huston’s films, John Huston as Adaptor offers a greater understanding of Huston as a filmmaker.

"Oscar-winning cinematographer Oswald ("Ossie") Morris looks back over his fifty-eight-film career as director of photography for such top-rank directors as John Huston, Carol Reed, Stanley Kubrick, Ronald Neame, Vittorio De Sica, Franco Zeffirelli, and Sidney Lumet. Morris provides many personal and amusing insights into the making of such films as Moulin Rouge, Moby Dick, The Man Who Would Be King, Lolita, The Guns of Navarone, The Hill, and Oliver!" "Morris photographed many of the top stars, and relates a fund of intimate anecdotes about them. He describes his early years in films during the era of the "quota-quickies," advancing from clapper boy through camera assistant to operator and then to director of photography. He has many stories to tell about the legendary producer David O. Selznick who battered him with his infamous memos throughout the making of Stazione Termini, Beat the Devil, and A Farewell to Arms. Additionally, Morris describes technical revelations about making films in the predigital era, including groundbreaking innovations and camera tricks." "Morris also writes about his early life and describes his Royal Air Force exploits in World War II, during which he won the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Force Cross. His personal accounts of death-defying sorties in bombers over enemy territory make thrilling reading."--BOOK JACKET.

Examines American film director John Huston's work in a strictly critical approach, offering much insight into the illustrious director's career.