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Re: Too Much! (Reply to this comment)
by Stephen_Murray,  in Movies
Fine, Huston was not credited for "A Farewell to Arms," but had some role in adapting and in directing it, and I brought it up to contrast the litearary A-list (canonized books) titles to which he was attracted and that led to disappointing movies with less prestigious literary products that led to better movies. Far from being unrelengingly dismissive of Huston's oeuvre, I singled out SEVEN Huston movies adaptations to praise (and five, one of which he did not finish, that are less sastisfying, though I explicitly noted they have their moments and performances). I also like his swan song adaptation of James Joyce's "The Dead" which does not fit the contrast with which I start (nor, on the other side, does the mind-numbing adaptation of Romain Gary's once-prestigious, Prix Goncourt-winning Roots of Heaven or Huston bringing to the screen of everything in Kipling I despise, in the noncanonized Man Who Would Be King. I could have added "The Bible" to the first group, and "The Asphalt Jungle" and "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" to to second (superior) grouping. (Plus, "Beat the Devil" fitting in neither category, a movie about which I have a positive epinion on record.)
It seems to me that there are fairly ordinary people on display in "The Maltese Falcon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," and "The African Queen" (though out-of- the-ordinary situations in the latter two, and in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison," etc.). And "Man...King" has just as much of an ironical denouement, so I don't agree with your interpretation of my taste.
Or that I am biased against John Huston. I like "The Misfits," "The Bible," "Night of the Iguana," and "Reflections in a Golden Eye" more than most; and dislike or am unimpressed by "A Walk with Love and Death" (to which you are biased!), "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," "The Kremlin Letter," and "Mackintosh Man" from the years on both sides of "Fat City."
Rather than me being biased against Huston's movies. I think that you are biased for them and always read to make excuses rather than to judge dispassionately what it is up there on the screen, though granting how awful "Freud" and "The Roots of Heaven" (and, I hope, "Annie" are).
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Nov 21 '04
5:44 pm PST
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Too Much! (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Dear Stephen: I recognize that you have a thing about Huston, and we disagree on the quality of his work. However, your criticism seems so unrelenting as, in this case, at least, to be unfair.
First of all, it would have been more apt to have said that Huston began his career as a boxer (and a pretty good one, if I remember rightly), a fact that you refer to only obliquely, later in your review.
Second, your reference to his being a writer is the key to his strength and weakness as a director. He tends to be literary, a tale teller of doomed adventurers, rather than a creator of well-made dramatic movies about ordinary lives. That may be why such of his pictures as THE MALTESE FALCON, THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE or THE AFRICAN QUEEN appeal to you because the irony of their climaxes resonate or catch passionate fire.
Third, though we may disagree about the quality of pictures like MOBY DICK or UNDER THE VOLCANO, which lack an ideal cast role or a missing scene to be masterpieces, you must not hang A FAREWELL TO ARMS on John Huston. Though I believe Huston produced a script, he is given no credit for the one used (Ben Hecht is), and though he directed a few scenes of that stolid piece of sentimentality, David O. Selznick's mania for close-ups of Jennifer Jones caused Huston to part company company with him early in the production process, and the credit, or discredit, for the direction goes to Charles Vidor.
I am not crazy about FAT CITY either, but it was an honest attempt, like WISE BLOOD, to make a small independent movie, later in his career. As such, it should be given some credit.
FAT CITY is about losers, and most of Huston's pictures are about losers, who struggle, nevertheless, to be standing at the final bell. I gather that he saw that scenario as being the human condition.
[He didn't raise his hands, clasped like a winner, as the final act of his life, for nothing.]
I rather think that the point of scenes showing sloppy boxing is that the sport has to be overwhelmingly about losers, too, and most of the promising "comers" are overrated and hyped . . . like everything else in American life.
You have get the sucker into the tent, right?
I would like you to think on these points, Stephen, because unlike your usual mastery, I believe you are letting your bias lead you into error in this review, at least in blaming A FAREWELL TO ARMS on Huston.
All the best.
Alex -- Macresarf1
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Nov 21 '04
2:34 pm PST
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