John Huston's Filmmaking

A study of John Huston's filmmaking.

Lesley Brill (Author)

9780521586702, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 October 1997

288 pages, 12 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.395 kg

'In this thoughtful study Brill accounts for Huston's critical neglect by pointing the finger squarely at 50s and 60s auteur critics …'. Sight and Sound

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.

Introduction
Part I. What We Are Alone is Not Enough: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Man Who Would Be King
The African Queen
Part II. Are They Ready To Go Home?: The Misfits
The Night of the Iguana
Let There Be Light
Part III. Trying to Account for Themselves: Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
The Maltese Falcon
Reflections in a Golden Eye
Part IV. The Heart of the Problem: Freud
Fat City
Part V. Huston's Adieux: The Dead
An Open Book.

Subject Areas: Films, cinema [APF]