December 4 2018 (XXXVII:15) John Huston: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975, 129 min.) Online versions of The Goldenrod Handouts have color images & hot links: http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html

DIRECTED BY John Huston WRITING screenplay: John Huston and Gladys Hill; based on the story by Rudyard Kipling PRODUCED BY John Foreman MUSIC Maurice Jarre CINEMATOGRAPHY Oswald Morris (director of photography) FILM EDITING Russell Lloyd PRODUCTION DESIGN Alexandre Trauner ART DIRECTION Tony Inglis COSTUME DESIGN Edith Head The film received four nominations at the 1976Academy Awards: Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material: John Huston and Gladys Hill; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration: Alexandre Trauner, Tony Inglis, and Peter James; Best Costume Design: Edith Head; Best Film Editing: Russell Lloyd. CAST Sean Connery...Daniel Dravot Michael Caine...Peachy Carnehan Christopher Plummer...Rudyard Kipling Saeed Jaffrey...Billy Fish Larbi Doghmi...Ootah (as Doghmi Larbi) Jack May...District Commissioner Karroom Ben Bouih...Kafu Selim Mohammad Shamsi...Babu Albert Moses...Ghulam Paul Antrim...Mulvaney Graham Acres…Officer The Blue Dancers of Goulamine...Dancers Shakira Caine...Roxanne JOHN HUSTON (b. August 5, 1906 in Nevada, Missouri—d. August 28, 1987 (age 81) in Middletown, Rhode Island) won two Oscars in 1949 for Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)§. He was frequently nominated for Oscars for his writing, directing, production, and, even, acting: Best Writing, Original Screenplay for Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940)* and Sergeant York (1941);* Best Writing, Screenplay for The Maltese Falcon (1941),* The Asphalt Jungle (1950),***** The African Queen (1951, with James Agee);* Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another

Medium for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)* and for The Man Who Would Be King (1975);* for Best Director for The Asphalt Jungle (1950),***** The African Queen (1951),* Moulin Rouge (1952),***** and for Prizzi's Honor (1985); Best Picture for Moulin Rouge (1952)***** and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Cardinal (1963). He was also nominated for the distinguished Palm d’Or for Under the Volcano (1984) at Cannes. His frequent recognition for writing may be reflected in his recurring film adaptation of literary classics: Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1951)§, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1956),****** Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1957, uncredited), Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood (1979, as Jhon Huston),** and, his final film, a haunting adaptation of James Joyce’s The Dead (1987). He directed 47 films. These are some of his other films: In This Our Life (1942), Winning Your Wings (1942 Short), Across the Pacific (1942), Report from the Aleutians (1943 Documentary),* San Pietro (1945Documentary short),***** Let There Be Light (1946 Documentary),* Key Largo (1948),* We Were Strangers( 1948)§, Beat the Devil (1953),***** The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958), The Roots of Heaven (1958), The Unforgiven (1960), The Misfits (1961),**** Freud (1962),** The List of Adrian Messenger (1963),** The Night of the Iguana (1964),* The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966),** Casino Royale (scenes at Sir James Bond's house and castle in Scotland scenes) (1967),** Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967),*** Sinful Davey (1969),*** A Walk with Love and Death (1969),**** The

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Kremlin Letter (1970),****** Fat City (1972),*** The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972),** The MacKintosh Man (1973),*** Phobia (1980), Victory (1981), and Annie (1982).** He wrote for 40 films, including films he did not direct, including: Wuthering Heights (1939 contributing writer - uncredited), The Storm (1930 dialogue), Law and Order (1932 adaptation), Jezebel (1938 screen play), Juarez (1939 screen play), High Sierra (1941 screen play), Three Strangers (1946 original screenplay), The Stranger (1946 uncredited), and The Killers (1946 uncredited). He acted in 54 films, including the films noted above and, among others: The Shakedown (1929), Hell's Heroes (1929), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), The Cardinal (1963), Candy (1968), De Sade (1968), Myra Breckinridge (1970), The Devil's Backbone (1971), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Chinatown (1974), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976 TV Movie), The Rhinemann Exchange (1977 TV Mini-Series), The Hobbit (1977 TV Movie), Winter Kills (1979), and Cannery Row (1982). He also produced 15 films, including those noted above. *Wrote **Acted in §Wrote and acted in ***Produced ****Produced and acted in *****Produced and wrote ******Wrote, produced, acted in

RUDYARD KIPLING (b. 30 December 1865 in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India —d. 18 January 1936 (aged 70) in London, England) was one of the most popular writers in the British Empire, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling’s parents considered themselves 'Anglo-Indians' [a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India] and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent in his fiction." Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).[2] His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story. In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its

youngest recipient to date. In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially amongst modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. Rudyard Kipling was a prominent supporter of Colonel Reginald Dyer, who was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar (in the province of Punjab). Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and also initiated collections for the latter's homecoming prize. Other contemporary Indian intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy have taken a more nuanced view of his work. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, often described Kim as one of his favorite books. MAURICE JARRE (b. September 13, 1924 in Lyon, Rhône, France—d. March 29, 2009 (age 84) in Malibu, California) experienced a major change when British film producer Sam Spiegel asked him to write the score for the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean. The acclaimed score won Jarre his first Academy Award and he would go on to compose the scores to all of Lean's subsequent films. Jarre also won Oscars for Best Music, Original Score for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and A Passage to India (1984). He was nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Score for Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray (1962), The Message (1976), Witness (1985), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988), and Ghost (1990). He also shared a nomination for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972). He composed scores for 173 films, including: Hôtel des Invalides (1952 Documentary short), L'univers d'Utrillo (1955 Documentary short), Head Against the Wall (1959), Crack in the Mirror (1960), The President (1961), Les oliviers de la justice (1962), 1962 The Longest Day (1962), Sundays and Cybèle (1962), Présence d'Albert Camus (1962 Documentary short), Behold a Pale Horse (1964), The Collector (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966), The Night of the Generals (1967), Isadora (1968), The Damned (1969), Topaz (1969), Plaza Suite (1971), Red Sun (1971), The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), The MacKintosh Man (1973),* Ash Wednesday (1973), Mandingo (1975), The Man Who Would Be King (1975),* The Last Tycoon (1976), The Tin Drum (1979), Winter Kills (1979), The Magician of Lublin (1979), The Black Marble (1980), Resurrection (1980), Shogun (1980 TV Mini-Series), Firefox (1982), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Tai-Pan (1986), The Mosquito Coast (1986), No Way Out (1987), Fatal Attraction (1987), Moon Over Parador (1988), Dead Poets Society (1989), Enemies: A Love Story (1989), Jacob's Ladder (1990), Only the Lonely (1991), Fearless (1993), Sunshine (1999), and Uprising (2001 TV Movie). *Directed by John Huston OSWALD MORRIS (b. November 22, 1915 in Ruislip, England—d. March 17, 2014 (age 98) in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England) collaborated with John Huston on eight films, beginning with Moulin Rouge (1952).* Although his previous experience with Technicolor had been limited, for Moulin Rouge he devised many stylish effects, using diffused and filtered light, fog, and bold color choices, for the film. He won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Fiddler on the Roof (1971). He was also nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography for Oliver! (1968) and The Wiz (1978). He did cinematography for 58 films,

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including: Cairo Road (1950), The Promoter (1952), Beat the Devil (1953 director of photography),* The Man Who Never Was (1956), Moby Dick (1956 director of photography),* Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957 director of photography),* A Farewell to Arms (1957),* The Roots of Heaven (1958 director of photography),* Look Back in Anger (1959 director of photography), Our Man in Havana (1959 photographed by), The Entertainer (1960 director of photography), The Guns of Navarone (1961 photographed by), Lolita (1962director of photography), Of Human Bondage (1964 director of photography), The Hill (1965 director of photography), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965 director of photography), 1966 Stop the World: I Want to Get Off (1966), The Taming of the Shrew (1967 director of photography), The Winter's Tale (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Sleuth (1972), The MacKintosh Man (1973), The Odessa File (1974 director of photography), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974 director of photography), The Man Who Would Be King (1975 director of photography),* The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), Equus (1977), Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), and The Dark Crystal (1982 director of photography). *Directed by John Huston EDITH HEAD (b. October 28, 1897 in San Bernardino, California—d. October 24, 1981 (age 83) in Los Angeles, California), in 1924, despite lacking art, design, and costume design experience, was hired as a costume sketch artist at Paramount Pictures. Later she admitted to "borrowing" other student's sketches for her job interview. She began designing costumes for silent films, commencing with The Wanderer in 1925 and, by the 1930s, had established herself as one of Hollywood's leading costume designers. The establishment, in 1949, of the category of an Academy Award for Costume Designer further boosted her career, because it began her record-breaking run of Award nominations and wins, beginning with her nomination for The Emperor Waltz. She worked at Paramount for 43 years until she went to Universal Pictures on March 27, 1967, possibly prompted by her extensive work for director Alfred Hitchcock, who had moved to Universal in 1960. Head was known for her unique working style and, unlike many of her male contemporaries, usually consulted extensively with the female stars with whom she worked. As a result, she was a favorite among many of the leading female stars of the 1940s and 1950s, such as Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley MacLaine, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. In fact, Head was frequently "loaned out" by Paramount to other studios at the request of their female stars. She herself always dressed very plainly, preferring thick-framed glasses and conservative two-piece suits. She won Oscars for Best Costume Design for A Place in the Sun (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), and The Sting (1973). She was nominated for Oscars for Best Costume Design for To Catch a Thief (1955), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Five Pennies (1959), Career

(1959), Pepe (1960), My Geisha (1962), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), A New Kind of Love (1963), Wives and Lovers (1963), Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), The Oscar (1966), Sweet Charity (1969), Airport (1970), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). She won shared Oscars for Best Costume Design for The Heiress (1949), Samson and Delilah (1949), All About Eve (1950), and The Facts of Life (1960). She shared nominations for Oscars for Best Costume Design for The Emperor Waltz (1948), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Carrie (1952), The Ten Commandments (1956), The Proud and Profane (1956), Funny Face (1957), The Buccaneer (1958), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), What a Way to Go! (1964), A House Is Not a Home (1964), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), The Slender Thread (1965), and Airport '77 (1977). She had a very prolific career, doing costume design for 440 films, such as: The Legion of the Condemned (1928), Ladies of the Mob (1928), Death Takes a Holiday (1934 uncredited), The Texas Rangers (1936), Exclusive (1937), Men with Wings (1938), The Texans (1938), Beau Geste (1939 costumes), The Great McGinty (1940), Texas Rangers Ride Again (1940), The Lady Eve (1941 costumes), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941 gowns), Sullivan's Travels (1941 costumes), My Favorite Blonde (1942), Road to

Morocco (1942), Going My Way (1944), Ministry of Fear (1944), Double Indemnity (1944 costumes), Hail the Conquering Hero (1944 costumes), The Lost Weekend (1945 costumes), Road to Utopia (1945), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), The Virginian (1946), The Big Clock (1948), A Foreign Affair (1948), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), The Great Gatsby (1949), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace

in the Hole (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), Detective Story (1951 costumes), Son of Paleface (1952), The War of the Worlds (1953 costumes), Shane (1953 costumes), Rear Window (1954 costumes), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954 costumes), Strategic Air Command (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 costumes), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957 costumes), The Sad Sack (1957), St. Louis Blues (1958), The Matchmaker (1958), The Geisha Boy (1958), Alias Jesse James (1959), G.I. Blues (1960), Cinderfella (1960), Hud (1963 costumes), Donovan's Reef (1963 costumes), The Carpetbaggers (1964), Sex and the Single Girl (1964), This Property Is Condemned (1966), Barefoot in the Park (1967), Downhill Racer (1969 uncredited), Topaz (1969), Sometimes a Great Notion (1971), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Airport 1975 (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), Gable and Lombard (1976), and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). SEAN CONNERY (b. August 25, 1930 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) is a retired Scottish actor and producer, who was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films, between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables (1987). His film career also includes such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964), Murder on the

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Orient Express (1974), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). He has also starred in cult classics such as Zardoz (1974) and Highlander (1986). He has acted in 93 films, such as: Let's Make Up (1954), No Road Back (1957), Anna Christie (1957 TV Movie), Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), Macbeth (1961 TV Movie), Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), The Hill (1965), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), The Red Tent (1969), The Molly Maguires (1970), The Anderson Tapes (1971), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Wind and the Lion (1975), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Robin and Marian (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Cuba (1979), Outland (1981), Time Bandits (1981), Never Say Never Again (1983), The Presidio (1988), Family Business (1989), The Russia House (1990), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Rising Sun (1993), First Knight (1995), and Sir Billi (2012). MICHAEL CAINE (b. Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, March 14, 1933 in Rotherhithe, London, England) left school at age 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War. After returning from combat, he worked as an assistant stage manager. On the advice of an agent, he adopted the name of Caine, taking it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). He acted on stage, television, and small film roles before drawing attention for his role in Zulu (1964). The role of Harry Palmer in the spy thriller The Ipcress File (1965) and the title role in Alfie (1966), for which he was nominate for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1967 Academy Awards, made Caine a star. In addition to starring in, he was an uncredited producer for, the 1971 film Get Carter. Two years later he was nominated, again, for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards for co-starring with Laurence Olivier in Sleuth (1972). A decade later, he was nominated, once again, for Best Actor in a Leading Role, as a sentimental, alcoholic English professor who takes pedagogical and romantic interest in a young, working-class woman in Educating Rita (1983). He won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). In 2000, he once again won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Cider House Rules (1999), and, in 2003, he was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role The Quiet American (2002). He has been known to take acclaimed comedic turns in films such as 1988’s screwball Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, opposite Steve Martin. He has also acted in beloved children’s films, such as 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, where he played Scrooge. In the 2000s and 2010s, he has been a recurring actor in Christopher Nolan’s films, playing Bruce Wayne’s fatherly butler Alfred Pennyworth in the acclaimed trilogy of films beginning with Batman Begins (2005), a series of films thought

to have elevated the superhero genre to be considered serious cinema. He has acted in 170 films and television productions. Here are some films and television productions he has acted in: Panic in the Parlor (1956), Hell in Korea (1956), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956, TV Series), How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1957), The Vise (1958, TV Series), A Woman of Mystery (1958), The Key (1958), Dixon of Dock Green (1957-1959, TV Series), Foxhole in Cairo (1960), The Compartment (1961, TV Movie), Gambit (1966), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Hurry Sundown (1967), Woman Times Seven (1967), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), The Magus (1968), The Italian Job (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), The Last Valley (1971), Kidnapped (1971), X, Y and Zee (1972), Pulp (1972), The Man Who Would

Be King (1975), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), The Swarm (1978), California Suite (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), Deathtrap (1982), Blame It on Rio (1984), The Holcroft Covenant (1985), Mona Lisa (1986), Half Moon Street (1986), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Blue Ice (1992), Shiner (2000), Get Carter (2000), Miss Congeniality (2000), The Actors (2003), Children of Men (2006), Sleuth (2007), Flawless (2007), The Dark Knight

(2008), Is Anybody There? (2008), Inception (2010), Cars 2 (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Youth (2015), GivingTales (2015, Video Game), The Last Dunkirk (2017) Witch Hunter (2015), Now You See Me 2 (2016), Going in Style (2017), Dear Dictator (2017), Sherlock Gnomes (2018), and King of Thieves (2018). In addition to Get Carter (1971), he produced six other films: Pulp (1972, producer - uncredited), The Fourth Protocol (1987, executive producer), Blue Ice (1992, producer), Forever After (2001, executive producer), The Double (2013, executive producer), and My Generation (2017, Documentary, producer). CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (b. December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), considerably late in his career, has been recognized at the Academy Awards for his work as a supporting actor. At 82, he surpassed Jessica Tandy as the oldest winner of a competitive Oscar in 2012 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in 2012 for his performance in Beginners (2010). He was also nominated for Oscars for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in 2010 for portraying Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009) and in 2018 for All the Money in the World (2017), again breaking an Academy Award record for, at 88, being the oldest Oscar nominee for acting. He is known for portraying Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965) and has portrayed numerous major historical figures, including Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in Waterloo (1970), Rudyard Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), and Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999). Other successes include his roles as Dr. Rosen in Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Arthur Case in Spike Lee's film Inside Man (2006). He has roles in The Last Full Measure, Cliffs of Freedom, and

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Knives Out to be released in 2019. He has acted in 215 films and television series, including: Encounter (1953 TV Series), Studio One in Hollywood (1953 TV Series), Suspense (1953 TV Series), Stage Struck (1958), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), The Night of the Generals (1967), Oedipus the King (1968), Battle of Britain (1969), The Spiral Staircase (1975), The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), Conduct Unbecoming (1975), The Day That Shook the World (1975), Hanover Street (1979), Somewhere in Time (1980), The Thorn Birds (1983 TV Mini-Series), An American Tail (1986), Madeline (1988 TV Movie), Madeline's Christmas (1990 TV Movie), Madeline's Rescue (1990 TV Movie), A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (1991 TV Movie), Malcolm X (1992), Wolf (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Babes in Toyland (1997), Dracula 2000 (2000), National Treasure (2004), Syriana (2005), Caesar and Cleopatra (2009), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), The Tempest (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013), Danny Collins (2015), and Howard Lovecraft & the Undersea Kingdom (2017). SAEED JAFFREY (b. January 8, 1929 in Malerkotla, Punjab, British India—d. November 15, 2015 (age 86) in London, England) was a British Indian actor whose versatility and fluency in multiple languages allowed him to straddle radio, stage, television and film in a career that spanned over six decades and more than a hundred and fifty British, American, and Indian movies. He was able to breathe life into the smallest of roles through intense preparation and a nuanced performance, like that of the translator and guide Billy Fish in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), an act that brought him international attention. He broke into Bollywood with Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977, The Chess Players) for which he won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award in 1978. His cameo role as the paanwala Lallan Miyan in Chashme Buddoor (1981) won him popularity with Indian audiences. He became a household name in India with his roles in Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) and Henna (1991), both of which won him nominations for the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. During the 1980s and 1990s he was also considered to be Britain's highest-profile Asian actor, thanks to his leading roles in the movie My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), a film written by notable British-Pakistani novelist Hanif Kureishi, and television series Tandoori Nights (1985–87) and Little Napoleons (1994). He was the first Asian to receive British and Canadian film award nominations. In 1995 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his services to drama, the first Asian to receive this honor. He acted in 205 films and television series, such as: The Guru (1969), Death on the Nile (1978), Gandhi (1982), Romance (1983), The Far Pavilions (1984 TV Mini-Series), The Jewel in the Crown (1984 TV Mini-Series), The Razor's Edge (1984), A Passage to India (1984), Jaanoo (1985), Beyond the Next Mountain (1987), The Deceivers (1988), Diamond's Edge (1988), After Midnight (1990), Masala (1991), Rumpole of the Bailey (1991TV Series), Bollywood (1994), Guddu (1995), Veergati (1995), Angrakshak (1995), Gambler (1995), Bandit Lovers (1997), Judaai (1997), When One Falls in Love (1998), Day of the Sirens (2002), The Battle for Bunker Hill (2008), and Everywhere and Nowhere (2011).

SHAKIRA CAINE (b. February 23, 1947 in British Guiana [now Guyana]) is an actress, known for The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Son of Dracula (1974). She has been married to Michael Caine since January 8, 1973. She also acted in these films and television series: Some Girls Do (1969), Carry On Again Doctor (1969), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Tomorrow (1970), and UFO (1970-1971 TV Series).

“John Huston”: from World Film Directors, Vol I. Edited by John Wakeman. H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1987, entry by Philip Kemp John (Marcellus) Huston, American director, scenarist, actor, and producer, was born in the town of Nevada, Missouri, where the Water and Power Company—or, according to some accounts, the entire town—had been won by his maternal grandfather, John Gore, in a poker game. Huston’s father, Walter, was at that time a small-time actor whose itinerant troupe had just gone bust in Arizona; John Gore therefore installed him as head of Nevada’s public utilities. Totally without engineering training, he proved spectacularly unsuited for this post, and when a fire broke out he mishandled a valve, cutting off the water supply. Half of Nevada burned to the ground, and Walter, with his wife and infant son John, went back on the road. Huston’s parents’ marriage—contracted at the St. Louis World’s Fair was never a great success, and in 1909 they separated, divorcing four years later. Huston spent his boyhood shuttling between them, spending most of the time with his mother, who became a journalist under her own name of Rhea Gore. With her he traveled the Midwest, picking up her taste for literature, horses, plush hotels, and gambling. He remained somewhat in awe of her, though, feeling that she despised him as a romantic fantasist. “Nothing I ever did pleased my mother,” he later remarked. He was far more at ease with his father, who when not acting in New York would take him on the vaudeville circuit, staying in hotels that were anything but plush. Huston thoroughly relished the contrast, and was enthralled by the theatrical low-life he encountered. But at twelve he was found to be suffering from Bright’s disease and an “enlarged heart.” The boy was placed in a sanatorium in Phoenix, Arizona, and told he must henceforth live as a cautious invalid. Rebelling, he took up secret midnight swimming in a nearby river. After some months, this pastime

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was discovered, and it was decided that he must have made a fortunate recovery. His mother, who had remarried, moved to Los Angeles, where Huston attended Lincoln High School. As if making up for list time, he plunged into a multitude of interests: abstract painting, ballet, English and French literature, opera, horseback riding, and boxing. At fifteen he dropped out of high school, becoming one of the state’s top-ranking amateur lightweights (with a permanently flattened nose) while studying at the Art Students League in Los Angeles. He was also “infatuated” with the cinema, though as yet only as a spectator. “Charlie Chaplin was a god, and William S. Hart. I remember the enormous impact the UFA films had on me, those of Emil Jannings and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I saw this many times.” Walter Huston had moved over from vaudeville to the legitimate theatre, and in 1924 achieved fame on Broadway with the lead in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. Watching his father’s rehearsals, Huston was deeply impressed by O’Neill’s work and fascinated by the mechanism of acting: “What I learned there, during those weeks of rehearsal, would serve me for the rest of my life.” He himself acted briefly with the Provincetown Players in 1924. The following year, recovering from a mastoid operation, he took a long vacation in Mexico, where among other adventures he rode as an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry. On his return, Huston married a friend from high school, Dorothy Harvey. The marriage lasted barely a year. He had begun to write short stories, one of which was published by H.L. Mencken in the American Mercury. Further pieces, clearly influence by Hemingway, appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, and other journals He also wrote Frankie and Johnny, “ a puppet play with music (the music being by Sam Jaffe). This was produced in Greenwich Village by Ruth Squires and published in book form. Through his mother, Huston was given a job on the New York Graphic. “I had no talent as a journalist whatever and I was fired oftener than any reporter ever has been within such a limited time. There was a kind-hearted city editor who kept hiring me back.” When even that man’s patience ran out, Huston headed for Hollywood, where his father had moved with the coming of talkies. Huston was hired as a scenarist by Goldwyn Studios, spent six months there with no assignments, and then moved to his father’s studio, Universal, where he collaborated on four scripts, two of them for films starring his father: A House Divided and Law and Order. His colleagues had no doubt of his talent, but one of them described him at this time as “just a drunken boy, hopelessly immature.” After a lethal automobile accident in which he was the driver, he “wanted nothing so much as to get away” and left Universal for a job at Gaumont-British in London. Unhappy there, he quit again and lived rough for a while, before bumming his way to Paris and eventually back to New York. After a brief stint as a journalist there and a few

months with the WPA Theatre in Chicago, he returned to Hollywood in 1937 and went to work as a writer for Warner Brothers. Newly married to Leslie Black, Huston now seemed ready to settle to a serious career as a screenwriter. His first credit was for William Wyler’s Jezebel (1937); this was followed by The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), and two of Warner’s prestigious biopics, Juarez (1939) and Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940). Dr. Ehrlich won Huston an Academy Award nomination, as did his next script, for Howard Hawks’ Sergeant

York (1941). He was now successful enough to persuade the studio that, if his next script was a hit, he should be allowed a chance to direct. “They indulged me rather. They liked my work as a writer and they wanted to keep me on. If I wanted to direct, why, they’d give me a shot at it, and if it didn’t come off all that well, they wouldn’t be too disappointed as it was to be a very small picture.” Huston’s next script was for High Sierra (1941). Directed by

Raoul Walsh, it gave Humphrey Bogart, as a gunman on the run, his breakthrough to stardom, and provided Huston with the hit he wanted. Warners kept their word and offered him his choice of subject. He chose Dashiell Hammett’s thriller, The Maltese Falcon, which had already been adapted twice by Warners, both times badly. Wisely, Huston stuck closely to the original, taking over much of Hammett’s dialogue unchanged, and filming with a clean, uncluttered style that provided a cinematic equivalent to the novel’s fast, laconic narrative. He also benefited from a superb cast. George Raft was offered the role of the private eye Sam Spade but turned it down (as he had previously with the lead in High Sierra). Bogart, who liked Huston, was happy to take over, supported by Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet (in his first film role), Elisha Cook, Jr. and—in a walk-on part “for luck”—Walter Huston. The Maltese Falcon (1941) was made on a small, B-picture budget, and put out by Warners with minimal publicity. They were taken aback by the enthusiastic response of public and critics. The latter immediately hailed the film as a classic, and it has since been claimed as the best detective melodrama ever made. “It is hard to say,” wrote Harold Barnes in the Herald Tribune, “whether Huston the adapter or Huston the fledgling director, is more responsible for this triumph.” Already, in his directorial debut, many of Huston’s characteristic preoccupations appear. The plot is a web of deceptive appearances; characters and even objects (including the coveted falcon itself) are duplicitous and untrustworthy, and the hero himself is not what he seems. Spade, outwardly a cynical opportunist, proves to be driven by a scrupulous personal code. “When a man’s partner is killed,” he says, turning the woman he wants over to justice,” he’s supposed to do something about it.” …A few days before shooting was complete on Across the Pacific, Huston received his army induction papers….Appositely, his first assignment as a documentary

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filmmaker for the Signal Corps was across the Pacific—in the Aleutian islands off Alaska. The resulting film, Report From the Aleutians (1943) was described in the New York Times as “one of the war’s outstanding records of what our men are doing. It is furthermore an honest record.” Promoted to captain, Huston was sent to Italy to make The Battle of San Pietro (1944) regarded as one of the finest combat documentaries ever filmed. “No war film I have seen,” wrote James Agee in The Nation, “has been quite so attentive to the heaviness of casualties, and to the number of yards gained or lost, in such an action.”…Huston’s ironic realism disconcerted the War Department. One general accused him of having made “a film against war,” eliciting the response: “Well, sir, when I make a picture that’s for war—why I hope you take me out and shoot me.” Despite this, he was promoted to major and awarded the Legion of Merit. His last film for the army was Let There Be Light (1945), on the rehabilitation of soldiers suffering from combat neuroses. The overtly optimistic message was constantly undercut by the compassionate objectivity of the filming, which for Huston was “practically a religious experience.” The War Department shelved the picture, but it was finally given general release in 1980. Noting “its voice-over narration [provided by Walter Huston], its use of wipes and dissolves, and its full-orchestra soundtrack music,” Vincent Canby called it “an amazingly elegant movie.” Discharged from the Army in 1945, Huston returned to Hollywood, where he was divorced from his second wife. After a brief, spectacular affair with Olivia de Havilland, he married the actress Evelyn Keyes in 1946…. At this period Huston had a reputation—which he did little to discourage—as one of the wild men of Hollywood. Along with such friends as Bogart and William Wyler, he indulged in frequent and well-publicized bouts of drinking, gambling, and general horseplay. …Jack Warner, though autocratic, was ready to tolerate a lot in return for talent and box-office success. He even let himself be persuaded-though with considerable misgivings—to allow Huston to shoot his next film almost entirely on location, and in Mexico. At the time, this was a radical move. The results justified it. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) is generally agreed to be one of Huston’s finest films. …Treasure has often been cited as the archetypal Huston movie, though the director himself denies the presence of any authorial unity in his films.” I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture—what’s remarkable is how different the pictures are, one from another. In fact, though Huston’s cinematic style varies according to the nature of his subject matter, clear thematic preoccupations can be seen to recur throughout his work. The classic “Huston movie” concerns a quest, often a parody of one of society’s sanctioned forms of

endeavor—the pursuit of wealth, power, religious knowledge, imperial sovereignty—which is destined, after initial success, to end in failure and futility. (This kind of denouement became known in the trade as “the Huston ending.”)… The art, technique, and moral implications of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (as of The Maltese Falcon) have since been discussed in great detail by many critics. …Warners were less circumspect over Huston’s next film, his fourth with Bogart. Key Largo (1948) was adapted from a prewar play by Maxwell Anderson, originally written in blank verse. Huston and his co-scriptwriter Richard Brooks, junked the verse and updated the plot….To Huston’s annoyance, the studio cut several scenes from the final release. Not long before this, Huston had been refused permission, under the terms of his contract, to direct a play by his idol Eugene O’Neill for the Broadway stage, Angered by these incidents, Huston left Warners when his contract

expired. Together with Sam Spiegel and Jules Buck, Huston founded Horizon Films. The new company’s first feature was a courageous failure. Huston had been among the strongest opponents of HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist, and when John Garfield came under pressure, Huston offered him the lead on We Were Strangers (1949) as a deliberate gesture of defiance—the more so since the prophetic plot concerned a revolution in Cuba against a corrupt dictatorship. It was attacked on release by both left and right. It was also a box-office

disaster, and Huston admitted that “it didn’t turn out to be a very good picture.” Needing funds, he signed a short-term contract with MGM. Having refused Quo Vadis—despite an amazing episode when Louis B. Mayer (according to Huston) “crawled across the floor and took my hands and kissed them” in order to persuade him to reconsider—Huston took on a far more congenial subject in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Based on a novel by W.R. Burnett (author of Little Caesar and High Sierra), this was the progenitor of a long cycle of “caper movies,” in which a crime (here a million-dollar jewel theft) is successfully carried out by sympathetically depicted criminals, only to fail through subsequent ill-chance or internal dissension. Huston was breaking new ground in presenting crime as an occupation like any other, “a left-handed form of human endeavor” carried out by ordinary people motivated not by the megalomanic will to power of the 1930s movie gangsters, but simply by the desire to feed their families or realize some small private ambition….That same year, 1950, Huston was amicably divorced from Evelyn Keyes; one day later he married Enrica Soma. In August, while Asphalt Jungle was still filming, his father died of a heart attack. Huston’s second picture for MGM was…The Red Badge of Courage (1951), taken from Stephen Crane’s novel of the Civil War….Huston left for Africa to make a film for Sam Spiegel, his partner in Horizon Films. The script of The African Queen (1951) was taken from C.S. Forester’s novel and written by Huston in collaboration with

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his greatest critical supporter, James Agee….Filming, on location in the Congo and Uganda, took place under appalling conditions: not only extreme heat and humidity, but dysentery, malaria, mosquitoes, crocodiles and safari ants beset actors and crew. Everybody became ill except Bogart, Lauren Bacall (who came to keep Bogart company) and Huston, who all ascribed their immunity to copious quantities of Scotch….The film was a huge popular success, and won Bogart the only Oscar of his career. Through some financial sleight-of-hand, little of the profits from The African Queen ever reached Huston, who consequently pulled out of Horizon Films. For his next three films he acted as his own producer….Meanwhile, disgusted by the HUAC “witch-hunt” and the “moral rot” it had induced in the entertainment industry, Huston had moved to Ireland. He had bought a house in Galway, St. Clerans, and moved there in 1952 with his wife Enrica and their children Anthony and Angelica. Twelve years later he took Irish citizenship…. After two financially unsuccessful pictures [Beat the Devil and Moby Dick]…deep in debt…he accepted a three-picture contract with 20th Century-Fox…Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957), teaming Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as a marine and a nun stranded on a Japanese-held island during World War II, struck many reviewers as an attempt to repeat The African Queen. Huston coscripted, and enjoyed working with Mitchum, whom he considers “one of the really fine actors of my time.” …A retrospective atmosphere of doom hangs over the Misfits (1961). Clark Gable died shortly after shooting was finished. Marilyn Monroe never completed another film. Montgomery Clift and Thelma Ritter were dead within a few years. While the film was being made, the marriage between Monroe and Arthur Miller (who had written the script) broke up, virtually on set. The story, about down-and-out modern cowboys who round up wild horses to be made into dog food, carries strong allegorical overtones as a metaphor for the trashing of the American dream of innocence and freedom, the closing of the frontier. Despite problems with Monroe, who by this stage in her career was in a desperate condition, Huston was pleased with the finished picture. “I had obtained the qualities I wanted.” Critical and public reception was lukewarm, but the film’s reputation has grown steadily ever since. Huston had conceived the idea of making a film about Freud while working on Let There Be Light. He now invited Jean-Paul Sartre to prepare a script. Sartre did so—four hundred pages of it. Huston tactfully suggested that cuts might be necessary, and he and Sartre went over the script together. Sartre returned to Paris, and in due course submitted his revised script—of six hundred pages. With the help of Charles Kaufman, who had coscripted Let There Be Light, the scenario was pruned to a manageable hundred and fifty pages, although Sartre disowned it.

Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) is not a conventional biopic, but rather an intellectual detective story, in which Freud is shown tracking down, in himself as much as in others, the psychosexual source of the guilt which torments them….By way of relaxation, Huston turned to a spoof murder mystery, The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), in which the villain, played by Kirk Douglas, appears in numerous elaborate disguises. As an

additional gimmick, the film features various guest stars, also heavily disguised. Response was mainly puzzled…. “The Huston ending” wherein all human activities culminate in ironic futility and disaster was notably absent from The Night of the Iguana (1964). Huston and his co-scriptwriter, Anthony Veiller, took a characteristically overheated and doom-laden play by Tennessee Williams

and transformed it into a melodramatic farce with a happy ending. Amazingly, Williams went along with their changes and even helped with the script…. While Iguana was doing well at the box office, Huston was visited in Ireland by Dino de Laurentiis, who planned to film The Bible. He envisaged a multiplicity of episodes, each with its own eminent director. Eventually, the producer modestly limited himself to half the Book of Genesis, with Huston as sole director. Huston also played Noah and the voice of God….The film finally cost eighteen million—by far the most expensive of Huston’s career—and received atrocious notices…. In Fat City (1972) Huston drew on the boxing world of his youth. Unlike most fight movies, though, the film offered its characters no moment of glory in the big time; these were the small-time losers on the lower fringes of the sport, failures and derelicts never more than a step away from defeat. Filmed in muted, smoky tones in the bars, tenements, and pool-halls of dead-end Stockton, California, Fat City offers the clearest statement of Huston’s fascination with defeat, and the small vestiges of dignity that can be salvaged from it. As a washed-up fighter, Stacy Keach gave the performance of a lifetime. Critics hailed the film as a return to form, and John Russell Taylor described it as “one of those late films by old masters that look effortless because they are effortless.”… Huston had long cherished an ambition to film Kipling’s story The Man Who Would Be King. Originally he planned it with Gable and Bogart; then with Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton. It finally reached the screen with Sean Connery and Michael Caine in the leading roles as the two British soldiers who set up a private kingdom in the wild mountains of Afghanistan. For once, delay proved beneficial. As Huston remarked, his modern actors brought “a reality to it that the old stars could not do. Today they would seem synthetic, so in a way I’m glad I didn’t make the picture with them.” Certainly it would be hard to imagine the film done better. There is a sweep and grandeur, a legendary resonance to the narrative for which the misused term “epic” is for once wholly appropriate.…For the

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first time in a decade, Huston achieved success at the box office as well as with the critics, and he and Gladys Hill were nominated for an Academy Award for their screenplay. After The Man Who Would Be King, Huston underwent heart surgery and as a result produced no feature films for four years. Any speculation, though, that his career as a director might be over was answered by Wise Blood (1979). … An unmixed success was Prizzi’s Honor (1985), based on the book by Richard Condon, starring Jack Nicholson, Katherine Turner, William Hickey and Huston’s daughter Anjelica (who won an Oscar for best supporting actress), and featuring a witty opera-spouting score by Alex North. Huston’s gift for eliciting definitive performances from his actors and his delight in labyrinthine plots were evident in this dark satire on the Mafia, American business, family honor, and romantic love. Nicolson, as Charley Partanna, a faithful enforcer for the Prizzi family, falls in love with a glamorous mystery woman (Turner), who turns out to be a professional killer as well. After a convoluted series of double-crosses and unexpected revelations, Charley is forced to make the ultimate choice between personal happiness and family obligation. The film, wrote Vincent Canby, “does to The Godfather what Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews did to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. It locates the deliriously comic center within all sentimentality.” Many critics thought it a perfect Huston vehicle and the director’s most fully realized film since The Man who Would be King. After this success, Huston set to work on an adaptation of James Joyce’s story” The Dead,” which he completed shortly before his death. Robin Wood wrote of Huston in Richard Roud’s Cinema that “the problem lies in tracing any significant unifying or developing pattern through his career as a whole….This is but one of several signs—though a crucial one—that Huston is not a major artist, though he has at different stages of his career been mistaken for one.” This is the view that has dominated serious discussion of Huston’s work since the rise of auteurist criticism in the 1960s. But Andrew Sarris, once one of the director’s most dismissive critics, wrote in 1980 that “what I have always tended to underestimate in Huston was how deep in his guts he could feel the universal experience of pointlessness and failure. And there are other signs that Huston’s films are being reassessed—notably the thirty-page essay by Richard T. Jameson in Film Comment (May-June, 1980). Although all of Huston’s pictures are adaptations, in which he has sought “to find the particular style or look best suited to render a script into a persuasive and distinctive cinematic reality,” Jameson maintains that “we do encounter a cohesive world-view, not only thematically, but also stylistically; there is a Huston look,” though one extremely difficult to define. Jameson might agree with James Agee that this “look” proceeds from Huston’s “sense of what is natural to the eye and his delicate, simple feeling for space relationships.” It is, moreover, Jameson’s “considered opinion that with The Misfits Huston entered upon virtually a second career (after a few years of wandering in the contract wilderness) that includes some of the most mature, most personal, and most provocative films, not only of his oeuvre but also of the Sixties and Seventies at large.” In his last years, Huston pursued a parallel career as a film actor. In 1963 he was invited by Otto Preminger to portray a Boston prelate in The Cardinal and virtually stole the picture. Then, besides taking key roles in several of his own films, he

appeared in a wide variety of works directed by others: most notably as the sinister patriarch Noah Cross in Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), and as Teddy Roosevelt’s adviser John Hay in Milius’s The Wind and the Lion (1975). Huston evidently enjoyed acting and invariably denied that he took it at all seriously. “It’s a cinch,” he maintained, “and they pay you damn near as much as you make directing.” Suffering from emphysema, Huston spent some time in hospitals at the end of his life. When in Mexico, he lived at his home in Las Calletas, near Puerta Vallarta, in a clearing between the jungle and the Pacific Ocean, accessible only by boat, together with various friends and a wide variety of animals. Living by the sea, he said, quoting an Irish saying, “lends tranquility to the soul. I’m content to have arrived at this moment in eternity, but for the life of me I don’t know how I got here.”

from John Huston’s Filmmaking. Lesley Brill. Cambridge U Press NY 1997 Why has Huston’s artistic personality gone more or less unremarked for so long? Briefly, his neglect seems to be a consequence partly of the history of taste and fashion among critics and academics in film studies, and partly of a stylistic finish so smooth and self-effacing that it conceals its remarkable art as straightforward. Generic story-telling (if such a thing exists). Huston’s art looks to us, I suspect, as Shakespeare’s did to his contemporaries: like nature itself. James Agee, in his enormously influential 1950 Life magazine portrait established this understanding: “Each of Huston’s pictures has a visual tone and style of its own, dictated to his camera by the story’s essential content and spirit.” James Naremore characterizes Huston’s method by contrasting it with Dashiell Hammett’s: “Hammett’s art is minimalist and deadpan, but Huston, contrary to his reputation. Is a highly energetic and expressive storyteller who like to make comments through his images. To my knowledge, at least thirty-four of Huston’s thirty-seven features films derive directly from novels, stories, or plays.

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Huston began in the movies as a writer of screenplays.... He has spoken of the intimate connection between writing and directing: “There’s really no difference between them, it’s an extension, one from the other. Ideally I think the writer should go on and direct the picture. I think of the director as an extension of the writer.” Implicit in early works like The Maltese Falcon, In This Our Life, and Key Largo (’48), themes of identity continue to dominate at the end of Huston’s career in Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead. In a 1981 interview, Huston spoke of his first film as “a dramatization of myself, how I felt about things.”

from John Huston: An Open Book. Knopf, NY 1980 I came well to my very first directorial assignment. The Maltese Falcon was a very carefully tailored screenplay, not only scene by scene, but set-up by set-up. I made a sketch of each set-up. If it was to be a pan or dolly shot, I’d indicate it. I didn’t want ever to be at a loss before the actors or the camera crew. I went over the sketches with Willy Wyler. He had a few suggestions to make, but on the whole, approved what he saw. I also showed the sketches to my producer, Henry Blanke. All Blanke said was, “John, just remember that each scene as you shoot it, is the most important scene in the picture.” That’s the best advice a young director could have. from John Huston Interviews. Edited by Robert Emmet Long. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2001. “An Interview with John Huston” David Brandes, 1977 DB: Mr. Huston, you’re a writer, you’re a director, and you’re an actor. And you’re famous in all three areas. Which do you prefer? JH: I don’t make a distinction between writing and directing. But to write and direct one’s own material is certainly the best approach. The directing is kind of an extension of the writing. So far as the acting is concerned, that’s just a sort of lark—a well-paid lark, I might add—to relieve the responsibilities of being a director. DB: Why would a creative person like yourself become a filmmaker rather than, say, a novel writer?

JH: I was raised in the tradition of films—that is, like so many children of my generation, we looked to the screen for our heroes; we imitated and emulated William S. Hart; people like Hart and Chaplin were gods. The films were every bit as much alive as literature, and I was always fascinated by films. So I started out to become a writer but I wasn’t aware I wanted to become a director until after I had written for films for several years. Then I decided I could do my own material better than someone else. So I really just drifted into directing…. DB: What about the writing itself? Is there anything about the screenplay form which makes it appeal to you? JH: The ideal screenplay has a kind of discipline. You must make your points with a certain clarity and decisiveness which makes the ideal screenplay closer to poetry than to the novel. I find the form itself attracts me. DB: Yet poetry is such a pure form whereas film seems to be much more of a composite, so much less pure. JH: I think of pictures as being quite pure when they are truly realized. And closer, perhaps, to the thought processes than any other form. The ideal picture is almost as though the reel were behind your own eyes and you were projecting your own thoughts. Its only when the picture falters that your thoughts stumble as a result of the picture’s faltering. Something “wrong” appears on the screen and the dream is broken…. I don’t make drawings anymore, but there’s a logic to shooting a scene. After your first shot, everything else falls into place. And shooting on location as I do and not in the studio, the circumstances usually tell you what the first shot is going to be. By the way, I’d like to make an observation here. Very seldom does an audience realize what you’re doing with the camera. When the camera is performing at its best, the audience isn’t aware of it. It’s so close to the thought process that you’re watching the scene, not the movement of the camera—no matter what kind of ballet it might be doing. As a rule, I think of the camera as part of the scene. It’s the camera as protagonist. You enter the scene through the camera’s eyes. It has a physiological function. Like the physiology of the cut. Try this little trick yourself. Look at something directly in front of you. Then look at something to the direct right of you. You’ve made a complete right angle. But notice that in doing it you blink your eyes. In other words, because you’re familiar with the whole area in between, you blank it out and go directly from point A to point B. That is a cut. Only when the intervening space—the relationship between those two objects—is important do you pan. If it isn't important, you cut…. Making a film is like every other undertaking in life. Its success depends on whether or not you’re equipped for it. And I’m not referring to learning. I don’t know that I’ve learned a hell of a lot. I think I was probably as good a director at the beginning as I am now. Oh I’ve probably learned a few small technical things. But I’m not sure my understanding has deepened since I was nine years old…. DV: Do you feel a film like Jaws will have the same appeal over time? JH: I haven’t seen Jaws so I can’t comment on it. But good films—truly good films—will endure. Granted the camera used to turn at a different speed and the acting style was one of exaggerated delivery. Today we’re closer to reality. Figures on the screen move at the same pace we do in life. And the style has

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changed, of course. But a Chaplin film is as good today as it was then. DB: What is your opinion of the state of the art today? JH: One of the ill effects of the modern set up of the industry is that if a picture isn’t immediately successful, they won’t risk any more money publicizing it. I’ve seen a number of fine films that the public was barely able to see. Like The Traveling Executioner with Stacy Keach, or Walkabout from Australia. I think Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller was a kind of masterpiece. Midnight Cowboy was a wonderful film. Beautiful pictures—and our loss, as a result of the present economic set up. On the other hand, Earthquake, Towering Inferno, etc. I haven’t seen them and I’m not drawn to them because they seem to contain a formula. What I hear about them doesn’t sufficiently attract me. I’d rather read a book.

Peter S. Greenberg: “Saints and Stinkers”: The Rolling Stone Interview, 1981 “At first I didn’t know what was going on with the man,” says Caine, who last worked with Huston on The Man Who Would Be King. We were on location in Morocco, and I’d do a scene with Sean [Connery], and we’d finish it and John would say ‘cut,’ and then we’d do the next scene on the first take as well. I never thought the movie would work. And then I saw the movie. It was wonderful. Most directors today don’t know what they want-so they shoot everything they can think of. They use the camera like a machine gun. John uses it like a sniper.”… Almost every movie you make is filmed on location. Any movies you would rather have done on a back lot? Heavens, no. If I have a trademark at all, it’s that I prefer to make my movies where they happen. I was on one of the first location pictures, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And African Queen would have been very difficult to do on the back lot of some studio. The point is that in a sense it’s easier to just do it than to fabricate it. Was Moby Dick the most wretched location experience you’ve ever had? No, it was in Africa making The Roots of Heaven. That was the most physically difficult. Temperatures were quite unbelievable. One didn’t eat, myself included. But Moby Dick was difficult. It was the worst winter in maritime history. Three of our lifeboats

capsized. We just had one storm after another, wretched storms. Certainly once we were on our way to the bottom. And three times I thought were. We had started out with three mechanical whales, and we lost two of them. And I knew that if we lost the third one, we were shit out of luck. This was our last hope. So I just got in the whale, and I stayed there. I knew they’d have to rescue it if I was in it. If that whale had gone, the picture would have died. Every day we would go out to sea. That didn’t take long, but as soon as we got out, the storms would just surround us—longboats would be separated, and everything would become disordered and chaotic. I guess by today’s standards, if you were that far behind, they might have stopped the picture. By today’s standards, it’s nothing to be a few weeks behind. Think of Apocalypse Now. I thought there were wonderful things about it, some unbelievable things, but I thought it was a poor picture. It didn’t know what to do with itself. There is no plot to Heart of Darkness. It's an atmosphere, and it’s a wonderful evocation, but it isn’t a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And there were absurdities in the film. I mean, why do they all go up the river in a boat, when they can take a helicopter and go up the river? And so on. The nonsense of that American placement of light and so on and the bombing area….And showing a bridge all lit up at night. It's absurd. Coppola took refuge. He escaped into the metaphysical at the finish. And,, you know, shithouse writers have been doing that since time immemorial. The problem is that the concept of story can very easily be misunderstood. I mean, a story is not necessarily something that’s as wooden as a first, second, and third act, or that comes out with a moral and a message or something that’s all underscored and in italics and capitalized. That’s not what I mean. Peer Gynt has a dramatic structure. And even Tennessee Williams has a dramatic structure. When we were doing African Queen—and we were just about to film it—I discovered myself without a story. That’s why I say I can put myself in Coppola’s boat. Luckily I found the ending well before starting the cameras. Thomas Moore: “The Minstrel Boy” The minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you'll find him; His fathers sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him. "Land of Song!" said the warrior bard, "Though all the world betrays thee, One sword at least thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee!" The minstrel fell but the foeman’s chain could not bring that proud soul under; The harp he loved ne'er spoke again For he tore its' chords asunder; And said "No chains shall sully thee, Thou soul of love and bravery! Thy songs were made for the pure and free, They shall never sound in slavery."

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SPRING 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS, SERIES 38 JAN 29 Paul Fejös, Lonesome 1928

FEB 5 Frank Borsage, A Farewell to Arms 1932 Feb 12 Gregory La Cava, My Man Godfrey, 1936

Feb 19 John Huston, The African Queen 1951 Feb 26 Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless 1960

Mar 5 Luis Bunuel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1962 Mar 12 David Lean, Dr. Zhivago 1965

Mar 26 Arturo Ripstein, Time to Die 1966 Apr 2 Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow-Up 1966 Apr 9 Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter 1978

Apr 16 Monty Python, The Meaning of Life 1983 Apr 23 Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut 1999

Apr 30 Frederick Wiseman: Monrovia, Indiana, 2018 May 7 Alfonso Cuarón, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: engdc@buffalo.edu…email Bruce Jackson bjackson@buffalo.edu...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto list@buffalofilmseminars.com....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.