John Huston: The Asphalt Jungle

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It Happened One Night), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Asphalt Jungle (1950).

Another noir film by John Huston, The Asphalt Jungle is a heist film that’s more gritty than jaunty. As in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the characters fail (this can’t be a spoiler for a Huston film, can it?) at their task. While the characters are engaged in illegal activity, the film portrays them somewhat sympathetically, allowing the audience all the complex emotions necessarily inspired by likeable but flawed characters doing meticulous but condemnable deeds.

Vice is a recurring theme in this film—every main character has at least one vice, and the vice turns out to be the character’s undoing. Vice is weakness, but it’s also an addiction; Doc (Sam Jaffe) says, “One way or another, we all work for our vice.”

The Asphalt Jungle features at least ten significant characters, each of whom gets enough time on screen for the audience to be able to follow the plot and its intricacies. In addition to being the inspiration for many crime thrillers and capers (including the highly regarded Rififi), it serves as a study in making a story with so many important characters and plot points easy to follow without insulting the audience.

The Asphalt Jungle was one of Marilyn Monroe’s early films, before she had fully developed her sex goddess persona. MGM didn’t see her potential, and failed to sign her to any long-term contract. You can see in this film the beginnings of what she would become, but you can also see a little of the road she might have taken with more influence from a director like Huston, who respected her abilities more than her appearance.

Huston won an Oscar for directing and shared another with Ben Maddow for the screenplay. While I don’t consider it one of Huston’s best, it’s certainly a very good film worth studying for its contribution to its genre and for its story construction.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asphalt_Jungle

John Huston: The Maltese Falcon

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Maltese Falcon (1941).

John Huston’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which is one of the more important debut efforts by a director, followed the source material closely. Huston made changes to few scenes, and added only a new, slightly altered ending. Two previous adaptations of the novel did not perform well at the box office, and the studio did not expect much from Huston’s version. While Huston’s screenplay was faithful to the novel, his vision for the film included a deeper understanding of the themes of the novel than the earlier films had. Audiences and critics received Huston’s adaptation so enthusiastically that Huston went on to direct all of his subsequent screenplays except one, Three Strangers (1946).

Huston’s preparation with extensive storyboarding allowed the crew to work efficiently, which was important for the film’s tight budget. Because Huston was a trained artist, he was able to communicate camera angles and movement, composition, and lighting in his storyboards.

The casting of Bogart as Sam Spade proved to be important to both Huston and Bogart, who would work together several more times. Prior to The Maltese Falcon, Bogart had been typecast as a villain or a heavy; this flawed but heroic role allowed him to take on a variety of roles that had been denied him, such as romantic leads (Casablanca, Sabrina). Bogart would give better performances in other films, but he gave Spade more dimension and humanity than Hammett gave him in the novel.

Huston’s The Maltese Falcon became the model for future detective melodramas. The writing, direction, and production were clean and uncomplicated. By limiting the scenes of action, Huston created a sense of claustrophobia or paranoia that would characterize film noir. Elements of Huston’s work here certainly influenced other great noir films, including The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fnf97n2.html

John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Grapes of Wrath.

John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, based on John Steinbeck’s novel, is a study in deliberate use of camera. Ford has a reputation for not moving the camera, to the point that any camera movement is quickly forgotten. Orson Welles has been quoted as saying that “Ford never moved the camera”—clearly an exaggeration. In The Grapes of Wrath, camera movement is minimal, but present. A few examples include: the second unit pans to follow Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) as he walks to a general store, and again as the truck in which he rides drives away; Ford mounted the camera to the front of the Joad family truck as they drove into a camp in California, efficiently showing the size of the camp and the extent of the squalor.

Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, Ford uses 2-shots to depict the relationships of the characters, while using close-ups only to emphasize the importance of what a character says. These techniques are on display in all of Ford’s films, of course, but their use seems particularly seamless here.

Ford also uses light deliberately. When Tom Joad and Casey (John Carradine) arrive at the old Joad home, candlelight creates tension and a sense of mystery and uncertainty. Later, when Tom and Casey are reunited in California, Casey moves in and out of shadow as he tells Tom what he’s learned about the way businesses treat their workers. Casey’s fidgeting and his moving in and out of light create another kind of tension—not just of uncertainty, but of danger.

In 1958, John Steinbeck wrote to Henry Fonda of his fondness of Ford’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. “It’s a wonderful picture, just as good as it ever was,” he wrote. “It doesn’t look dated, and very few people have ever made a better one…” (p.603). While it might look dated now, compared to modern cinema’s apparent requirement of quick cuts and extensive camera movement, it still tells a difficult story clearly and well.

Watch the trailer here.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

Steinbeck, John. 1975. A Life in Letters, Penguin Books, New York, NY.

http://stage.dga.org/news/v25_3/news_malaga.php3

Book or Film? - Samantha Christensen

This post was written by CoyoteMoon Films' Samantha Christensen as part of our ongoing discussion about watching movies based on novels.

When watching a movie based on a book do you prefer to watch the film first or read the book? Why?

In my younger days, I would always prefer to read the book first then see the movie that was made from it. However, my viewpoint has shifted I recent years. I have found that if I read the book first I will sit through the entire movie commenting to myself about inaccuracies, missing scenes, etc. That is not a good way to enjoy a movie. Now, when I watch a movie first, if I feel I got everything I needed from the story there is a good chance that I will not read the book at all. And if I do end up reading the book, it just adds to the story and fills in any informational gaps.

Book or Film? - LR Simon

This post is the third in a series of CoyoteMoon Films people answering the question:

If a movie is being made from a book, do you make a point of reading the book first, or do you avoid reading the book before seeing the film?

I used to make sure to read books before seeing the movies based on them. I thought that reading the book would give me insight into the story and characters that I might not get just from the movie. Unfortunately, this also meant that I was unable to judge the movie on its own terms—there was always the book, informing me of subtle points that didn’t make it to the screen, or coloring my opinion of an actor’s performance.

I also thought that the movie would show me what someone else thought was important in the book. Watch the many adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and you’ll see several similar but different stories, some of which exclude important details. The Laurence Olivier version (from 1940), for example, omits Wickham’s attempt to elope with Darcy’s sister, a decision that probably is due to the Production Code; this omission, however, renders Wickham an almost decent fellow, and eliminates any reason Elizabeth has for changing her opinion of him or of Darcy.

Another reason I waited until after reading the book to see the movie is that I didn’t want the movie to spoil the ending of the book. I always thought it was worse to spoil the book. As I’ve matured, both as a filmgoer and as a novel reader, I’ve learned that a good story told well can stand up not only to multiple retellings, but also to having its secrets spilled. Return of the Jedi was spoiled for me just days before I saw it, but I don’t think my knowledge of the nature of Luke and Leia’s relationship diminished my opinion of the film (after all, that had nothing to do with the Ewoks). The Sixth Sense was spoiled for me within an hour of my seeing it, but I don’t think that my prior knowledge of that film’s big twist affected my ability to judge the film’s quality. I suppose I should finally get around to seeing The Crying Game.

Lately I’ve stopped trying to make sure to read the book first, in part because I have a to-read list that’s several miles long, but also because some books seem to be written with the eventual film adaptation in mind. Some writers seem able to combine cinematic elements with internal monologue, allowing filmmakers to see how the book can be made into film, while still giving the reader a satisfying experience. Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River featured scenes that seemed to have been written from a camera’s perspective, and these cinematic scenes play in the film essentially as they read on the page. But Lehane gives his book enough literary meat to keep it from reading like an early draft of a novelized screenplay. Some other writers don’t seem to possess that skill.

I’ve also found that reading a book can affect my decision to see any film based on it. For example, I found reading The Da Vinci Code to be a sufficient reason not to read other books by Dan Brown nor to see any film based on one of his books. He is no Umberto Eco. I find it doubtful that any of the wonderful film people associated with the films based on Brown’s books (and I have nothing by admiration for Ron Howard and Tom Hanks) could elevate that material without changing it wholesale, but if they made such drastic changes to the source, they’d lose the films’ built-in audience.

Book or Film? - Csenge Molnar

This is the second in an ongoing series of posts written by CoyoteMoon Films people answering the question:

If a movie is being made from a book, do you make a point of reading the book first, or do you avoid reading the book before seeing the film?

I typically see the movie before reading the book. I don't have a particular reason why, just mostly because before the movie comes out, all copies of the book it is based on are usually checked out. So it's better to wait until the 'hype' has died down. Another reason is that if the movie is interesting enough, I like to see/read what it was based off of.

--Csenge Molnar

Book or Film?

Note: This is the first in a series of posts from CoyoteMoon Films people about how they approach the movie-going experience.

If a movie is being made from a book, do you make a point of reading the book first, or do you avoid reading the book before seeing the film? Why?

I do tend to try to read the book first. In the instance of the Hunger Games books I really want to finish the series before the movies come out. I generally do this because I feel that movies have a tendency to leave out important elements. They might not seem important at the time, but they make the story better in the long run. An example of this is in the movie Watchmen. The character Rorschach is a crucial character to the comic and he is written so clearly that he is undeniably the POV character. In the comic they go much more into his childhood, his life as an outsider and the reason his costume is so important to him. All that description might have seem unnecessary in the filmmaking process, but it was actually needed to complete the character. It was unclear at times who the POV character was in the film version and that made the movie long and confusing. Don't get me wrong, I think that the movie was good in its own right, but the characters just felt empty.

This is however not always the case. Very occasionally you run across a movie that is exponentially better than the book. Examples of this would be Dolores Claiborne, Stand By Me (The Body) and The Shawshank Redemption. Had I only read the books I don't think I would have run right out to see the movies. This just proves that if you can get the right people behind a movie they can make cinematic magic out of a mediocre script/novel.

Teresa Skibinski