John Huston: Courage and Art Review

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John Huston: Courage and Art ReviewIn these times of economic distress is it too much to ask of an author who is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a publisher of Crown's repute to simply proof read a book before printing and selling it? This book is replete with errors of fact and unrewarding critical asides - and I have never run into as many non sequiturs in the course of reading a book as I have done with this one. Where were the editors? The proof readers? Where was the author with a red pencil himself? The sloppiness of the work is one thing - but what makes it sad is that there is so little written word out there about the great John Huston. And Huston deserves much more.
This is not nit-picking. This is holding an esteemed author and an esteemed publishing house to the high standard to which they should and must be held. Especially when their product retails for thirty bucks!
In casting as wide a net as possible in pointing out the factual flaws and weaknesses of personal authorial insight of this book in the limited space available here let me begin with the fact that on page 255 Meyers tells us that after THE MISFITS Montgomery Clift made only more picture - FREUD - before his death. But on page 272 we are informed by the same author that post-FREUD "Clift made only one more movie before dying of a heart attack." A mere 17 pages separate the two assertions. Which one is true? Why didn't the author or his editor or his proof-reader or someone catch this before the manuscript went to irrevocable press? The truth is that Clift made one more film after FREUD - THE DEFECTOR - and died shortly after that film was made. As an example of Meyers' blunt and faulty critical insight, with regards to MOBY DICK and Gregory Peck's performance as Ahab we find the following weak insight by our author: "He was as wooden as his peg leg, and in the finale the supposedly tyrannical oppressor seemed bound to the whale like a slave." In this assessment, Meyers misses the point by miles - or nautical knots in this instance. Ahab IS bound to the whale - both whilst alive and later when drowned - like a slave. That is a major point of both the book and the movie. Meyers goes on with regards to Peck: "The handsome actor was hardly the type to strike down the sun 'if it insulted him.'" Why Meyers feels this way he doesn't precisly say - but he wastes a complete paragraph and half a page on speculations as to who would be a better Ahab - and he actually drags out the tedium and goes on to laundry list Richard Burton, Jack Nicholson, Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Daniel Day-Lewis and Russell Crowe as being potential better Ahabs than Peck. This isn't insightful and critical savvy - it is padding to a book that is already too brief in its attempt to capture the immensity and profoundity of John Huston.
On page 322 is one example out of literally hundreds in this book of swift writing which simply leads to sheer sloppiness. In discussing daughter Anjelica and Roman Polanski we read: "Later, in 1977, she got into serious trouble and was caught with cocaine when the police were investigating the rape charges against Roman Polanski." If one knew absolutely nothing about Roman Polanski and the rape charges against him one would be quite confused by this sentence and perhaps even feel - with some justification due to the lack of clarity in Meyers' poor sentence structure - that Polanski may have been charged with rape against Anjelica herself! To argue that everyone already knows about the Polanski case is an inadequate defense here. And speaking of Polanski, we learn absolutely nothing about how the two controversial directors got along during the CHINATOWN shoot. Zilch! Same with any insight with regards to Sean Connery's interplay with Huston during the making of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. A sentence would have been nice, no? The movies CASINO ROYALE, THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER and THE MACKINTOSH MAN are not even addressed - even though two are listed in the author's APPENDIX as "Worth Seeing." If they are worth seeing they should have been worth mentioning in the text of this book. Why waste sentence space on Ahab alternates instead of a sentence or more on the films mentioned above - especially since Meyers feels they are "Worth Seeing." Curiously, in the text he savages THE UNFORGIVEN yet lists it in his "Worth Seeing" category and never explains why it is worth seeing. On the "Duds" list is a movie that is not even in the book's index and I have no idea what it is about or who was in it. I would have liked to know - without having to have recourse to the IMDB. The movie is PHOBIA. Instead of the sophomoric listing of the films in categories from MASTERPIECES to DUDS, the book would have been much better served with an index listing the films in chronological sequence with full credits.
On page 276 Meyers out and out insults apparently all those who view FREUD. It is a truly bizarre and condescending sentence that hardly endears the perceptive reader to this clay-footed author. In discussing certain aspects of the script he says: "In a brief but densely packed speech - whose allusions are far beyond the comprehension of the movie's audience" and he then goes on to list the sources for the allusions as being Joseph Conrad, St. George, Faust, Virgil and Dante. Now, in reading the part of the script under discussion, I knew all of the allusions. I am part of the movie's audience. People who sit down to watch a movie about FREUD more than likely have a somewhat educated intellect. So then - what the heck is Meyers saying? And why? I truly believe that he too often writes before he thinks - or researches an issue. Looking at his CV one sees that he has already written 33 books and edited several others. Maybe...he should slow it a bit.
In the truly silly pages devoted to Huston's UNDER THE VOLCANO we find the following which makes me wonder if Meyers even saw the movie: on page 385 in discussing the screenplay writer Guy Gallo's conflicts with Huston, the two men existentially discuss the meanings of rain during the end of the film in the sequence at the Farolito whorehouse and bar. After quoting Gallo, Meyers ends with this: "Finally, the rain was excised because they had no rain machine." The trouble is...there is rain in the scene under discussion. And in the excellent documentary on the making of this film one clearly sees artificial rain being added to the action being filmed. As a matter-of-fact, why doesn't Meyer even mention this vitally important 1984 hour-long documentary on the making of the film by Gary Conklin? This documentary is must viewing for anyone interested in Huston as man and director. So to not discuss this vital look into Huston's world at all is sheer negligence on Meyer's part.
On the bottom of that same page 385 we are casually and almost as an afterthought informed that Huston was an atheist. Pretty important clue to understanding the mystery of the man - yet it isn't mentioned anywhere else in the most likely rapidly-written text. On page 390 Meyer claims that the movie Finney-as-Firmin sees at the start of VOLCANO is THE HANDS OF ORLAC and that it is a silent German Expressionist film shot in 1925. The trouble is that the movie is a talkie and was shot in America in 1935 with Peter Lorre starring.
Continuing with Meyers' coverage of VOLCANO he pointlessly savages Anthony Edwards' portrayal of Hugh. He proclaims that the actor is "too delicate and insufficiently masculine" for the part and that he "seems to be wearing makeup and has unnaturally high cuffs on his too-clean jeans." He then goes on about actors who would have been more suitable for the part - a young Finney or Richard Harris or Daniel Day-Lewis or Liam Neeson. This isn't intelligent criticism - it is book padding. Meyers also states that Huston "was not interested in Andrews or his character. He didn't care how Andrews looked, didn't direct him at all and moved him into the background of the picture." Rubbish! Either believe Meyers' b.s. or your own eyes. Watch the precious peek into Huston at work on the NOTES FROM UNDER THE VOLCANO documentary (available on the Criterion release of the film) and see a director passionately at work with ALL of his actors. And for a character that is - according to Meyers' dim lights - "in the background of the picture" Anthony Andrews has one heck of alot of flattering closeups and some choice dialogue. In his discussion of this film Meyers is all over the map in diss-discussing Andrews' acting - and gives several sentences over to Jaqueline Bisset's portrayal of Finney's wife - yet no where does he discuss Albert Finney's immense and Oscar-nominated performance in the lead role. Why waste the reader's time on tearing apart a co-star's performance and even boringly list alternate Hughs - and not even write of the titanic performance of Finney as the Consul? The mind boggles! Even a small thing like this irked me at this point: on page 395 Meyers writes that Finney's character is "killed in a whorehouse" when he is actually killed outside of it. Small point perhaps - but not so when taking into account all of the other flaws in the book.
The book's final chapter deals with Huston's final film - THE DEAD - and is all over the map. Precious space is spent on excepts from lyric ballads, Yeats' poetry and a smattering of Shakespeare. Meyers truly seems more intent - here and throughout the entire book - in showing off his smarts than in zeroing in on his central subject. When it comes to Huston's death and memorial service we sadly learn very little - and it is related herein in such an abrupt, matter-of-fact way that it hardly registers on the reader. The heck with long bits of Yeats' poem or the lyrics of a ballad! How did Hollywood and the World react to Huston's passing? That is...Read more›John Huston: Courage and Art Overview

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