John Marcellus Huston (August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Misfits (1961), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, won twice, and directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins in different films. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.
Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!
(from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, screenplay by John Huston
from the B. Traven novel. )
Heavy. What is it? The stuff that dreams are made of.
(from The
Maltest Falcon)
Hollywood has always been a cage... a cage to catch our dreams.
I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like.
I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.
I've lived a number of lives. I'm inclined to envy the man who leads one life, with one job, and one wife, in one country, under one God. It may not be a very exciting existence, but at least by the time hes 73 he knows how old he is.
It's very good for a picture to have an ending before you start shooting! (on Apocalypse Now)
Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the
right place they're capable of anything.
(from Chinatown)
Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it. (on directing)
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world.
We can make good movies or we can make bad movies. The bad movies cost a bit more, but if they give us enough money, we can make them just as bad as they want them to be.
Well, if you lose a son it's possible to get another. There's only one
Maltese falcon.
(from The Maltest Falcon)
What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes.
You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession.
You're a good man, sister.
(from The Maltest Falcon)
(August 5 is also the birthday of Peter McWilliams.)
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