John Huston observation, and analysis

[blunted by community]

From GREEN SHADOWS WHITE WHALE by Ray Bradbury. We pick up when Bradbury arrives at Huston’s mansion, St Clerans, in Ireland, to begin working on the Moby Dick screenplay.

-----------------------------------

The door swung wide at my knock.

My director stood there in boots and riding pants and a silk shirt open at the neck to reveal an ascot tie. His eyes bulged like eggs to see me here. His chimpanzee mouth fell down a few inches, and the air came out of his lungs in an alcoholtinged rush.

"I'll be damned!" he cried. "It's you!"

"Me," I admitted meekly.

"You're late! You okay? What delayed you?"

I waved behind me, up the road.

"Ireland," I said.

"Christ, that explains it. Welcome!"

He pulled me in. The door slammed.

"You need a drink?"

"Ah, God," I said. Then hearing my newly acquired brogue, I spoke meticulously.

"Yes, sir," I said.

As John, his wife Ricki, and I sat down to dinner, I gazed long and hard at the wee dead birds on a warm plate, their heads awry, their beady eyes half shut, and said:

"Can I make a suggestion?"

"Make it, kid."

"It's about the Parsee Fedallah who runs as a character through the whole book. He ruins Moby Dick."

"Fedallah? That one? Well?"

"Do you mind if right now, over our wine, we give all the best lines and acts to Ahab? And throw Fedallah overboard?"

My director lifted his glass. "He's thrown!"

The weather outside was beginning to clear, the grass was lush and green in the dark beyond the French windows, and I was blushing warmly all over to think I was really here, doing this work, beholding my hero, imagining an incredible future as screenwriter for a genius.

Somewhere along in the dinner the subject of Spain came up, almost casually, or perhaps John brought it up himself.

I saw Ricki stiffen and pause in her eating, and then continue picking at her food as John went on about Hemingway and the bullfights and Franco and traveling to and from Madrid and Barcelona.

"We were there just a month ago," said John. "You really ought to go there sometime, kid," he said. "Beautiful country. Wonderful people, it's been a bad twenty years, but they're getting back on their feet. Anyway, we had a little event there, didn't we, Ricki? A small thing got out of hand."

Ricki started to rise, her plate in her hand, and the knife fell clattering to the table.

"Why don't you tell us about it, dear," said John.

"No, I?" said Ricki.

"Tell us what happened at the border," said John.

His words were so heavy that, weighted, Ricki sat back down and after a pause to regain her breath, held for a long moment, let it out, "We were driving back up from Barcelona and there was this Spaniard wanted to get into France without papers and John wanted us to smuggle him across the border in our car under a rug in the back seat and John said it was okay and the Spaniard said please and I said my God, if they found out, the border guards, if they caught us we'd be held, put in jail maybe, and you know what Spanish jails are like, in there for days or weeks or forever, so I said no, no way, and the Spaniard pleaded and John said it was a matter of honor, we had to do it, we had to help this poor man and I said I was sorry but I wouldn't endanger the children. What if I was in jail and the kids would be in the hands of others too many hours and days and who would explain to them and John insisted and there was a big row?"

"Very simply," said John, "you were a coward."

"No, I wasn't," said Ricki, looking up from her food.

"You were yellow," said John, "pure yellow, and we had to leave the poor son of a bitch behind because my wife didn't have enough guts to let us get him across."

"How do we know he wasn't a criminal, John," said Ricki. "Some sort of political fugitive, and then we would have been in jail forever?"

"Just yellow is all." John lit a cigarillo and leaned forward to stare at his wife at the far end, miles away down the table. "I really hate to think I am married to a woman with no guts, who wears a yellow stripe down her back. Wouldn't you hate to be married to that kind of woman, kid?"

I sat back in my chair, my mouth full of food I could not chew nor swallow.

I looked at my genius employer and then at his wife then back to John and then back to Ricki.

Her head was bent.

"Yellow," said John, a final time, and blew smoke.

As I looked down at the dead bird on my plate, I recalled a scene that now seemed so long ago.

In August, I had wandered, stunned, into a bookstore in Beverly Hills looking for a small, comfortable?sized copy of Moby Dick. The copy I had at home was too large to travel. I needed something compact. I shared with the proprietor my excitement about writing the screenplay and traveling overseas.

Even as I spoke, astonished, a woman in the far corner of the shop turned and said, very clearly: "Don't go on that journey."
It was Elijah, at the foot of the Pequod's gangplank, warning Queequeg and Ishmael not to follow Ahab off 'round the world: it was a dread mission and a lost cause from which no man might return.

"Don't go," said the strange woman again.

I recovered and said, "Who are you?"

"A former friend of the director's and the former wife of one of his screenwriters. I know them both. God, I wish I didn't.
They're both monsters, but your director's the worst. He'll eat you and spit out your bones. So?" She stared at me.
"Whatever you do, don't go."

Ricki's eyes were shut, but tears were leaking out of the lashes and running down to the tip of her nose where they fell, one by One, onto her plate.

My God, I thought, this is my first day in Ireland, my first day at work for my hero.

----------------------------

in this book, this is the first interesting Huston brush stroke to my mental portrait of the man. this brush stroke paired with Agee’s comment about Huston having a talent for avoiding boredom, and for the most imaginative use of the present. I pair this with other commments I’ve read about his impetuos behavior. It seems to me he might have had a touch of OCD.

Imagine smuggling some guy he just met across a border while accompanied by his wife and kids. About now Ricki Soma should have had red flags going off in her head, and should have gotten away from this lunatic.

There are a few more quotes in the book worth posting, and I will post them soon.

[Oscar Christie]

Mr. Blunt:

Re: Huston and TOSOTW;

I know that they filmed "around" Hannaford for a couple of years before Huston started to work.
{there's the story of Huston's surprise when McBride tells him (Huston) that he (McBride) has been in the film for three years}
But there have been conflicting reports on Huston's role in getting the film completed. One is that he wanted to see it released, one is that he did not like the film and hoped it would never come out.
The question gets to the heart of TOSOTW, unfinished masterpiece or an overhill director's pet ego project.
Your analysis of the editing that Welles did is an important contribution to the discussion because it proves that Welles was doing much more than an improvised home movie. Do you know anything more about how Huston felt about the film?

[blunted by community]

yes, in interviews huston was asked about the film and he said he didn't know what was going on but he was going to call orson and find out. that is what he said and the interview never followed up on the call.

after welles' death i read that some money guy was putting up the money to finish TOSOTW, but only if huston would do the editing. at that time huston was weak, and ailing, and concerned with finishing his own films. and besides, huston was only on the OSOTW set for 10 days, and had nothing to do with the filming style or that plan welles had for it. and i also doubt that huston did a lot of editing himself, and TOSOTW is going to be an editing nightmare.

though welles and huston were friends, welles took a few jabs at huston. in an interview he said that THE KILLING was a copy of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, and that THE KILLING was a better film, and that kubrik was a better director than huston. those are not the comments of a friend. perhaps orson felt bitchy that day.

huston slightly jabbed back when he said orson wore a purple robe during the filming of TOSOTW, and he never saw orson wear anything but that robe. and some wher else huston said it was a bit disconcerting being directed by welles because in all past associations he was directing welles.

huston was a giant among men, as was orson, but i think huston was taller. this accounts for the difficult relationship hemingway had with huston, and welles. hemingway hated welles, and was envious of huston but was friends with him. hemingway was not a giant among men.

i've never read anything about huston disliking TOSOTW, or not wanting it released.

in graver's WORKING WITH ORSON WELLES, the animated peter jason tells some great stories about welles and huston
.

[Oscar Christie]

If his performance is strong, wouldn't his family be advocates of its release, so he could be an Oscar contender?

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I don't think its bitchy to say Kubrick was a better director than Huston. Controversial, perhaps, when you know the guy personally. But still, Welles could call it as he saw it, couldn't he?

[blunted by community]

well, if you were a director and had directed asphalt jungle, and i was your friend, and i was in an interview, and i was not asked if i thought so-and-so was better than you, but offered it in conversation, i think that is crummy.

i have a documentary on bernnard herrmann, and he also did such things. but herrmann was an angrier person than welles. herrmann would be your friend, then stab you in the back for no apparent reason.

if i was asked directly if i thought the killing was a better film than asphalt jungle, and i was your friend, i would say, "i enjoyed the killing, but i liked the asphalt jungle better." that is how friends are towards each other. i thought it was a crummy thing for welles to say. even if he had his reasons, it was a crummy thing to say. welles bad-mouthed eisenstein's film, IVAN part 2 also, but he was over sensitive when people talked about his films. we all have our flaws, and certainly welles had his, he was no angel. does not mean he was not a great director.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

sure

[Sir Bygber Brown]

allright, i see your point.