John Huston Quotes
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 he`s seventy-three he knows how old he is.
Half of directing is casting the right actors.
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.
I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture.
I don`t try to guess what a million people will like. It`s hard enough to know what I like.
I completely storyboarded "The Maltese Falcon" because I didn`t want to lose face with the crew: I wanted to give the impression that I knew what I was doing.
I`m told there is a Huston style; if so I`m not aware of it. I just make the film to its own requirements.
(on George C. Scott) One of the best actors alive. But my opinion of him as an actor is much higher than my opinion of him as a man.
(on Jack Nicholson) I have great respect for him. Not only as an artist but as an individual. He has a fine eye for good paintings and a good ear for fine music. And he`s a lovely man to drink with. A boon companion! I`d like to make more pictures with Jack Nicholson.
(on Clark Gable) Clark Gable was the only real he-man I`ve ever known, of all the actors I`ve met.
After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.
Hollywood has always been a cage... a cage to catch our dreams.
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.
(on Robert Mitchum) I think Bob is one of the very great actors and that his resources as an actor have never been fully tapped. He could be a Shakespearean actor. In fact, I think that he could play King Lear.
(on Elisha Cook, Jr.) Elisha Cook, Jr. lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wanted in Hollywood, they sent word up to his mountain cabin by courier. He would come down, do a picture and then withdraw again to his retreat.
I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.
(on Susannah York) Susannah was the personification of the uninformed arrogance of youth.
On remakes: "There is a wilful lemming-like persistance in remaking past successes time after time. They can`t make them as good as they are in our memories, but they go on doing them and each time it`s a disaster. Why don`t we remake some of our bad pictures - I`d love another shot at `Roots of Heaven` - and make them good?"
(on his father Walter Huston) I hate stars. They`re not actors. I`ve been around actors all my life and I like them, but I never had an actor as a friend. Except Dad. And Dad never thought of himself as an actor. But the best actor I ever worked with was Dad. Dad was a man who never tried to sell anybody anything.
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.
It`s not color, it`s like pouring 40 tablespoons of sugar water over a roast.
(on Peter Lorre) Peter Lorre was one of the finest and most subtle actors I have ever worked with. Beneath that air of innocence he used to such effect, one sensed a Faustian worldliness. I`d know he was giving a good performance as we put it on film but I wouldn`t know how good until I saw him in the rushes.
(on Paul Newman) Paul Newman is full of innovation. He has wonderful immediate ideas. Very often supplements mine, or has something better than my notions. Some action perhaps.
(on Humphrey Bogart) He was endowed with the greatest gift a man can have -- talent. The whole world came to recognize it. With the years he became increasingly aware of the dignity of his profession - Actor, not Star. Himself he never took seriously -- his work, most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the Star, with amused cynicism; Bogart the actor he held in great respect. He is quite irreplaceable.
(from 1984) There is nothing more fascinating -- and more fun -- than making movies. Besides, I think I`m finally getting the hang of it.
