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Howard Hawks |
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Director / Producer |
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1896 - 1977 |
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Born May 30,
Goshen, Indiana, USA |
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Key
Production Country: USA
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Key Genres:
Comedy, Screwball Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Drama, Romance, Western, War, Adventure, Buddy Film |
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Key
Collaborators: Russell Harlan (Cinematographer),
Cary Grant (Leading Player), John Wayne (Leading Player), Leigh Brackett
(Screenwriter), Charles Lederer (Screenwriter), Dimitri Tiomkin (Composer), Walter Brennan (Leading Player), Jules Furthman
(Screenwriter), William Faulkner (Screenwriter), Christian Nyby (Editor/Director) |
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Highly
Recommended:
Scarface (1932)*, Ceiling
Zero (1935), Bringing Up Baby (1938)*, Only Angels Have Wings (1939)*, His
Girl Friday (1940)*, The Big Sleep (1946)*^, Red River (1948)*, The
Thing from Another World (1951)* [co-directed by Christian Nyby], Rio Bravo (1959)* |
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Recommended:
Ball of Fire
(1941), To Have and Have Not (1944)*, I Was a Male War Bride (1949),
Monkey Business (1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)*, Man's Favorite
Sport? (1964), El Dorado (1967)* |
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Worth a Look:
The Dawn Patrol (1930),
Twentieth Century (1934), Sergeant York (1941), Air Force (1943), The
Big Sky (1952), O. Henry's Full House (1952) [co-directed by
Jean Negulesco,
Henry Koster,
Henry Hathaway
& Henry King],
Land of the Pharaohs (1955), Hatari! (1962)*, Red Line 7000 (1965), Rio
Lobo (1970) |
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Approach with Caution:
Today We Live (1933), Come and Get It (1936) [co-directed by
William Wyler],
The Road to Glory (1936) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; #
Listed in TSPDT's
250 Quintessential Noir Films
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Scene
360 Profile ] [
Derek
Malcolm's Century of Films: Rio Bravo ] [
A
Howard Hawks Biography ]
[
Howard
Hawks at Reel Classics ]
[
Senses of Cinema Article (2007) ] [
Los Angeles Times Article on "Rio Bravo" (2007) ]
[
New York Sun
Article (2007) ] [
Moving Image Source Article (2008) ] |
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Books: [
Howard
Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood ]
[
Hawks
on Hawks ] [
Howard
Hawks: American Artist ] [
Howard Hawks: Interviews ] |
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"Hawks
has stamped his distinctively bitter view of life on adventure,
gangster and private-eye melodramas, Westerns, musicals, and
screwball comedies, the kind of thing Americans do best and
appreciate least. Now that his work has been thoroughly revived
and revaluated throughout the English-speaking world, there is
little point in belaboring the point for the few remaining
stragglers who maintain that his art is not really Art with a
serving of espresso in the lobby. That one can discern the same
directorial signature over a wide variety of genres is proof of
artistry. That one can still enjoy the genres for their own sake
is proof of the artist's professional urge to entertain."
-
Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Far
from the the meek purveyor of Hollywood forms, he always chose
to turn them upside down, To Have and Have Not and The
Big Sleep, ostensibly an adventure and a thriller, are
really love stories. Rio Bravo, apparently a Western -
everyone wears a cowboy hat - is a comedy conversation piece.
The ostensible comedies are shot through with exposed emotions,
with the subtlest views of the sex war, and with a wry
acknowledgment of the incompatibility of men and women." -
David
Thomson, (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002) |
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"Hawks'
visual style was classical, restrained, unpretentious - camera
at eye-height, unobtrusive editing, a sparing use of close-ups,
camera-movements and emphatic angles - so that the focus was
firmly on the often dazzling interplay of words and gestures
between characters defined by their actions." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)
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"Men together and men at work are the subjects of most Hawks
films. His "eye-level" method of direction, whereby action is
the key, has resulted in the creation of many classics in most
genres." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"I don't
think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody
has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is
characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much
about plot anymore." -
Howard
Hawks (Directing the Film, 1976) |
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"I'm a
storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And
they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!" -
Howard Hawks |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Fig Leaves (1926), Fazil (1928), A Girl in
Every Port (1928), The Criminal Code (1931), The Crowd Roars (1932),
Tiger Shark (1932), Barbary Coast (1935), and A Song is Born (1948). |
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