سینما به روایت هوارد هاکس

by Joseph McBride (Editor), Howard Hawks, پرویز دوائی (Translator)

""I read Hawks on Hawks with passion. I am very happy that this book exists.""-Fran�ois Truffaut Howard Hawks (1896-1977) is often credited as being the most versatile of all of the great American directors, having worked with equal ease in screwball comedies, westerns, gangster movies, musicals, and adventure films. He directed an impressive number of Hollywood's greatest stars-including Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Rosalind Russell, and Marilyn Monroe-and some of his

Genres: Film, Biography, Nonfiction, Media Tie In

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Sepehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

بسیار صمیمی و پر از خاطرات و ماجراهای جالب برای علاقمندان به سینمای کلاسیک و البته سینمای جذاب ، سرگرم کننده ، ساده و عمیق هوارد هاکس.
هاکس شاید بهترین توانایی رو برای گزینش بازیگران در بین کارگردان‌های آمریکایی داشت، حتی بهتر از هیچکاک یا فورد. در عین حال درک بسیار بالایی از قصه و تکنیک‌های سینمایی داشت که در نتیجه قادر به ساختن چندتا از بهترین فیلم‌های تاریخ سینما شد که از عوام گرفته تا فیلمبازان حرفه‌ای و منتقدان آنها را ستایش میکنند. همچنین از نویسندگان و سناریست های بزرگی برای نگارش فیلم‌نامه هایش، از جمله ویلیام فاکنر، ارنست همینگوی، ریموند چندلر، بن هکت و ... کمک گرفت و با بهترین بازیگران دوران خود مثل کرک داگلاس، جان وین، همفری بوگارت، لورن باکال، جیمز کاگنی ، مرلین مونرو و والتر برنان همکاری کرد.
من به شدت از خوانش این مصاحبه لذت بردم.

فیلم‌های پیشنهادی من از هاکس :

داشتن و نداشتن ( To have and have not 1944 )
ریو براوو ( Rio bravo 1959 )
خواب ابدی ( the big sleep 1946 )
صورت زخمی ( Scarface 1932 )
هاتاری ( Hatari 1962 )
۱۴۰۰/۰۵/۱۳

[Carlos Valladares · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are about thirty plots in all of drama. They've all been done by very good people. If you can think of a new way to tell that plot, you're pretty good. But if you can do characters, you can forget about the plot. You just have the characters moving around. Let *them* tell the story for you, and don't worry about the plot. I don't."

"My dialogue is what Hemingway calls oblique dialogue. I call it three-cushion. Because you can hit it over here and over here and go over here to get the meaning. You don't say it right out. If a girl is gonna say how broke she was, you've gotta find an awful good metaphor to use, you know. Something that happened, that's how broke she was. You make a picture, you draw a picture of it."

"I don't use funny lines. They're not funny unless you see them. I can't remember ever using a funny line in a picture. They BECOME funny because of the characters' attitudes, because of the attitudes that work against what they're trying to say. And to me, that's the funniest comedy in the world."

"I think that people are so damned anxious to see comedies, to laugh. WHAT'S UP DOC was a triumph for Bogdanovich. Because Barbara Streisand isn't funny. And Ryan O'Neal is not funny. And yet the picture is funny, see? It was all sight gags, and they were damn good. I saw the picture in Spain, and when they laugh all the way through it and they don't understand one line, then you know it's a funny picture."

"I get awful sick of the trend in television where it's all made in close shots. And some of the best scenes that you make are in long shot. I learned that from Jack Ford."

"Especially in the last ten or twelve years, every time I can get some comedy into a scene, I'll do it. You can call it a comedy if you want to. I sometimes don't make outright comedies, but I would much rather tell these things that way than something serious."

"I've been accused of promoting Women's Lib, and I've denied it, emphatically. It just so happens that that kind of a woman is attractive to me. I merely am doing somebody that I like. And I've seen too many pictures where the hero gets in the moonlight and says silly things to a girl, I'd reverse it and let the girl do the chasing around, you know, and it works out pretty well. Anyway, I know that a little better than I do other stuff. I'd much rather work with a character like that than with some little Puritan violet."

"I went over to USC and they have a luncheon for me and asked me to be an honorary member of their cinema society. I got up and I said, 'For God's sake, keep it funny, because the most horrible thing in the world is a beginner thinking he can get so damn dramatic that he's gonna sway people and he's gonna make a crying scene that will make them weep.' [...] Go out and work about characters. Find out about what can happen, what they can do. Work to get everybody that you've got in the scenario a character."

"For God's sake, see if you can't get some fun out of life."

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howard Hawks directed possibly the two greatest comedies in cinema, Twentieth Century (1934) and His Girl Friday (1940), two of the most revered of all westerns, Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959) and arguably the greatest of all films noir, The Big Sleep (1946), along with several other worthy classics and less worthy entrants. In this he chronicles his career with a magnificent interlocutor, Joseph McBride (who knows his shit like nobody else), and the results are, in the main, thoroughly delightful. Hawks was an old school man's man -- hunter, race car driver, airplane pilot and supreme hob knobber -- consorting with the likes of Hemingway, Faulkner, Al Capone and a cast of iconic luminaries like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and John Wayne. Hawks was blunt and simple, having no truck with the pretentious airs of French and American critics but gracious and grateful for the respect and appreciation they've shown for his work; definitely coming off as a much easier guy to relate to than, say, his buddy John Ford, from whom he learned much about filmmaking. McBride does a yeoman's job here of offering parenthetical rebuttal and alternate accounts when Hawks' own versions conflict with those of others, letting the reader decide where the truth lies. Hawks was a master storyteller on screen and in his own reminiscences, and here we have some lies, some half-truths, and some outright veritas, sometimes a blend of all of them -- enough of all three to make the meaning true. This was a blast and I love Hawks all the more for reading this, though the account is less interesting the more it delves into the later and lesser phase of the director's career. His way of working with actors and writers is especially illuminating to read. I vacillated between four and five stars on this, because it does remain a masterclass from one of the greatest artists in movie history, and I'm not sure how valuable it would be to younger filmmakers who have gotten too far from the working methods and zeitgeist of Hawks' era of cinema. But the essentials here are just that, and through it all Hawks stresses over and over that whatever you do, it should be fun for you, the actors and for the audience.

[Matthew Walls · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. When I first bought it during a sale from the publisher I was not sure what to expect but added it to the cart because of a very reasonable price. What this book delves into is musings from Howard Hawks taken from numerous interviews both public and private. The thoughts are compiled together into a number of topics, and the writing is edited into a very readable and easy to enjoy manner.

Definitely recommended for anyone interested in Hollywood history, Directing, or Howard Hawks in particular.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much about Hawks in this book. I think the funniest thing in the book was about a conversation between William Faulkner and Clark Gable. They were pitted together on a production of something and we’re having a conversation.
Neither Gable or Faulkner claimed to know who the other was. The writer concludes it wss true because he doubted Faulkner had ever seen a movie or that Gable had ever read a book.

Also, interesting, Hawks worked with so many top stars and he said Frances Farmer was the finest if them all.

[Michael Cohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories and memories from a master director

Hawks on Hawks presents a series of lively interviews with director Howard Hawks, who discusses many of the classic films he made during his long career, including Bringing Up Baby, Red River, Rio Bravo, Scarface, His Girl Friday, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Ball of Fire, and Only Angels Have Wings. Lots of great stories about stars like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and more.

Hawks’s no-nonsense attitude really comes across in these interviews with Joseph McBride and you also get a sense of his macho attitudes, which at times seem a little archaic. Some of the anecdotes almost beg to be taken with a grain of salt, and you have to wonder how other participants in these incidents would give their versions of what happened. But in any case, the book is very entertaining and a great way to get an inside look at how movies used to be made by someone who knew how to make some of the very best ones in the history of Hollywood.

[Tom Stamper · Rating 4 out of 5]

McBride likes Hawks. These interviews were recorded over a decade or so. There are some interesting insights into the films that Howard made and his opinions on some of the current 1970s movies. His own work stood out because he was making a different kind of movie than his contemporaries. He liked good characterization and great scenes. The plot was less important to him. It certainly helps to have Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne as your star. It's hard to think of any other director that worked with all three of them let alone understood how to use their different acting talents. I think Peter Bodanovich may have gotten more interesting quotes out of Hawks, but there is more content here.

Recommended to any fan of Howard Hawks's film output. Not for casual moviegoers.

[Ehsan Nazari · Rating 5 out of 5]

"محض رضای خدا سعی کنید فیلمتان قدری مفرح باشد"
کتاب با این توصیه هاکس به فیلمسازان جوان خاتمه میابد. این جمله و بطور کلی مصاحبه ای که با او(توسط ژوزف مک براید) انجام گرفته، حاصل تجربه های ارزشمند یکی از بزرگترین کارگردانان سینمای کلاسیک آمریکاست. کلام شیرین و صادقانه هاکس و موضوعات جذابی که توسط مک براید پیش کشیده میشوند، کتابی بشدت درگیرکننده را پدید آورده است. ساز و کار های پشت پرده سینما، جایگاه و روابط هر یک از اعضای دخیل در پروسه تهیه فیلم، چالش هایی که سازندگان با ابزار و بودجه محدود با آن مواجه بودند، موضوعاتی است که علاقه مندان به سینما را مجذوب میکند.
اما فارغ از موضوعات سینمایی، کتاب برای افراد دیگر هم میتواند خواندنی باشد. اینکه یک انسان موفق در حرفه خود، چگونه خطر میپذیرد، چگونه تنش با افراد همکار خود را مدیریت میکند، چگونه استعداد هارا برای هدف خاص خودش کشف میکند و وظایف مختلف را بر دوش چه افرادی میگذارد، موضوعاتی اند که برای هر کسی در هر حرفه ای حائز اهمیت اند.

[Joshua Gonsalves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hawks’s life was as thrilling as his films. He went hunting with Hemingway, had dinner with Al Capone, he was a pilot and a race car driver and a general in the war; he worked with Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant and Kathy Hepburn and John Wayne and William Faulkner and Jack Warner and . For Christ’s sakes, he discovered Lauren Bacall! He illumines the scope of his life and career through blunt, funny, crackling conversation. What Hawks loves most is storytelling and there’s no shortage of his compulsive penchant for storytelling in these interviews.

[Hogfather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the greatest artists in history are absolutely awful at answering questions and staying on topic. Not Howard Hawks, however. Hawks is an incredibly intelligent and observant guy. He's so much more intelligent (and honest!) than his contemporaries.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

10% of it are lies but all of it is interesting.

Imagine a director today showing up on the set with the biggest star in Hollywood and a complete company waiting and then just winging it.

To me, the greatest director of the studio system.

[Pablo]

TFM stuff

[joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short read, much easier to read than Truffaut's book on Hitchcock, but in the same mold - interviews with the director on such subjects as John Wayne, John Ford, critics, storytelling. Hawks apparently was an anti-intellectual intellectual and had not much time for analysis of his gifts, nor of film nor acting. He was much more concerned with getting good work done and having fun while doing so.

[Pedram · Rating 2 out of 5]

Commercial success is the whole theme of Hawks' career. His methods, decisions and film making innovations were all set to serve this purpose. His part in evolution of modern cinema is indubitable. Transformation of cinema into a money-making industery is something which has proved itself as vital as any artful merit.