JOHN HUSTON

The life and films of John Huston, Director

"Five wives; many liaisons, some more memorable than the marriages. The hunting. The betting. The thoroughbreds. Painting, collecting, boxing. Writing, directing and acting in more than sixty pictures. I fail to see any continuity in my work from picture to picture - what's remarkable is how different the pictures are, one from another. Nor can I find a thread of consistency in my marriages". This is what Huston, at seventy-three years of age, wrote in his autobiography An Open Book. The year was 1980 and before his death in 1987, he would direct six more films, including his last masterpiece The Dead, based on James Joyce's work. At the center of a grand Hollywood dynasty, from the very first film he directed (The Maltese Falcon, 1941), he enjoyed a multifaceted career: thrillers (The Asphalt Jungle), adventure films (The African Queen, Treasure of the Sierra Madre), war movies (The Red Badge of Courage), dramas (The Misfits), westerns (The Unforgiven), biopics (Moulin Rouge). When he was seventy, he captured the spirit of the new cinema with Fat City, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Man Who Would Be King, Wise Blood and Prizzi's Honor.

The TFF dedicates a retrospective to John Huston that includes all the films he directed and a selection of films which he wrote and in which he acted.