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John Huston
John Marcellus Huston (August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Prizzi's Honor (1985).
In his early years, Huston studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris. He explored the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting. While most directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot, with little editing needed. Some of Huston's films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting an "heroic quest," as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming "destructive alliances," giving the films a dramatic and visual tension. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, and war.
Huston has been referred to as "a titan", "a rebel", and a "renaissance man" in the Hollywood film industry. Author Ian Freer describes him as "cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on." During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, winning twice. He directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins.
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As director
The Dead
Prizzi's Honor
Under the Volcano
Annie
Escape to Victory
Phobia
Wise Blood
Love and Bullets
Independence
The Man Who Would Be King
The MacKintosh Man
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Fat City
The Kremlin Letter
A Walk with Love and Death
Sinful Davey
Reflections in a Golden Eye
Casino Royale
The Bible: In the Beginning...
The Night of the Iguana
The List of Adrian Messenger
Freud: The Secret Passion
The Misfits
The Unforgiven
The Barbarian and the Geisha
The Roots of Heaven
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Moby Dick
Beat the Devil
The African Queen
As actor
100 Years of Marilyn Monroe
MCAINE: An Anagram of Cinema
The Myth of Marilyn Monroe
An Oral History of: The Name of the Rose
John Huston: Adventures of a Free Soul
Morceaux de Cannes
Babenco: Tell Me When I Die
Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast
The Other Side of the Wind
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
Arthur Miller: Writer
Ava Gardner: Life Is Bigger Than the Movies
Anjelica Huston on James Joyce: A Shout in the Street
Five Came Back
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Fascination: Unauthorized Story of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn at the Movies
Embracing Chaos: Making The African Queen
Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff
Filmmakers vs. Tycoons
The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin
Pelé Forever
Discovering Treasure: The Story of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'
Making 'The Misfits'
Goldwyn: The Man and His Movies
Federico Fellini's Autobiography
Intimate Portrait: Sean Connery
Bogart: Here's Looking at You, Kid
Bogart: The Untold Story
Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker