Film Society of Lincoln Center to Present Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston
By: Caryn Robbins Oct. 31, 2014
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston, December 19 - January 11, a retrospective spanning five decades of the his iconic works, mostly as director, but also as screenwriter and actor. Huston was one of the greatest filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age: an artist of great toughness, conviction, and eloquence; a master storyteller; a hardened cynic; a reluctant romantic; a stellar director of actors, and a brilliant actor himself. Discover, or rediscover, some of his most popular films as well as his rarely seen works on the big screen during this three-week comprehensive retrospective. Tickets will go on sale Thursday, November 20. Visit filmlinc.com for more information.
Dennis Lim, Director of Programming for the Film Society, said: "John Huston was a titan of Hollywood's golden age, but he long outlived it. His storied career spanned multiple decades, styles, and genres, and he was also the rare artist who grew more daring with age. This retrospective allows for a full appreciation of his prodigious gifts and ambitions. There are many films here that are now popular favorites but many more that are overdue for rediscovery." Long before striding in front of the camera to show Jack Nicholson's character in Chinatown what men at the right place and time are capable of, John Huston established himself as one of the 20th century's most accomplished film artists. With over a decade of writing credits by the time he assumed the director's chair, he would later add producing and acting to his arsenal, racking up 15 Oscar nominations. His father, Walter, and daughter Anjelica both earned statuettes under his baton as director, making for one of the medium's most formidable and collaborative dynasties. They are the only family to win Oscars in three successive generations.All screenings will take place in the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street)
unless otherwise noted. Across the Pacific
John Huston, USA, 1942, 16mm, 97m
Huston's third feature reteams much of the Maltese Falcon cast and crew, but it never actually crosses the Pacific-the locale changed from Pearl Harbor to Panama when the plot's scenario became a reality before it could be filmed.
*Thursday, January 8, 1:45pm & 6:15pm
*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street The African Queen
John Huston, USA, 1951, 35mm, 105m
Arguably the director's most popular film pairs Bogart and Katharine Hepburn as a crude Canadian skipper and the uptight missionary who helps him steer the titular vessel downriver to torpedo a German gunboat.
Thursday, December 25, 8:00pm
Sunday, December 28, 3:10pm Annie
John Huston, USA, 1982, DCP, 127m
When Huston agreed to bring the incredibly successful Broadway adaptation of Harold Gray's comic Little Orphan Annie to the screen, the result was one of his most expensive films, one of his only musicals, and the biggest hit of his late career.
Wednesday, December 24, 1:00pm The Asphalt Jungle
John Huston, USA, 1950, 35mm, 112m
Huston returns to his noir roots with another tale of unlikely partners, delivering what may well be the great American heist movie.
Friday, December 19, 8:45pm
Sunday, December 21, 6:00pm The Barbarian and the Geisha
John Huston, USA, 1958, DCP, 105m
This 19th-century costumer about the U.S. Ambassador to Japan offers the twin pleasures of Huston's still compositions, inspired by the setting, and John Wayne's say-what? casting in the lead.
*Thursday, January 8, 4:00pm & 8:30pm
*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street Beat the Devil
John Huston, USA, 1953, 35mm, 89m
Called the first camp movie by no less than Roger Ebert, Beat the Devil offers a wry send-up of noir classics, taking special aim at Huston's own Maltese Falcon (with Bogart and Peter Lorre spoofing their roles and Jennifer Jones stealing the show playing against type).
Saturday, December 20, 4:00pm
Thursday, December 25, 10:15pm
Friday, December 26, 4:45pm The Bible: In the Beginning
John Huston, USA/Italy, 1966, 35mm, 174m
Commissioned by Dino De Laurentiis, Huston's mammoth adaptation of the first half of the book of Genesis found the director summing up a career's worth of thinking on the conflict between faith and doubt.
Wednesday, December 24, 4:00pm Casino Royale
Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest & Richard Talmadge, UK/USA, 1967, 35mm, 131m
Producer Charles K. Feldman assembled a dream cast-Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, David Niven, Deborah Kerr-for this omnibus James Bond satire, now a cult classic. Huston, who also makes a brief appearance on-screen, directed one of the segments.
Sunday, December 21, 8:30pm Chinatown
Roman Polanski, USA, 1974, DCP, 130m
Cinema has few villains more odious, entitled, and self-possessed than Huston's Noah Cross, a fat cat in 1930s L.A. in Polanski's brilliant neo-noir.
Monday, December 22, 1:00pm
Tuesday, December 23, 6:00pm The Dead
John Huston, UK/Ireland/USA, 1987, 35mm, 83m
Adapted from the magisterial final story in James Joyce's Dubliners, Huston's final film is one of the medium's great swan songs, a work of quiet grandeur and impeccable grace.
Wednesday, December 24, 7:30pm
Friday, December 26, 8:30pm Fat City
John Huston, USA, 1972, 35mm, 100m
Huston drew on his own boxing experience from his youth for this New Jersey-set film about a handsome, mildly promising fighter and his older, alcoholic has-been mentor-one of the indisputable masterpieces of its director's late career.
Thursday, January 1, 4:00pm
Sunday, January 4, 8:30pm
Monday, January 5, 3:30pm Freud: The Secret Passion
John Huston, USA, 1962, 35mm, 140m
Jean-Paul Sartre was the original screenwriter on Huston's fascinating, profoundly strange Sigmund Freud biopic, a sort of cross between a psychological drama and an expressionist horror movie, featuring a subtle, melancholic central performance by Montgomery Clift.
Friday, December 19, 3:15pm
Saturday, December 20, 6:15pm Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
John Huston, USA, 1957, 35mm, 108m
Star chemistry ignites Huston's World War II drama of a rough-hewn marine (Robert Mitchum) and a novice nun (Deborah Kerr) marooned on a Japanese-occupied island in the South Pacific.
Tuesday, December 30, 3:45pm
Saturday, January 3, 3:45pm In This Our Life
John Huston, USA, 1942, 35mm, 97m
Huston's sophomore feature is a drama of two sisters, one good and one evil, with a high-voltage turn by Bette Davis and a powerful subplot indicting racism.
Monday, December 29, 3:15pm
Wednesday, December 31, 8:45pm Key Largo
John Huston, USA, 1948, 35mm, 100m
Bogart returns to reluctant hero mode as a former Army major held hostage by a gangster in a ramshackle Florida hotel. Lauren Bacall pairs with Bogie for the last time in this claustrophobic thriller.
Friday, December 19, 1:00pm & 6:30pm
Thursday, December 25, 5:45pm The Kremlin Letter
John Huston, USA, 1970, 35mm, 120m
Jean-Pierre Melville raved over Huston's grim, fiercely sharp-witted Cold War-era spy thriller, in which a group of American intelligence agents travel undercover to Moscow under the leadership of a deposed officer.
Sunday, December 28, 8:10pm
Friday, January 2, 3:45pm Let There Be Light
John Huston, USA, 1946, DCP, 58m
Huston's landmark study of psychologically scarred veterans was banned for decades by the Army, but now stands as a trenchant early depiction of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Screening with:
Winning Your Wings
John Huston, USA, 1942, 16mm, 18m
The first documentary by Huston-and his first contribution to the war effort-features "Lieutenant James Stewart" introducing a B-17 bomber and its nine-man crew. (Note: 6:00pm screening only)
And:
Independence
John Huston, USA, 1976, 16mm, 30m
This short, commissioned by the National Parks Service to celebrate the American Bicentennial, is one of the most widely seen of Huston's later films.
*Wednesday, January 7, 3:30pm & 6:00pm
*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
John Huston, USA, 1972, 35mm, 120m
Huston's final Western is an ambling, charming shaggy-dog story peppered with outbursts of violence, anchored by a performance by Paul Newman at the height of his powers, and buttressed by a stellar supporting cast including Ava Gardner, Stacy Keach, and John Huston himself.
Saturday, January 3, 6:00pm
Friday, January 9, 8:30pm The List of Adrian Messenger
John Huston, USA, 1963, 35mm, 98m
This deft, elusive whodunit takes place in postwar Britain, but its logic of concealment, mystery, and deception suggests a 19th-century detective story. With guest appearances by Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, and Burt Lancaster.
Sunday, December 28, 1:00pm
Monday, December 29, 1:00pm The Mackintosh Man
John Huston, USA, 1973, 35mm, 98m
Huston reteamed with Paul Newman for this labyrinthine spy thriller scripted by the legendary action director Walter Hill: a nostalgic love letter from an aging filmmaker to a dying genre.
December 30, 8:50pm
December 31, 2:15pm The Maltese Falcon
John Huston, USA, 1941, 35mm, 100m
"The stuff that dreams are made of": Huston's directorial bow cemented Humphrey Bogart's stardom in this quintessential noir tale of a priceless statuette and the dastardly parties pursuing it.
Thursday, December 25, 1:00pm
Friday, December 26, 2:30pm The Man Who Would Be King
John Huston, UK/USA, 1975, 35mm, 129m
Huston had the biggest popular success of his late career with this rip-roaring adventure story, which teamed Sean Connery and Michael Caine as a pair of raffish, conquest-mad British imperialists.
Sunday, December 21, 1:00pm
Tuesday, December 23, 8:45pm The Misfits
John Huston, USA, 1961, 35mm, 124m
The final film for stars Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, and Huston's lone collaboration with Arthur Miller, is a tough, ambiguous morality play about a principled divorcée torn between her love for an aging cowboy and her attachment to the natural world he wants to control.
Saturday, December 20, 1:30pm
Monday, December 22, 3:45pm Moby Dick
John Huston, USA, 1956, 35mm, 116m
A prolific adaptor of literature, Huston set one of his greatest personal challenges in adapting Herman Melville's canonical tale of obsession, with a Gregory Peck as the vengeance-seeking Captain Ahab.
Sunday, December 21, 3:30pm Moulin Rouge
John Huston, USA, 1952, 35mm, 119m
A vibrant foray into the bohemian districts of late-19th-century Paris and the titular cabaret as habituated by diminutive artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Sunday, January 4, 3:30pm
Tuesday, January 6, 3:00pm The Night of the Iguana
John Huston, USA, 1964, 35mm, 125m
Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr, and Ava Gardner lead the near-flawless cast of Huston's adaptation of Tennessee Williams's play about a reverend thrown out his parish for sexual misconduct and sent into exile as a tour guide in Mexico.
Saturday, December 27, 1:00pm
Tuesday, December 30, 6:15pm Phobia
John Huston, Canada/USA, 1980, 35mm, 94m
Huston's career took one of its most dramatic left turns with this sci-fi-inflected horror film about a psychiatrist embroiled in a sinister murder plot.
Saturday, December 20, 9:00pm
Tuesday, December 23, 1:15pm Prizzi's Honor
John Huston, USA, 1985, 35mm, 130m
Huston's penultimate film, about the romantic entanglements of a New York hit man, played by Jack Nicholson with great comedic verve, has the irreverent spunk of a debut and the reflective, generous voice of a swan song.
Sunday, January 11, 7:00pm The Red Badge of Courage
John Huston, USA, 1951, 35mm, 69m
Under Huston's direction, Stephen Crane's Civil War novel, about a callow Yankee who flees his company during battle and is haunted by feelings of cowardice, becomes a memorable coming-of-age tale that's epic in feel, despite running just over an hour.
Friday, December 26, 6:45pm
Wednesday, December 31, 4:30pm Reflections in a Golden Eye
John Huston, USA, 1967, 35mm, 108m
In Huston's hands, Carson McCuller's melodrama, set at a Southern army base, became a tender, languid, and deeply sad portrait of men and women pushing up against the social conventions that constrain them.
Saturday, January 3, 1:20pm
Friday, January 9, 6:15pm Report from the Aleutians
John Huston, USA, 1943, digital projection, 47m
The first color film by Huston (narrated by the director) juxtaposes combat footage of the Aleutian campaign with scenes depicting the tedium of army life.
Screening with:
The Battle of San Pietro
John Huston, USA, 1945, 35mm, 32m
Huston's account of a key skirmish in the Italian campaign was so harrowing that the army attempted to delay its release. It's now regarded as a milestone in combat realism.
*Wednesday, January 7, 1:00pm & 8:45pm
*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street The Roots of Heaven
John Huston, USA, 1958, 35mm, 121m
Never one to choose easy projects, Huston took on Romain Gary's treatise on the sanctity of wild animals, blending action and philosophy in this chronicle of an environmentalist's crusade to preserve the lives of elephants in French Equatorial Africa.
Friday, January 2, 1:15pm
Sunday, January 4, 1:00pm Sinful Davey
John Huston, USA, 1969, 35mm, 95m
Taking a turn for the picaresque, Huston made this fleet-footed, sharply observed, and consistently underrated adventure story adapted from the fanciful death-row autobiography of Scottish rogue David Haggart.
Friday, January 9, 4:00pm
Saturday, January 10, 6:45pm Tentacles
Ovidio G. Assonitis, Italy/USA, 1977, 35mm, 102m
One of Huston's oddest screen appearances found him starring-alongside Shelley Winters (!) and Henry Fonda (!!)-in this gloriously goofy creature feature, produced one year after Jaws by veteran horror director Ovidio G. Assonitis.
Friday, January 2, 8:35pm There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2007, 35mm, 158m
Huston's fingerprints are all over Paul Thomas Anderson's parable of self-determinism carried to baleful extremes, with a central performance, modeled on Huston's speaking voice, that captures both his magnetism and his unfathomability.
Saturday, December 27, 5:45pm The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
John Huston, USA, 1948, 35mm, 126m
A decisive portrait of avarice and a bona fide American classic, Huston's adaptation of B. Traven's novel earned him Oscars as both writer and director, and a supporting actor trophy for his dad Walter as one of the film's three rapacious gold miners.
Tuesday, December 23, 3:20pm
Thursday, December 25, 3:15pm
Saturday, December 27, 8:50pm Under the Volcano
John Huston, USA, 1984, 35mm, 112m
This shattering adaptation of Malcolm Lowry's dense modernist novel is one of the most sensitive and well-observed depictions of alcoholism in film history, anchored by Albert Finney's towering lead performance.
Friday, January 9, 1:30pm
Saturday, January 10, 8:45pm The Unforgiven
John Huston, USA, 1960, 35mm, 125m
Huston hoped to make a frank statement on racial prejudice in America with this saga of a frontier family and their adopted Indian daughter; though it fell short of his expectations, it remains a sober and intelligent film with fine performances.
Sunday, December 28, 5:30pm
Thursday, January 1, 1:30pm Victory
John Huston, USA, 1981, 35mm, 116m
In Huston's must-be-seen-to-be-believed mash-up of the sports movie and the POW escape thriller, Michael Caine and Max von Sydow share the screen with a star-studded lineup of international soccer stars, headlined by the legendary Pelé.
Wednesday, December 31, 6:15pm
Sunday, January 4, 6:00pm A Walk with Love and Death
John Huston, USA, 1969, 35mm, 90m
Two lovers act out a brief, doomed romance while their world comes apart around them in Huston's oblique 14th-century take on the "make love not war" generation.
Saturday, January 3, 8:30pm
Tuesday, January 6, 1:00pm We Were Strangers
John Huston, USA, 1949, 35mm, 109m
Among the grittiest, most offbeat films of Huston's studio period, We Were Strangers depicts in documentary-like fashion a band of Cuban revolutionaries, led by an American expat (John Garfield) and a revenge-seeking girl (Jennifer Jones).
Tuesday, December 30, 1:30pm
Thursday, January 1, 8:30pm White Hunter, Black Heart
Clint Eastwood, USA, 1990, 35mm, 112m
On both sides of the camera, Clint Eastwood limns one of his most complex creations: John Wilson, a dauntless filmmaker (based on Huston) who ventures into Africa as much to test his masculinity as to get a great film in the can.
Friday, January 2, 6:15pm
Monday, January 5, 1:00pm Wise Blood
John Huston, USA, 1979, 35mm, 106m
Brad Dourif gives the performance of his career as a proselytizing atheist in Huston's indelible, hilarious, and deeply challenging adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's debut novel.
Saturday, December 27, 3:30pm
Thursday, January 1, 6:15pm
Public Screening Schedule
All screenings will take place at:
Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street
Friday, December 19
1:00 Key Largo (100m)
3:15 Freud: The Secret Passion (140m)
6:30 Key Largo (100m)
8:45 The Asphalt Jungle (112m) Saturday, December 20
1:30 The Misfits (124m)
4:00 Beat the Devil (89m)
6:15 Freud: The Secret Passion (140m)
9:00 Phobia (94m) Sunday, December 21
1:00 The Man Who Would Be King (129m)
3:30 Moby Dick (116m)
6:00 The Asphalt Jungle (112m)
8:30 Casino Royale (131m) Monday, December 22
1:00 Chinatown (130m)
3:45 The Misfits (124m) Tuesday, December 23
1:15 Phobia (94m)
3:20 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (126m)
6:00 Chinatown (130m)
8:45 The Man Who Would Be King (129m) Wednesday, December 24
1:00 Annie (127m)
4:00 The Bible: In the Beginning (174m)
7:30 The Dead (83m) Thursday, December 25
1:00 The Maltese Falcon (100m)
3:15 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (126m)
5:45 Key Largo (100m)
8:00 The African Queen (105m)
10:15 Beat the Devil (89m) Friday, December 26
2:30 The Maltese Falcon (100m)
4:45 Beat the Devil (89m)
6:45 The Red Badge of Courage (69m)
8:30 The Dead (83m) Saturday, December 27
1:00 The Night of the Iguana (125m)
3:30 Wise Blood (106m)
5:45 There Will Be Blood (158m)
8:50 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (126m) Sunday, December 28
1:00 The List of Adrian Messenger (98m)
3:10 The African Queen (105m)
5:30 The Unforgiven (125m)
8:10 The Kremlin Letter (120m) Monday, December 29
1:00 The List of Adrian Messenger (98m)
3:15 In This Our Life (97m) Tuesday, December 30
1:30 We Were Strangers (109m)
3:45 Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (108m)
6:15 The Night of the Iguana (125m)
8:50 The Mackintosh Man (98m) Wednesday, December 31
2:15 The Mackintosh Man (98m)
4:30 The Red Badge of Courage (69m)
6:15 Victory (116m)
8:45 In This Our Life (97m) Thursday, January 1
1:30 The Unforgiven (125m)
4:00 Fat City (100m)
6:15 Wise Blood (106m)
8:30 We Were Strangers (109m) Friday, January 2
1:15 The Roots of Heaven (121m)
3:45 The Kremlin Letter (120m)
6:15 White Hunter, Black Heart (112m)
8:35 Tentacles (102m) Saturday, January 3
1:20 Reflections in a Golden Eye (108m)
3:45 Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (108m)
6:00 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (120m)
8:30 A Walk with Love and Death (90m) Sunday, January 4
1:00 The Roots of Heaven (121m)
3:30 Moulin Rouge (119m)
6:00 Victory (116m)
8:30 Fat City (100m) Monday, January 5
1:00 White Hunter, Black Heart (112m)
3:30 Fat City (100m) Tuesday, January 6
3:00 Moulin Rouge (119m)
1:00 A Walk with Love and Death (90m) Wednesday, January 7
1:00 Report from the Aleutians (47m) + The Battle of San Pietro (32m)
3:30 Let There Be Light (58m) + Independence (30m)
6:00 Let There Be Light (58m) + Winning Your Wings (18m) +
Independence (30m)
8:45 Report from the Aleutians (47m) + The Battle of San Pietro (32m) Thursday, January 8
1:45 Across the Pacific (97m)
4:00 The Barbarian and the Geisha (105m)
6:15 Across the Pacific (97m)
8:30 The Barbarian and the Geisha (105m) Friday, January 9
1:30 Under the Volcano (112m)
4:00 Sinful Davey (95m)
6:15 Reflections in a Golden Eye (108m)
8:30 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (120m) Saturday, January 10
6:45 Sinful Davey (95m)
8:45 Under the Volcano (112m) Sunday, January 11
7:00 Prizzi's Honor (130m)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year's most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society's state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community. The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO®, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com, follow @filmlinc on Twitter, and download the FREE Film Society app, now available for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices.

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