Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

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Rayon Vert
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#351 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Aug 02, 2020 2:39 pm

TC is also curiously completely absent from Robin Wood's book. That also might have something to do with it, or be a reflection of it.

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domino harvey
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#352 Post by domino harvey » Sun Aug 02, 2020 2:44 pm

Bogdanovich’s rep house screenings of Hawks in the sixties are widely regarded as jump-starting American auteurists into “re”discovering Hawks, but I’m not sure if Twentieth Century played. I do know Bogdanovich was a fan, as Cybill Shepherd talks about how he made her watch it when they first started dating (which is of course almost gleefully apt) and they’d go on to use the iron door exchange to each other in actual arguments— but that wouldn’t be til the early 70s

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swo17
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#353 Post by swo17 » Sun Aug 02, 2020 4:22 pm

Oh why not, here's my list, sure to inspire and confound in equal measure:

01 Bringing Up Baby
02 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
03 His Girl Friday
04 Twentieth Century
05 Sergeant York
06 The Big Sleep
07 A Song Is Born
08 Red River
09 Viva Villa
10 Monkey Business

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Rayon Vert
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#354 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Aug 02, 2020 5:31 pm

I'm thinking you have a thing for comedies.

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knives
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#355 Post by knives » Sun Aug 02, 2020 5:44 pm

He's funny that way.

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swo17
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#356 Post by swo17 » Sun Aug 02, 2020 5:57 pm

My main surprises this round were rewatching Only Angels and finding it just okay, and then rewatching His Girl Friday, which I had decided at some point was overrated, and coming on board with it again

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Lighthouse
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#357 Post by Lighthouse » Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:51 am

For comparing purposes the Hawks films which are in They Shoot Pictures Don't They list amongst the first 2000:

Rio Bravo * 57
Bringing Up Baby * 125
His Girl Friday * 142
Red River * 200
Only Angels Have Wings * 233
Big Sleep, The * 290
To Have and Have Not * 488
Scarface * 568
Hatari! * 586
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes * 922
Thing from Another World, The * 962
El Dorado * 983
Big Sky, The * 1813

http://theyshootpictures.com/hawkshoward.php

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knives
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#358 Post by knives » Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:10 am

Had I gotten to revisit A Song is Born for the list it’d definitely would have effected my list. It’s so easy to forget the film’s effortless seeming charms. Also crazy to think this was Hawks’ first effort in color.

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knives
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Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#359 Post by knives » Tue Nov 03, 2020 3:21 pm

Despite sometimes earning its reputation as the film where Hawks lost it I basically like Red Line 7000 as this cute , little outing and think it provides a lot to love against the well vocalized flaws. The acting and plotting starts out rough and I was certainly worried when even the great James Caan came off as a lost amateur. His storyline remains a boring mess throughout, but a lot of the other stories have a charm and naturalism that runs counter to the beach movie trappings. It’s no wonder QT says it’s one of his favorite. Scenes like the Wild Cat sing along have been basically stolen wholesale.

In a lot of ways it seems like the film would have been better had Hawks been honest about his intentions and made this a film of women without men focusing on these beautiful young ladies who stand on the sidelines as the cars race. The women are the most engaging and successful parts of the movie with their stories being far more compelling then the interchangeable men. Even the camera, not just the actors, comes alive when the women are in focus bringing new kinds of lighting and angles that make the drama work. Without the women the film often plays more like a comedy sans jokes and a square one at that.

The race scenes as well are engaging things of beauty showing a lively sense of action where anything is possible and whole sorts of danger happens. I can’t imagine anyone being distracted or bored at least during these scenes. So, in the end while this isn’t some impeachable masterpiece wrongly slung at with arrows it also isn’t some horror show brought forth to embarrass auteurism, as if there weren’t enough legitimate examples for that!

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