Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
Message
Author
User avatar
senseabove
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#301 Post by senseabove » Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:57 pm

Good to know it's in better shape on the DVD. Alas, I don't think I can pick that DVD up between now and the deadline and I can't find any backchannels with the better version at the moment.

User avatar
senseabove
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#302 Post by senseabove » Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:37 pm

I want to squeeze a few more new ones in, but it's time to start on some revisits of the ones I'd seen before I ever put the name Hawks to them...

The Big Sleep — Rewatching this one with Hawks-as-auteur in mind was a delight. I doubt it's a novel observation, but it feels like the mirror version of what is "typically Hawksian" in that plot is of secondary interest only because there's so much of it it's almost useless to follow. I've seen this probably a dozen times over the years now, and every time I forget the details and who or what information we're looking for in any given portion, and by the end, so much has shifted around that I'll forget it all over again, but it's a cracking ride from ignorance to uncertain befuddlement. I'd disagree that it's technically deficient or stylistically bland. No, it's not polished, but that's not exactly a phrase I've associated with Hawks anyway, and the first two-thirds is a perfectly relentless tug of war between aural and visual attention, with body movement and camera movement and new information ping-ponging the viewer's attention between listening and looking and processing, until it slows down after we leave Mars's gambling club so we can start trying to piece it all together and watch our two main characters' relationship begin to actually develop. It's just full of little bits of blocking and gestures to keep drawing your eyes while you're trying to figure out what you're hearing or where this is or who that is or why those two are together or whether it's important...—the "disguise" in Geiger's shop, Malone taking her hair down, Brody shifting in circles in his chair as Bogart stalks his eyes, Bogart revealing a little more of the odd cramped space of Geiger's apartment on each return, Bacall sinking into the carseat—it's not a film of painterly compositions, but of orchestrated action that pulls the viewer's active attention from the type of information that's typically underlined and spotlit.

I also can't help but feel that having recently rewatched Inherent Vice just made me appreciate it more as the prototype for IV's style of frenetic, compelling nonsense. For both movies, to sit down after and chart out who did what to whom when and why is to just miss the boat. Sure, you can, but who really cares about piecing the plot together. Both movies are more interesting to me to think of like following a bouncing ball in the fun-house mirror hall that is other people's hidden motivation.


Two other miscellaneous Hawks observations... One, I'm always impressed by his use of real, capable musicians. I played piano growing up, so watching actors fake playing one, as so frequently happens in studio-era movies, is always unbearable. Hawks's tendency to insert real, brief, unexpected musical scenes with actors who either can or very much appear able to make the actual music is always an absolute delight—Jean Arthur in Angels and Elsa Martinelli in Hatari! probably being the two prime examples, but also Bacall singing in The Big Sleep, Martin and Nelson in Rio Bravo, and of course A Song is Born.

Second, contrasting the care for music is the amusing flippancy about continuity, e.g. characters' arms or hands are in different positions or people are at different points in a lean or weight-shift when cutting shot/countershots in dialogue. I'd say it's just a bad continuity supervisor, but I've noticed it in a few movies now. It's the type of stuff that IMDB Goof dreams made of—"Mars is shown leaning over Bogart in the close two shot, but the intercut medium shot shows him leaning back and turned slightly away from him." But I get the feeling Hawks just cares about the compelling details—the facial tics and body language and line readings—that are right in a given take more than the inconsequential ones that aren't.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#303 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:01 pm

senseabove wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:37 pm
I'd disagree that it's technically deficient or stylistically bland. No, it's not polished, but that's not exactly a phrase I've associated with Hawks anyway, and the first two-thirds is a perfectly relentless tug of war between aural and visual attention, with body movement and camera movement and new information ping-ponging the viewer's attention between listening and looking and processing, until it slows down after we leave Mars's gambling club so we can start trying to piece it all together and watch our two main characters' relationship begin to actually develop. It's just full of little bits of blocking and gestures to keep drawing your eyes while you're trying to figure out what you're hearing or where this is or who that is or why those two are together or whether it's important...—the "disguise" in Geiger's shop, Malone taking her hair down, Brody shifting in circles in his chair as Bogart stalks his eyes, Bogart revealing a little more of the odd cramped space of Geiger's apartment on each return, Bacall sinking into the carseat—it's not a film of painterly compositions, but of orchestrated action that pulls the viewer's active attention from the type of information that's typically underlined and spotlit.

I also can't help but feel that having recently rewatched Inherent Vice just made me appreciate it more as the prototype for IV's style of frenetic, compelling nonsense. For both movies, to sit down after and chart out who did what to whom when and why is to just miss the boat. Sure, you can, but who really cares about piecing the plot together. Both movies are more interesting to me to think of like following a bouncing ball in the fun-house mirror hall that is other people's hidden motivation.
Great thoughts on how the film draws one in with sensory-driven momentum, something I often miss at this point when distracted by the strong personalities after so many viewings. Inherent Vice definitely owes a lot to this one's plotting (as well as The Long Goodbye's 70s Marlowe vibe and Altman's technique) and The Big Lebowski already farced it up almost two decades before. Both films bring the audience back to the details populating the visual frame in style or sound that are far more significant in building a world and driving home thematic and emotional weight, rather than simply checking off the boxes of what procedurally happened in a PI investigation.

Hawks definitely had an interest in authenticity that extended to real performance (using actual guns in Scarface resulting in a nonfatal injury, having the cast actually chase and hunt in safari for Hatari!, the dangerous and miserable on-location experiences of Land of the Pharaohs and Air Force, etc.) and he would make/demand lots of practice time with his female leads for their singing lessons/sessions across several films. How much of this was to 'mold' them to be a 'discovery' worth boasting of with pride, spend time with them for his pleasure, or to assist them in mastering their performance (give their very best) is unclear- surely a combination- but he took his sweet time on every film and devoted a lot of prep into getting these musical performances right- at least the singing (I don't know/remember if he gave Jean Arthur his time for piano, or if she needed it, but he didn't like her and she wasn't going to be a discovery or a conquest anyways).

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#304 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Jul 26, 2020 12:51 pm

Fazil. An uncharacteristic, straight ahead romantic melodrama, but with the motif of the independent, freedom-loving woman a germ of sorts. The simplistic storyline of furious loving and parting, loving and parting, gets mind-numbingly repetitive, but nevertheless I’ll also give it points for being well-directed and occasionally surprisingly effective in its moments of romantic intensity.


Image
Red Line 7000. And of course saving the best for last! :wink: … Seriously, the rewatch in proper quality turned my opinion on this almost as much as what it did for Man’s Favorite Sport? It’s not making my list (actually it’s no. 19), and I did go in this time with lower expectations but with a willingness to study it a bit more deeply, which helped. The unremarkable acting from the less than stellar cast is really the sore point here (although I like Laura Devon as Julie, who’s presented initially as your prototypical Hawksian mannish woman but is soon revealed to be very vulnerable – her desperate, obsessive needing to know if she’s “sexy” to her lover is really an oddly poignant moment in the film), which I was prepared for this time, but I can’t fault the rest of the film that much. (And I’ve got to strongly disagree with Altair’s description of the racing scenes as “you never know who’s racing, winning losing, no tension, etc.” – definitely not my experience, I mean you have the race descriptor explaining everything for one thing, and I’m betting that comes out of disengaging from the film because of a loss of interest coming from somewhere else in the film). The script is intelligent and presents three amorous relationships with a conflict due to a neurotic tic in one of the partners. In this regard, Robin Wood presents an interesting interpretation where the “flaw” in each relationship is due to some rigidity on one partner’s part and has to be overcome, thereby recovering the instinctual intelligence that is the success to race car driving, and life (“keep brain in gear at all times” reads the sign over the car’s dashboard in the opening shot), and Wood links it up in this way as a trilogy with the two preceding films.

It does have a low-key vibe during those relationship scenes (which, as in The Crowd Roars, are what predominate) that contrasts sharply with the intensity of the racing scenes (a bit like Hatari in this way with its animal-catching scenes), but as Wood also notes it’s a much more tightly paced and economical film than the other late Hawks movies and stands out as unique in that way. I’d add that even though there is that that laidback tone in those sequences, there’s not a real sense of a brotherly community (at least among the men) as with a film like Hatari or Rio Bravo, with the rival drivers (rivals for both racing and women) tending to stick to their own and their female companion, so it’s not the same type of harmonious hangout movie.

Finally, that initial, pretty horrific fatality quickly brings to mind a film like Only Angels Have Wings, with the constant risk or presence of death surrounding the work of these racers, which the last scenes of the film also emphasize. Overall, glad to have given this another shot and it’s definitely a keeper. Honestly, I’ve got to say that except for his very last film late Hawks is of my favorite stretches of his.

Oh, and there’s actors here singing too! (although technically I don’t know if what Gail Hire does in this sense actually qualifies! Marianna Hill almost makes up for it though). And you can catch Teri Garr as one of the club dancers/backup singers.

User avatar
Toland's Mitchell
Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2019 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#305 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:50 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun Jul 26, 2020 12:51 pm
Fazil. An uncharacteristic, straight ahead romantic melodrama, but with the motif of the independent, freedom-loving woman a germ of sorts. The simplistic storyline of furious loving and parting, loving and parting, gets mind-numbingly repetitive, but nevertheless I’ll also give it points for being well-directed and occasionally surprisingly effective in its moments of romantic intensity.
I feel like this summarizes Hawks's silent movies in general. I hadn't seen one until this project. Now I've watched Fig Leaves, Paid to Love, A Girl in Every Port, and Fazil. Hawks employed good camera and transition techniques in these films, and they have some strengths mixed with weaknesses. I liked the prehistoric sequences of Fig Leaves and some of the character moments of A Girl in Every Port. But overall these films were either lacking in narrative or character, sometimes both. I also agree with knives that Hawks needed sound to fully realize his artistic potential.

As for Redline 7000, I watched it many years ago and don't recall much.

Anyway, this is long overdue but thank you Rayon for that guide on page 1 on where to find his films. A couple things have changed. Barbary Coast and Come and Get It are streaming on Amazon Prime now. But really, thank you and Never Cursed. It's been a big help. I'm gonna use it to watch a few more before deadline.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#306 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 27, 2020 3:36 pm

I'm typing this on my new Macbook Pro (good lord, who the fuck wants haptic cursors-- I thought I was damned with a shitty laptop for the first hour with this thing) so the deadline remains July 31!

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#307 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:46 pm

Lists are due “tomorrow,” ie Saturday morning when I wake up. We are not as comfortably secure in terms of submissions as we were for Wilder...

User avatar
HJackson
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#308 Post by HJackson » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:20 pm

I'll be submitting a list after watching Sergeant York and Rio Lobo tonight and tomorrow. Don't sweat it!

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#309 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:35 pm

Uh oh, this is no time for monkey business


User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#311 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:47 pm

Thank goodness domino has plans tomorrow with his girl, or Friday would've been the deadline

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#312 Post by knives » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:48 pm

No rimshot for that.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#313 Post by swo17 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:51 pm

That's fair

User avatar
Red Screamer
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:34 pm
Location: Tativille, IA

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#314 Post by Red Screamer » Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:52 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:23 pm
The Big Sky ************************** rent Amazon
I rented this last night. It was colorized and looked so bad it had to be a VHS transfer. Is there a watchable version of The Big Sky out there, short or long cut?

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#315 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:34 pm

There’s one uploaded on dailymotion

Just google the big sky dailymotion

User avatar
Dr Amicus
Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
Location: Guernsey

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#316 Post by Dr Amicus » Fri Jul 31, 2020 6:14 pm

Well, I've managed a few viewings, a reread of Wood and am a few chapters into the McCarthy - not as much as I'd hoped, but I'll finish the rest soonish. Anyway, to summarise my watchings:

Scarface - a rewatch from University days and the first in 30 years. Interesting to see Hawks in more overtly obvious directing mode compared to his later style and Muni is great as effectively an overgrown child (Geoff Andrew described him as a "Bestial Moron" which is equally fair). This and the next two films have variations on the central character being essentially the villain but softening this somewhat and playing variations on his relationships. His incestuous love for his sister here is so wrong it will destroy the purer friendship with Guino and ultimately himself.

Barbary Coast - first time watch. Robinson is a great lead, charming in a way Muni wasn't (to be fair, that's the character rather than the performance) but as obsessed with the material display of his wealth. The relationship with Donlevy is downplayed and less important here than in other Hawks films, but his relationship with Hopkins is fascinating. A bit of censor friendly rewrites seems evident here because her character is clearly in on the scam and mis-running the gaming table. There are some nice touches and it's certainly fun (Walter Brennan especially), but it's minor Hawks. Oh, and IIRC, David Niven has a bit about his (minuscule) appearance in The Moon's A Balloon.

Come and Get It - another first time watch. Obviously compromised (Wood is amusingly dismissive about Wyler's contributions) but much to like - including, again, Brennan. Edward Arnold is less obviously villainous than either Muni or Robinson, but he's clearly in the wrong. His relationship with Brennan is the closest male relationship in the three films and the only one to survive. Farmer (twice) manages to make a strong willed counterpart and (like Hopkins) probably suffers from rewrites - as the daughter she is initially presented (at least I read it as such) as being completely aware of what Arnold is offering, and then seems surprised when explicitly stated. As above, minor but likeable enough.

Only Angels Have Wings - rewatch, but not on my university course. Not much to add to the usual comments. Absolute masterpiece, one of my favourite Hawks, moving and funny in equal measures. And what a good year Thomas Mitchell had in 1939.

Rio Bravo - another rewatch and another favourite. This used to appear frequently on British TV in the 70s and 80s (along with El Dorado) and I must have seen sections of it many, many times. Long, but eminently rewatchable - the chase into the bar where the shooter is hiding in the rafters is one of my favourite sequences in cinema and shows Hawks's mastery of space. My favourite of the hang-out films, and delightful in the ways Wayne keeps being undermined with help he doesn't want (but needs). This would make an interesting double bill with Eastwood's Josey Wales - another reluctant father figure / group centre.

El Dorado - rewatch. Entertaining partial remake of the above - the joins with the original, much darker, script show through and there occasional moments where scenes seem to be missing from a structural sense (most notably, a resolution to the Wayne / Holt relationship). It's not its predecessor, but still great fun - the Wayme / Mithum relationship is almost on a par with Wayne / Martin and Caan is a more than acceptable substitute for Ricky Nelson and gets more than his share of the jokes.

User avatar
Shrew
The Untamed One
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:22 am

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#317 Post by Shrew » Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:14 pm

I didn't have a chance to contribute as much to the discussion as I hoped, but I did want to leave one thought. All you folks favoring A Song Is Born over Ball of Fire are nuts, and I like A Song Is Born. It's not so much the decline in the cast. A Song Is Born is like watching a broadway revival--it's not the original cast but just fine in its own right (particularly compared to the high school production of Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Old Summertime). And the trade of character actors for Jazz icons is fair. But the move from language to music makes for a lot of mush. First, you can imagine a linguist being thrown by slang after a decade, but an ethnomusicologist being unable to decipher the roots of jazz is a load of nonsense. More seriously, language, and the limits of language, is the heart of Ball of Fire. The film's key scene is Cooper abandoning academic pretense and slang to try explaining his love for Stanwyck in plain language, which he finds is still inadequate. Had A Song Is Born made that moment into a musical one, it might have had more thematic coherence. (On the plus side, the sword of Damocles climax in A Song Is Born is better, but that's undercut by rushing the denouement).

Also it's just not as funny.
Last edited by Shrew on Sun Aug 02, 2020 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
movielocke
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am

Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#318 Post by movielocke » Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:34 am

Do I still have time to submit a list? Totally forgot about this deadline!

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#319 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:55 am

If domino hasn’t announced submissions are closed, send the PM ASAP, OK?

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#320 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 01, 2020 12:05 pm

I am up but I won’t be able to tabulate til later today so I can extend submission deadline just a bit. Movielocke, if you (or any straggler) can get a list to me by 3PM EST I’ll be able to include it

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#321 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:19 pm

By the way, we ended up surpassing the Wilder submissions!

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#322 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:26 pm

Then it's official, Hawks>Wilder. Finally I can sleep easy tonight

User avatar
Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 12:22 am

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#323 Post by Never Cursed » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:28 pm

That's great news, though so much for my #1 shaking up the list!

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#324 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:28 pm

Surprising, but definitely happy news.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Auteur List: Howard Hawks - Discussion and Defenses

#325 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 01, 2020 3:03 pm

Submissions closed, Hawksian work ethic now in effect for compiling results

Post Reply