Read instead…in print #45: John Huston by Lillian Ross

“Beautiful journalism”, John Huston said about Picture, Lillian Ross’s reporting of the making of his The Red Badge of Courage. No stylistic flourishing, no gratuitous metaphors, no speculation or gossip, just clarity and simplicity, a probing insight into filmmaking. Reading Picture, my first introduction to Ross’s writing, originally published in 1952, reminded me about what real journalism is about. Integrity. Objectivity. Responsibility. Power of observation. Respect for the privacy of your subjects.

Picture is one of the most authentic and accurate documentations of how a movie is made, of how the big studio Hollywood mechanisms work and how an original, artistic film and a director’s uncompromising vision can be slashed into a whole different thing when the studio heads and producers step in and cut down by a third a film.

But what I believe Lillian Ross captured first and foremost, and so well and effortlessly, was that rare quality that John Huston had for looking at and making art with enthusiasm and curiosity, but without intellectualisation. She was able to capture the essence of the artist, with his many facets, just by reporting the facts. That’s a rare quality, too.

Before Picture came out, Lillian Ross had started to write for The New Yorker for a few years, and in 1949, her article Questions, recounting her meeting in New York with John Huston, was published in the “Talk of the town” column of the magazine.

Over the next four decades, Ross wrote about Huston while immersed on the set of The Bible in Rome in 1965, on the Brooklyn set of Prizzi’s Honor in 1984, relentlessly back and forth to through Manhattan during the filming of The Letter from the Kremlin, at the preview of Fat City or at the pre-production stage of Own the Victory. Beginning with Quenstions and concluding with a paper on the set of the film directed by Anjelica Huston in 1996, Bastard Out of Carolina, the volume John Huston by Lillian Ross (presented here in the first French edition of the book and available in my shop) gathers seven valuable articles by Lillian Ross for The New Yorker. Every brief journalistic piece bears her unique voice, and while demanding compression it allows for immersive, sharp, witty and comprehensive insight into the world of making movies and into the character of one of the most charismatic, enigmatic and visionary filmmakers. Every word counts, therefore there is no fancy writing, just getting to the essence of the story in the most beautifully simple and total way.

Read instead… in print is about a good book about cinema or filmmakers. No discursive, pretentious analyses, no verbose scrutiny. Because the idea is to invite you to read the book, not read about it here. But instead of using social media, I use my journal. Back to basics. Take it as a wish to break free of over-reliance on social media (even if it’s just for posting a photo of a good book) for presenting my work, cultural finds and interests. These are things to be enjoyed as stand-alone pieces in a more substantial and meaningful way than showing them in the black hole of Instagram thronged with an audience with a short attention span. This is also a look through my voluminous collection of books about film that I use as research in my adamant decision to rely less and less on the online and more on more on print materials.