The next time you watch a Howard Hawks film, look for the seams -- they won't be there. An unobtrusive, quietly gifted director, writer, and producer, Hawks constructed films that seem as effortless and artless as the films of his contemporaries...
[more]The next time you watch a Howard Hawks film, look for the seams -- they won't be there. An unobtrusive, quietly gifted director, writer, and producer, Hawks constructed films that seem as effortless and artless as the films of his contemporaries seem idiosyncratic. With a background in mechanical engineering -- he designed planes for the aircraft industry after World War I -- he came to movies as a film cutter, later graduating to story editor, casting director, and then assistant director. From this unassuming start, he learned the technical side of filmmaking inside out, becoming a virtuoso in all genres.
Hawks achieved his concentrated style through sins of omission -- leaving feelings unspoken beneath the glassy surface of images. An intuitive storyteller, he subtly played against sexual stereotypes and genre conventions, allowing characters to develop fully through innuendo and symbolic gesture, while the movie's mechanics melted into the background. Hawks directed, produced, and often wrote an astounding line-up of commercial hits including "Twentieth Century" (1934), "Bringing Up Baby" (1938), "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "Sergeant York" (1941), "To Have and Have Not" (1944), "The Big Sleep" (1946), "A Song is Born" (1948), "Red River" (1948), "The Thing" (1951), "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953), and "Rio Bravo" (1959). In 1974, the reserved artisan of the narrative-driven and visually unified film was presented with an honorary Academy Award; his films were cited as a major contribution to world cinema.
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