il cinema degli anni 40 -50

John Marcellus Huston (1906 –1987) the  titan,  rebel, the renaissance man of  Hollywood, was an American film director who also wrote the screenplays (sceneggiature) for his movies. As he had studied art in Paris,  he directed his films with the ideas of an artist exploring the visual aspects of what he was describing. He used to sketch (disegnare, schizzare) the scenes on paper and outlined (delineare) his characters during the making of the film. Huston was often inspired by classics of literature and adapted novels like The Maltese Falcon (1941) by D. Hammett, The Red Badge of Courage (1951) by  Stephen Crane, Moby Dick (1956) by H. Melville, and The Man Who Would Be King by R. Kipling (1975). Most of the themes he dealt with (trattò) – religion,  truth (verità), freedom, psychology, colonialism and war – were seen from different and opposite points of view, from the point of view of people who fight for the same goal (meta) but who are condemned not to reach what they are struggling for (ciò per cui stanno lottando). Other Huston’s masterpieces are The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Misfits (1961). Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, and  won twice. He died while shooting the last scenes of  The Dead (1987), an adaptation of the conclusive story of James Joyce’s Dubliners – a film in which  his  daughter Angelica played the leading role and won  the  Academy Award.