Perfect Vehicle

This type of collection may be the best way to understand the complex legacy of Howard Hawks—perhaps even better than trying to take on his body of work and parse out the tenuous connections between an extraordinary diverse span of film genres. As Scott Breivold notes in his introduction, Hawks is distinctive as an auteur precisely because his style is not. What is most characteristic about Hawks—his deep understanding of story—is perfectly expressed in his reflections on his work, commentary on other directors, and, yes, his anecdotes. In this way, the interview collection is the perfect vehicle for expressing both the man and director.

The interviews span two decades, from the 1956 Cahiers du Cinema conducted by Jacques Becker, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut to Kathleen Murphy and Richard T. Jameson's 1976 meeting, published in Movietone News. The collection also includes a talk with Peter Bogdonovitch with Hawks commenting on his works to date (1962) one picture at a time, a transcript of an American Film Institute Seminar moderated by James Silke, two interviews conducted by Joseph McBride, plus a 1974 discussion with Constance Penley, Saunie Salyer, and Michael Shedlin about his political views.

As with the other editions in the Conversations with Filmmakers Series, Howard Hawks: Interviews contains a useful chronology and bibliography, both handy references while analyzing the interviews. It is worth reading the edition chronologically, as Breivold organizes it; I found it fascinating to see how Hawks' perspectives on his films changed over time.

Equally interesting are Hawks' comparisons of his work with that of his peers. He repeatedly emphasizes the importance of story over cinematic technique and tricks, and in this respect views his Rio Bravo as far superior to Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. On the other hand, he also criticizes message-driven films, explaining that this is where Capra went wrong. This includes Hawks' perceptive insights on the directions in which film and television were headed in the mid '70s: he is extremely critical of sitcoms' use of the laugh track (the actors "get big ideas about how funny they are"), and also expresses his displeasure with the Hollywood blockbuster ("too many cooks").

The interviews will please readers interested in stories of actors; Hawks tells revealing and frequently humorous anecdotes about such stars as Mary Pickford, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, and John Wayne. Because Hawks is so candid, his discussions of stars wipe the dust off of certain iconic figures that might otherwise seem untouchable and frozen in time.

Hawks' opinions are less refreshing when he comments on social and political issues. When an interviewer suggests that some people have noticed an undertone of homosexuality present in Hawks' work, the director responds: "I'd say it's a goddam silly statement to make. It sounds like a homosexual speaking." Hawks' opinions on issues like Kent State, Vietnam, and Nixon may be similarly repellant to the contemporary reader.

When at his best, Hawks is a great storyteller, an unpretentious everyman who understands his audience's desires. At his worst, he appears to be an anti-intellectual reactionary. These two sides of Hawks are inseparable, the one creates the other. On the one hand, Hawks' hatred of films with a message seems to stem from his reactionary politics; on the other, his hatred of message screenplays is also connected to a strange sort of humility: he thinks he has no business telling anyone else what to think. It is this combination of conservatism and populism that makes Hawks both frustrating and fascinating.

A sense of nostalgia pervades the collection. This is in part because of Hawks' discussions of things like "scenes" and "attitudes." It is difficult to imagine a contemporary director emphasizing story over technology, as Hawks does time and again. Readers (like this one) may find themselves (like Hawks) longing for a time when creating a well-crafted story with convincing characters was a director's primary objective. In the end, this collection allows his legacy to remain unchanged. It permits Hawks to retell...