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dered if you had attempted to shoot Moby Dick in accordance with the “‘style’” that is commonly attributed to you—which, of course, might present certain limitations. . .
HUSTON: It is a curious thing that so many people ascribe to me a distinct style. Believe me, I am not conscious of any such thing. Whenever I undertake to direct a film, I do so out of the deep feeling that it inspires in me. It is precisely this feeling that dictates the way in which I direct a picture. It is a matter of spontaneous sensitivity. I direct actors as little as possible, and do not strive to impose a monotonous unity of style upon the whole. There may be some general principles that are abiding, but the rules are there only to be broken, not to be adhered to. The direction of a scene depends upon its quality as a scene. For example, we are having a certain kind of conversation right now. It is a spatial relationship that is directed by the thoughts. In photographing this scene, in composing, lighting and editing, this sort of encounter would be rendered according to the varying distances between the participants.
LAUROT: It’s this freedom, then, from a preconception of style that keeps you from subordinating given situations, and that accounts for the spontaneous feeling of life. . .
HUSTON: Oh yes. This frees me to retain the particular style of the film—not my own “personal, permanent” style—and within the film, to create spontaneous variations of the style that make for unity and fortify the whole conception. I do not think any film-maker should—though many do—consciously strive to maintain a permanent style in all his films. This could be possible only if he made the same picture over and over again. Some styles, for example, Westerns, have become a noble convention; they tell the same kind of story in the same way and there is no reason to change this aproach. From time to time, people say to me, “We'd like to see you make a Western.” If I ever made a Western, I'd make the same kind of Western. I don’t want to put my brand on the Western; it has its adequate style already.
LAUROT: Then would you agree with me that neo-realism is primarily an attitude toward life, rather than a style?
HUSTON: Certainly; I have the greatest ad
miration for the neo-realist directors. De Sica’s Bicycle Thief is an ever-renewed experience for me. He knows how to make people in his films behave naturally and yet he gives them the intensity of his vision.
LAUROT: It’s all the more to be regretted, don’t you think, that the American film-makers who have attempted an imitation of neo-realism have conceived it as a style rather than as a way of seeing the world which, in turn, would command an artistic interpretation.
HUSTON: That is true. Neo-realism has influenced many American film-makers, but their films, for example, on juvenile delinquency are juvenile, thematically superficial and self-conscious. They fail to understand that what matters is not a new method, but the return to the sources of life, of people, of society that the European neo-realists have effected. It all comes back to a matter of heart and vision, not only talent. So long as these elements are neglected, we shall not have films here made with the intensity and compassion of the neo-realists.
ELIA KAZAN