Fat City
d. John Huston, 1972
John Huston's Fat City makes Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) look like complete nonsense. I'm tempted to call this gritty slice of American poetry the best boxing film ever made (yes, better than The Set Up [1959]), though it's clearly much more than that. I'm not particularly interested in the sport, nor am I the same race or age as either of its main characters, but there's something entirely human about Huston's endeavor. As has been pointed out by many, this is like the flip side of the American dream, it's humanity at its most wretched, and terrifying to watch.
The Dead
d. John Huston, 1987
This is only the second Huston I've seen (see above), but it's clear that he's one of the great American directors. The Dead (1987), an adaptation of Joyce's short story of the same name, may not be as downright amazing as Fat City, but it's obviously a gorgeous piece of filmmaking. Taking one of Joyce's most accessible passages--certainly more so than anything in A Portrait of the Artist or Ulysses--Huston fashions one of the great literary adaptations of our time. In its brief 70 minute-long running time, The Dead encompasses a great deal of knowledge about humans, finally culminating in one of the most beautiful meditations on mortality ever filmed.
