Hud (1963).

Review #1411: Hud.

Cast: 
Paul Newman (Hud Bannon), Melvyn Douglas (Homer Bannon), Brandon deWilde (Lonnie Bannon), Patricia Neal (Alma Brown), Whit Bissell (Mr. Burris), Crahan Denton (Jesse), John Ashley (Hermy), Val Avery (Jose), George Petrie (Joe Scanlon), and Curt Conway (Truman Peters) Directed by Martin Ritt.

Review: 
"I make the kind of films that not too many people get to make in this town, though sometimes I've had to take the risk myself"

One cannot simply make a good film without some sort of sensitivity and knowledge of how to maintain a production and the aspects that go with it from cast to tone. Martin Ritt was a director known for his socially conscious films, concerned with the human condition while making sure to film with a careful hand and careful approach to his stars, which served him well over the years. Born in 1914, he grew up in New York City but attended college in North Carolina, with the latter experience shaping his vision in wanting to show the struggle of inequality. He moved to the theater not long after graduation, shifting from theatre groups (as actor and director at times) to the Federal Theater Project to the Group Theatre where he met Elia Kazan (in later years Ritt would do work at the Actors Studio when Kazan could not make a class). After serving in World War II under the US Army Air Forces, he had shifted some of his focus to television, but the prevailing fear over red influence into entertainment trapped him on the blacklist for a few years. A few years later, he directed his first feature film with Edge of the City (1957), which depicted a interracial friendship. In the course of over three decades, he would make several notable films, such as The Long, Hot Summer (1958, which also starred Newman), Sounder (1972), and Norma Rae (1979).

The film was adapted by Harriet Frank Jr and Irving Ravetch (who co-produced the film with Ritt) from the 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By from Larry McMurtry, the first of six of his works to have been adapted into film (with others being notable films like The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment). The key change made in adapting the novel was in expanding the character of Hud to be the main focus, as opposed to Lonnie. The film was shot over the course of four weeks, with most of it being done in the Texas Panhandle, with some time being spent beforehand to rehearse with the cast to have them delve into their roles before shooting. This is a feature with a tremendously well-rounded quartet (with Douglas and Neal winning Academy Awards for their performances), headlined by Newman. The method actor had risen from theatre work to feature film roles in the 1950s, and he had spent a couple of days in a Texas ranch working and sleeping in a bunkhouse to prepare for the role. He pulls off a magnificent performance here, a charming monster who lives for himself and the tastes that go with said figure that swaggers over the conventional lead focus for the time, sinking with ease into such a rough role. To the surprise of Newman and Ritt, audiences found a liking to this amoral character, who they thought would not be accepted as a heroic character, with Ritt believing it being a reflection of the counterculture that would engulf the latter part of the decade. Perhaps it is evident in a quote from the film that talks about how a country changes its look by who we admire, and one must make up their mind over what is right and wrong. In that sense, theatre-turned-film star Douglas matches up with principles and a weary but unbroken spirit that reflects his ranch with measured composure. When it comes to deWilde, he holds his own as a yearning youth at a crossroads that all growing youth find themselves, and he does it with plenty of conviction. Neal, a member of the Actors Studio that appears for just twenty minutes, makes the best of her time with a relentlessly compelling performance, filled with worn-out cynicism and wit. The other key highlight is James Wong Howe (a pioneer of cinematography for six decades) and his stark cinematography, which captures the depth of such a landscape like the Panhandle with tremendous contrast and shadows that make for a devastating effect for a reasonably paced 112 minutes. This is a film that sets its own trail of where one can go in their life without needing to draw it out for the audience, with four capable performances and direction to drive a film that drives hard to questions that aren't easy to get to but prove fairly worth it in the long run. It reaches most of the marks it wants to make while serving as its own kind of Western melodrama worthy of a watch for its vision of the countryside.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.