This collection of interviews provides a revealing self-portrait
of Martin Ritt (1914-1990), America's preeminent maker of social
films and one of the most sensitive portraitists of the rural
South.
Ritt's Hollywood career began in 1958 with "Edge of the City"
and ended in 1990 with the release of "Stanley and Iris." In all,
he directed twenty-six movies, including some of Hollywood's most
enduring films--"Hud," "Hombre," "The Spy Who Came in from the
Cold," "The Brotherhood," "The Molly Maguires," "The Front," and
"Norma Rae."
Although he gave mostly boilerplate interviews to the press when
promoting a movie, Ritt provided more revealing interviews for
seminars, oral histories, and documentary filmmakers. The most
significant of these, published here for the first time, create a
close-up portrait of this distinguished director of plays and
films.
Ritt speaks eloquently about his years with the Group Theatre
and recreates the passion of the director Harold Clurman. He tells
how the Group shaped his ideas about art and the communal nature of
the theatrical enterprise, which he extended into his work in film.
He speaks of his relationship with Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan,
and he talks in detail about his experiences with the blacklist,
directing and acting in TV during its Golden Age, his career as a
theater director, and his experiences working with such actors as
Paul Newman, Sally Field, Sophia Loren, Orson Welles, and Robert De
Niro. Ritt discusses his philosophy of directing, the place of film
in the history of art, his quarrels with "auteur theory," and the
influence of his politics on his work.
Gabriel Miller, a professor of English at Rutgers University, is
the author of "The Films of Martin Ritt: Fanfare for the Common
Man" (University Press of Mississippi). Articles by him have
appeared in the "Los Angeles Times," "American Book Review," and
"Literature/Film Quarterly," among other publications.
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