George Stevens-A Filmmaker’s Journey
George Stevens-A Filmmaker’s Journey (Written, produced, and directed by George Stevens, Jr., 1984)
Money, money, money—I can’t bear that talk.
It’s what we do that is great.
George Stevens
This is a wonderful remembrance of the uncommon diversity, integrity, humanity, artistry, and creativity of George Stevens. Stevens was revered by fellow directors, greatly admired and respected by actors, and, at best, tolerated by studios. All these qualities are persuasively portrayed in George Stevens-A Filmmaker’s Journey, created by his son, George Stevens, Jr., a renowned filmographer in his own right.
Mr. Stevens grew up in a theatrical family. He became highly proficient with a camera given him at age ten. Seven years later he was an assistant cameraman for Hal Roach. His evolution from cameraman to director led to 35 Laurel and Hardy two-reelers, then to several RKO features culminating in Alice Adams (1935), starring Katherine Hepburn. The film received a best picture Academy-Award nomination. Ms. Hepburn speaks fondly of this experience and the manner in which . Stevens brought both structured scope and marvelous comedy timing to the performers and in his crisp editing. As Ginger Rogers recalled, about the Astaire and Rogers’ Swing Time (1936), “George gave us a quality we never had before—his quality.”
With each picture Stevens gained greater control in his struggle with Hollywood moguls. His ace in the hole was that stars wanted to work with him. Gunga Din (1939) was another breakthrough Stevens film. He matched adherence to this Kipling tale with daily improvisation in which he sought to mesh story structure to credible characters. When his studio threatened to close down this way-over-budget, he stood firm. As a RKO executive recalled “George was a man of conviction—polite, soft-spoken, and stubborn as a mule.”
The More the Merrier (1943) earned Stevens best director and best film Academy-Award nominations. Then, at age 39, he volunteered to go to Europe with the Army Signal Corps. At General Eisenhower’s direction, he assembled a professional film crew. Ike ordered “Stevens’ Irregulars” to make the definitive film of D-Day and the battle for Europe. Stevens, whose life already had been influenced ‘”forever” by viewing Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, keep his team cheek-and-jowl with the fighting until the Nazi surrender.
Stevens also carried a 16mm camera with which he made the only color movies of this European campaign. Some of these films, discovered after Stevens’ death in 1975, are included in this remembrance. This historical footage was also assembled by his son in D-Day to Berlin (1994), which is a stunning color portrayal of combat, death and destruction, and, most poignantly, the liberation of the Dachau Holocaust camp.
Stevens was deeply affected by his war-time experiences. As he phrased it, ‘films became less and more important to me.’ I Remember Mama (1948) was a bridge from his comedy film past to his new compulsion to tell serious stories. He made far fewer movies during his final twenty-seven years. A Place in the Sun (1951),the first of his American trilogy, won him the first of his two directing Academy Awards. As Director Fred Zimmerman recollects, it had “a truthfulness that is very hard to find in other people’s work”
This was the period of McCarthyism and loyalty oaths, which Cecil B. DeMille sought to require of his employees. Stevens had thrice been president of the Screen Directors Guild. The then-president Joseph Mankiewicz was being pummeled by DeMille on the loyalty issue. In a Guild showdown, George Stevens and John Ford distinguished themselves. As director John Huston describes the scene “George sought to defend the Constitution.”
Shane (1953), for which he won his second Oscar, reflected Stevens’ fascination with the West. Warren Beatty observed that Stevens had defied all sound conventions in his brilliant handling of gun shots. Alan Ladd spoke of Shane as Stevens’ telling an American tale in the King Arthur tradition. Stevens described it as ‘a real put down of the gunfighter as hero. A gun is a destructive, violent instrument. Giant (1956) third in his American trilogy, focused on “the need to get acknowledged for all the trouble you have experienced for so many years.”
Stevens was moved by the fact that Anne Frank’s ideas (“I still believe in spite of everything that people really are good at heart”) survived in history. With his typical meticulousness, he had Otto Frank show him the Frank refuge from the Nazis and visited Dachau and Israel before shooting commenced on The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Stevens’ intensity was all-encompassing. As Millie Perkins, who played Anne Frank, described it “He gave me everything—the sound, the atmosphere.”
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) was the supreme professional challenge in his career. It was certain to be controversial, since there was not a single version of the life of Jesus that every one would accept. Stevens spent years preparing to make this film. This was, perhaps, intended to be the culmination of a life devoted to exploring the nature of man. When released, it was controversial. After viewing the movie some years later, George Stevens said “That’s the way I would do it if I could do it again.”
After an extended illness, Stevens died in 1975. George Stevens-A Filmmaker’s Journey does not attempt a summing up of Stevens’ manifold contributions to the art of film. Instead, it closes with the final scene of Shane, in which the hero rides alone towards the mountains, as a metaphor for the hero of this remembrance.
