George Stevens: Interviews

Director of Alice Adams, A Place in the Sun, Shane Talks Films

May 15, 2008

A collection of fourteen interviews with versatile director George Stevens is sure to appeal to movie lovers.

George Stevens: Interviews (edited by Paul Cronin) is a collection of fourteen interviews with the director, from 1935 to 1974. It is part of the series Conversations with Filmmakers, published by the University Press of Mississippi. This book was published in 2004 in conjunction with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences centennial tribute to Stevens (this writer was lucky enough to attend several of the screenings – Swing Time, Vivacious Lady and A Place in the Sun.)

George Stevens was one of the most versatile directors of the 1930s through the 1950s and yet lacks the household name of contemporaries such as Frank Capra or Howard Hawks. Yet Stevens made some of the most enduring films of his time, from early comedies such as Swing Time and Woman of the Year to influential American dramas like A Place in the Sun, Giant and Shane.

The Man Behind the Films

Stevens, born in 1904 (he died in 1975), grew up in Oakland, California with his parents and brother. His father and mother were stage actors, and when George was seventeen years old, the family moved to Los Angeles. Not long after, Stevens acquired a job as assistant cameraman – a position which his father made him turn down, as his father didn’t want Stevens to be a “stage hand”. But as luck would have it, Stevens landed another job as an assistant cameraman, and this time kept it.

Stevens was on a role. Soon he was working with such legendary comics as Laurel and Hardy, gaining knowledge and experience by working on a bevy of short films. But his passion was directing, and after directing many short films of his own, he moved on to features.

Stevens didn’t like comedy at first, because many comedies of the time were simply gag after gag. But he found a way to infuse comedies with human emotions – the most important thing to Stevens was to always have a fantastic story.

He took a break from filmmaking in the mid 1940s when he photographed the war in Europe. His footage includes what is thought to be the only color footage of Normandy. He talks a lot about his experience of seeing Allied forces enter Dachau, which had a profound impact on him. He questioned his relationship with film and what types of films were important to make.

He won two AcademyAwards for Best Director (for A Place in the Sun and Giant).

His Films

Stevens worked with the best actors of his time, including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

He started the production company Liberty Films with fellow directors Frank Capra and William Wyler, but the one film made under the company was Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. This may have been due to three directors being ahead of their time.

The most talked-about films in the interviews are Alice Adams, in which Hepburn was intially unsure of but ultimately loved; the classic western Shane, which he hired A.B. Guthrie to write after reading Guthrie’s books; turning Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy into A Place in the Sun; and the filmings of Gunga Din, The Diary of Anne Frank (he consulted heavily with Otto Frank) and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

The Interviews

The interviews were originally published in magazines such as Screen and Radio Weekly, the Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times.

Though some of the answers are a bit repetitive – almost every interviewer asks the questions “How did your career begin?” and “What was it like working with Katharine Hepburn” – Steven’s answers are thoughtful, interestingn and unlike many interviews today, lengthy. He fully answers questions, having thought a lot about the films he made.

There isn’t much “gossip” in these interviews; it isn’t a Hollywood tell-all. He doesn’t mention either of his two marriages. When he mentions other directors or actors, it’s really about the work; though some personality traits show through – Katharine Hepburn’s inventiveness, for example, and Elizabeth Taylor’s reluctance to say the line “Tell Mama” in A Place in the Sun (apparently she thought it was “outrageous”.)

Stevens speaks frequently about his parents and his beginnings, as well as his experiences in Europe during the war. He also talks a lot about his filmmaking visions and how important he feels editing is to a film – he edited his work on a big screen, so he’d know how it would look to an audience.

To sum up his view on films, Stevens said in a 1965 interview with Joanne Stang, “I think it’s really obvious that audiences hunger for films which illuminate beauty. I have always believed that they attend movies to gain understanding, to fill in the empty place and smooth over what is painful in their own lives.”

The copyright of the article George Stevens: Interviews in Biographies/Memoirs is owned by Lindsey Michelle. Permission to republish George Stevens: Interviews in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.