an excerpt from the sreenplay by Peter Viertel -
a fictionalized account of John Huston working on
the "African Queen" in a movie entitled "White Hunter, Black Heart" -
one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies ...
"Well, what do you think, John?
Not bad. But you're trying
to complicate it, Pete.
Things are always good
if they're left simple.
No, not always.
Always.
That's what creates truly
important art, is simplicity.
John, there are no rules to art.
There are hundreds of rules.
Hemingway understood that.
That's why he always reduced life
to its simplest terms.
Whether it's courage,
fear, impotence, death.
People's lives just unfold, and things just
happen to them one thing after another.
They were never bogged down
with that nonsense of subplot. . .
. . .that we sweated over in the past.
Stendhal understood that.
Flaubert. Tolstoy. Melville.
Simplicity is what made them great."
