This exhibition highlights items from the Huston Family Collection which centres on John Huston's last film The Dead, his 1987 adaptation of James Joyce's short story, this wide-ranging and eclectic collection offers a prolific intersection of Irish literature and American cinema. The multiple draft scripts of the film offer insights about the film and the director's wide-ranging oeuvre; nearly all of Huston's 37 features are literary adaptations. The material will contribute to the rich vein of debate already developed by various scholars on Huston.
The collection includes an early version of a script written by Jean-Paul Sartre for the film Freud: the Secret Passion. In 1958, Sartre visited Huston in St. Clerans, his home near Craughwell, County Galway. The collection is rich in ancillary documentation that supplements material held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including Huston's personal copies of various books that he adapted and their screenplays, some unproduced or not produced in the draft included.
There are also recordings of music used in his films, publicity materials, photos and magazines, press cuttings and legal documentation. Other rare materials include a Scottish TV interview with Huston conducted by film scholar Charles Barr at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1975.
