Martin Ritt - biography

“A casting session with Woody [Allen], it’s hysterically funny - if you’re not involved.  He can’t look an actor in the face.  He goes off and hides.  So shy, it’s incredible.”

“During a shot, I concentrate totally upon the actor’s face.  If the conditions are propitious and the actor explodes, his entire subjectivity expresses itself and we then reach the best that art can offer.”

“I don’t need a final cut.  I only cut the thing once.  If they’re dumb enough to fool around with it, let ’em do it.”

“I never listen.  I watch.  And if I believe it, I print it.”

“Most of the so-called new techniques were tried out 30 or 40 years ago and abandoned because they distracted from the essential.  The best direction is that which is least visible.”

“How can it be ‘A Marty Ritt Film?’ It’s not.  If I ever write one, direct one and star in it, then you can call it A Marty Ritt Film.”

“I don’t have a lot of respect for talent.  Talent is genetic.  It’s what you do with it that counts.”

Martin Ritt directed the following films:
Edge of the City (1957)
The Black Orchid (1958)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
5 Branded Women (1960)
Paris Blues (1961)
Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (1962)
Hud (1963)
The Outrage (1964)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
Hombre (1967)
The Brotherhood (1968)
The Great White Hope (1970)
The Molly Maguires (1970)
Pete ’n’ Tillie (1972)
Conrack (1974)
Norma Rae (1979)
Back Roads (1981)
Cross Creek (1983)
Murphy’s Romance (1985)
Nuts (1987)
Stanley & Iris (1990)