John Carpenter’s single favourite director of all time: “He did it all”
As much as he refuses to believe it, John Carpenter is one of the most influential directors of the last four decades, even though filmmakers who specialise in fantasy and horror aren’t often regarded as such.
The easiest way to demonstrate his lasting influence over the cinematic landscape is by looking at how many of his pictures have been remade; Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing have all been repurposed by the next generation, while Escape from New York, Christine, Starman, and Big Trouble in Little China are constantly threatening to join them.
Then there are the number of directors who’ve cited him as an inspiration, which ranges from Edgar Wright and Adam Curtis to David Gordon Green and Adam Wingard, via Quentin Tarantino and Neil Marshall. If that doesn’t make somebody influential, then fuck knows what the criteria are supposed to be.
Carpenter has always had that self-deprecating side, though, laughing off suggestions that he ushered in a new style of film composition when his synthesiser-heavy scores became the default setting for the 1980s slasher boom, with the DNA of him tinkling those digital ivories as prevalent today as it was back then.
Of course, he’s got his own set of filmic inspirations, and one of them stands taller than the others. After using the name of John Wayne’s character, John T Chance, as his pseudonym for editing Assault on Precinct 13, which was basically a remake of Rio Bravo anyway, it should be obvious that he’s a big Howard Hawks guy.
He grew up appreciating the work of Orson Welles, Sam Peckinpah, John Ford, and Alfred Hitchcock, with Tarantino and David Fincher two of his modern favourites, but as far as he’s concerned, nobody has ever been able to hold a candle to the mastermind behind Scarface, Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River, Only Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and many more.
“In my opinion, the greatest American director,” he declared to The Show. “A lot of people don’t realise he is, but he’s made a great movie in every single genre. He made comedies, he made action films, he made science fiction films; he did it all.” When it was suggested that Carpenter had done something similar with his own genre-bending filmography, he replied with a flat, “No.”
He wouldn’t dream of being compared to his idol, but he did meet him once, which was a moment he’d never forget. “In 1970, I was a film student at USC. I came up to him and said, ‘Mr Hawks, you’re my favourite director,'” he remembered. “He looked at me, and my long hair, and said, ‘Uh-huh’. He was a great director, it was wonderful to meet him, and he’s inspired my entire career.”
The John Carpenter everyone knows and loves wouldn’t exist without his biggest influence, even if he doesn’t quite see it that way: “I would love to be able to say that something rubbed off from Howard Hawks to me, but not really.”
