by Cláudio Alves

Few cineastes can count their last film among their greatest works. Fewer still finish a career, a life, with their best cinematic effort. As much as I admire such gems as Ophüls' carnivalesque Lola Montès, the amorous musings of Dreyer's Gertrud, the bittersweet self-reflections of Akerman's No Home Movie and Varda's Varda by Agnès, I wouldn't classify any of those pictures as their director's crown jewels. John Huston's a whole different matter. 

The American filmmaker, whose career spanned six decades, finished his last picture in 1987. Faithfully adapted from a short story by James Joyce, The Dead may not be as influential as The Maltese Falcon, as exciting as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, nor as tragic as The Misfits, but, as far as I'm concerned, it's Huston's most ravishing creation…