Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Caption	Carpenter in 2001
Birthame	John Howard Carpenter
Birth date	January 16, 1948
Birth place	Carthage, New York, U.S.
Occupation	director, screenwriter, producer, composer
Years active	1962 – present
Religion	Atheist
Spouse	Adrienne Barbeau (1979–1984) Sandy King (1990–)

John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.

Early life

Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, the son of Milton Jean (née Carter) and Howard Ralph Carpenter, a music professor. He and his family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1953. He was captivated by movies from an early age, particularly the westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford, as well as 1950s low budget horror and science fiction films, such as Forbidden Planet and The Thing from Another World and began filming horror shorts on 8 mm film even before entering high school. He attended Western Kentucky University where his father chaired the music department, then transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in 1968 and graduated in 1971.

Academy Award – Live Action Short Film

At USC Cinema, one of his projects as a co-writer, film editor and music composer, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), produced by John Longenecker, won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. The short film was blown-up to 35mm, sixty prints were made, and the film was theatrically released by Universal Studios for two years in the United States and Canada.

1970s: From student films to major theatrical releases

His first major film as director, Dark Star (1974), was a science fiction black comedy that he cowrote with Dan O'Bannon (who later went on to write Alien, borrowing freely from much of Dark Star). The film reportedly cost only $60,000 and was difficult to make as both Carpenter and O'Bannon completed the film by multitasking, with Carpenter doing the musical score as well as the writing, producing and directing, while O'Bannon acted in the film and did the special effects (which caught the attention of George Lucas who hired him to do work on the special effects for ). Carpenter's efforts did not go unnoticed as much of Hollywood marveled at his filmmaking abilities within the confines of a shoestring budget.

Carpenter's next film was Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), a low-budget thriller influenced by the films of Howard Hawks, particularly Rio Bravo. As with Dark Star, Carpenter was responsible for many aspects of the film's creation. He not only wrote, directed and scored it, but also edited the film under the pseudonym "John T. Chance" (the name of John Wayne's character in Rio Bravo). Carpenter has said that he considers Assault on Precinct 13 to have been his first real film because it was the first movie that he shot on a schedule. The film was also significant because it marked the first time Carpenter worked with Debra Hill, who played prominently in the making of some of Carpenter's most important films.

Working within the limitations of a $100,000 budget, Carpenter assembled a main cast that consisted of experienced but relatively obscure actors. The two leads were Austin Stoker, who had appeared previously in science fiction, disaster and blaxploitation films, and Darwin Joston, who had worked primarily in television and had once been Carpenter's next-door neighbor.

The film was originally released in the United States to mixed critical reviews and lackluster box-office earnings, but after it was screened at the 1977 London Film Festival, it became a critical and commercial success in Europe and is often credited with launching Carpenter's career. The film subsequently received a critical reassessment in the United States, where it is now generally regarded as one of the best exploitation films of the 1970s.

Carpenter both wrote and directed the Lauren Hutton thriller Someone's Watching Me! (aka High Rise) in 1978. This TV movie is the tale of a single, working woman who, shortly after arriving in L.A., discovers that she is being stalked. Borrowing heavily from Alfred Hitchcock, Carpenter slowly builds the suspense and intrigue before the final confrontation.

Halloween (1978) was a smash hit on release and helped give birth to the slasher film genre. Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans (titled The Babysitter Murders), who envisioned a film about babysitters being menaced by a stalker, Carpenter took the idea and another suggestion from Yablans that it take place during Halloween and developed a story. Carpenter said of the basic concept: "Halloween night. It has never been the theme in a film. My idea was to do an old haunted house movie." The film was written by Carpenter and Debra Hill with Carpenter admitting that the music, not the film, was inspired by both Dario Argento's Suspiria and William Friedkin's The Exorcist.

Carpenter again worked with a relatively small budget, $320,000. The film grossed over $65 million initially, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time.

Carpenter relied upon taut suspense rather than the excessive gore that would define later slasher films in order to make the menacing nature of the main character, Michael Myers, more palpable. At times, Carpenter has described Halloween in terms that appeared to directly contradict the more thoughtful, nuanced approach to horror that he actually used, such as: "True crass exploitation. I decided to make a film I would love to have seen as a kid, full of cheap tricks like a haunted house at a fair where you walk down the corridor and things jump out at you." The film has often been cited as an allegory on the virtue of sexual purity and the danger of casual sex, although Carpenter has explained that this was not his intent: "It has been suggested that I was making some kind of moral statement. Believe me, I'm not. In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers." Of the later slasher films that largely mimicked Carpenter's work on Halloween, few have met with the same critical success.

In addition to the film's critical and commercial success, Carpenter's self-composed "Halloween Theme" remains a recognizable film music theme to this day.

In 1979, John Carpenter began what was to be the first of several collaborations with actor Kurt Russell when he directed the TV movie Elvis. The made-for-TV movie was a smash hit with viewers and critics, and was also released as a feature film in cinemas outside the U. S. and revived the career of Russell, who was a child actor in the 1960s.

1980s: Continued commercial success

Carpenter followed up the success of Halloween with The Fog (1980), a ghostly revenge tale (co-written by Hill) inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt and by The Crawling Eye, a 1958 movie about monsters hiding in clouds.

Completing The Fog was an unusually difficult process for Carpenter. After viewing a rough cut of the film, he was dissatisfied with the result. For the only time in his filmmaking career, he had to devise a way to salvage a nearly finished film that did not meet his standards. In order to make the movie more coherent and frightening, Carpenter shot additional footage that included a number of new scenes. Approximately one-third of the finished film is the newer footage.

Despite production problems and mostly negative critical reception, The Fog was another commercial success for Carpenter. The film was made on a budget of $1,000,000, but it grossed over $21,000,000 in the United States alone. Carpenter has said that The Fog is not his favorite film, although he considers it a "minor horror classic". Carpenter's largest up to that point, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Although Carpenter's film was ostensibly a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks film, The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's version is more faithful to the John W. Campbell, Jr. novella, Who Goes There?, upon which both films were based. Moreover, unlike the Hawks film, The Thing was part of Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy a trio of films with bleak endings for the film's characters, and being a graphic, sinister horror film, it did not appeal to audiences in the summer of 1982, especially when the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which would have illustrated a much more light-hearted picture of alien visitation, was released two weeks prior. In an interview, Carpenter revealed that E.T.'s release could have been largely responsible for the film's failure. As The Thing did not perform well on a commercial level, it was Carpenter's first financial failure. Later, the movie found new life in the home video and cable markets, and it is now widely regarded as one of the best horror films and remakes ever made.

Shortly after completing post-production on "The Thing", Universal offered him the chance to direct Firestarter, based on the novel by Stephen King. Carpenter hired Bill Lancaster to adapt the novel into a script, which was completed in mid-1982. Carpenter had ear-marked Burt Lancaster to star as "Rainbird" and 12-year-old Jennifer Connelly as "Charly" but when The Thing failed at the box-office, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark L Lester. Ironically, Carpenter's next film, Christine, was the 1983 adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. The story revolves around a high-school nerd named Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) who buys a junked 1958 Plymouth Fury which turns out to have supernatural powers. As Cunningham restores and rebuilds the car, he becomes unnaturally obsessed with it, with deadly consequences. Christine did respectable business upon its release and was received well by critics; however, Carpenter has been quoted as saying he directed the film because it was the only thing offered to him at the time.

One of the high points in Carpenter's career came in 1984 with the release of Starman, a film that was critically praised but was only a moderate commercial success. Produced by Michael Douglas, the script was well received by Columbia Pictures, which chose it over the script for E.T. and prompted Steven Spielberg to go to Universal Pictures. Douglas chose Carpenter to be the director because of his reputation as an action director who could also convey strong emotion. Starman was favorably reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and LA Weekly and described by Carpenter as a film he envisioned as a romantic comedy similar to It Happened One Night only with a space alien. The film received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Jeff Bridges' portrayal of Starman and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical Score for Jack Nitzsche.

After seeing footage of Starman, the executive producer of the Superman movie series, Ilya Salkind, offered Carpenter the chance to direct the latest Alexander–Ilya Salkind fantasy epic . Salkind made the offer to Carpenter over lunch at The Ritz, and while he loved the idea of breaking from his normal traditions and directing a children's fantasy movie, he requested 24 hours to think over the offer. The next day he had drawn up a list of requirements should he direct the movie; they were: 100 percent creative control, the right to take over scriptwriting duties, being able to co-compose the movie's musical score, total editorial control, the casting of Brian Dennehey as Santa Claus and a $5 million signing-on fee (the same amount that the movie's star Dudley Moore was receiving). Team Salkind were nonplussed by his demands and withdrew their offer for him to direct. Carpenter told Empire magazine ten years later that he wished he'd been less demanding and made the movie because he liked the idea so much and it would have changed critics' views on his limitations as a director.

Following the box office failure of his big-budget action–comedy Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Carpenter struggled to get films financed. He returned to making lower budget films such as Prince of Darkness (1987), a film influenced by the BBC series Quatermass. Although some of the films from this time, such as They Live (1988) did pick up a considerable cult audience, he never again realized his mass-market potential.

Carpenter was also offered "The Exorcist III" in 1989 and met with the writer (and author of the novel "Legion" on which it was based) William Peter Blatty over the course of a week. However, the two film-makers clashed on the film's climax and Carpenter passed on the project. Blatty directed the film himself a year later. Carpenter is quoted as saying that although they fought over the ending, they held a mutual respect for one another and talked endlessly about an interest they both shared: quantum physics!

1990s: Criticism and commercial decline

His 1990s career is characterized by a number of notable misfires: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Village of the Damned (1995) and Escape From L.A. (1996) are examples of films that were critical and box office failures. Also notable from this decade are: In the Mouth of Madness (1994), yet another Lovecraftian homage, which did not do well either at the box-office or with critics.

Vampires (1998) starred James Woods as the leader of a band of vampire hunters in league with the Catholic Church. It was the only film during the 90's which was a financial success for Carpenter.

2000s–present: Remakes and Masters of Horror

2001 saw the release of Ghosts of Mars. 2005 saw remakes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog, the latter being produced by Carpenter himself, though in an interview he defined his involvement as, "I come in and say hello to everybody. Go home."

More recently, Rob Zombie has produced and directed Halloween, a re-imagining of John Carpenter's 1978 film. It was released in 2007, and spawned a sequel two years later.

Carpenter returned to the director's chair in 2005 for an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror series as one of the thirteen filmmakers involved in the first season. His episode, Cigarette Burns, aired to generally positive reviews, and positive reactions from Carpenter fans, many of whom regard it as on par with his earlier horror classics. He has since contributed another original episode for the show's second season entitled "Pro-Life", about a young girl who is raped and impregnated by a demon and wants to have an abortion, but whose efforts are halted by her religious fanatic, gun-toting father and her three brothers.

A remake of Escape from New York was planned starring Gerard Butler as Snake Plissken but he has since turned the role down.

In February 2009, It was announced that Carpenter had planned for his newest project, called The Ward, starring Amber Heard. It was his first movie since 2001's Ghosts of Mars, and it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2010. Carpenter narrated the upcoming video game F.E.A.R. 3. On 10 October 2010 Carpenter received the Lifetime Award from the Freak Show Horror Film Festival.

Techniques

His films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, static cameras, use of steadicam, and distinctive synthesized scores (usually self-composed). He describes himself as having been influenced by Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Nigel Kneale and The Twilight Zone.

With the exception of The Thing, Starman, and Memoirs of an Invisible Man, he has scored all of his films (though some are collaborations), most famously the themes from Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13. His music is generally synthesized with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics.

Carpenter is an outspoken proponent of widescreen filming, and all of his theatrical movies (with the exception of Dark Star) were filmed anamorphic with a 2.35:1 or greater aspect ratio.

Legacy

With a career that has spanned over thirty years, John Carpenter has attained a reputation as a respected independent filmmaker. Although some of Carpenter's films have not been commercially or critically successful upon initial theatrical release, Carpenter has developed a large cult following through home video releases of his films. Many of his films, most notably The Thing, have been rediscovered on VHS, laserdisc and DVD and have since been embraced by many fans – interesting, as The Thing was initially Carpenter's first big setback. The film was considered excessively dark, and did not do well at the box office and Rob Bottin's effects were considered too grotesque for a mainstream audience. Retrospectively, the film has gained much critical appreciation.

Four years later, Big Trouble in Little China was also poorly received by audiences and critics alike, an eclectic mix of genres that was years ahead of its time. This film, like The Thing, found its audience on VHS and DVD years after its theatrical release.

Many of Carpenter's films have been re-released on DVD as special editions with numerous bonus features. Examples of such are: the collector's editions of Halloween, Escape From New York, Christine, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, Big Trouble In Little China and The Fog. Some have been re-issued recently with a new anamorphic widescreen transfer. In the UK, several of Carpenter's films have been released on DVD with audio commentary by Carpenter and his stars (They Live, with actor/wrestler Roddy Piper, Starman with actor Jeff Bridges and Prince of Darkness with actor Peter Jason) that have not been released in the United States.

In recent years, Carpenter has been the subject of the documentary film John Carpenter: The Man and His Movies, and his status as a respected filmmaker has been reinforced by American Cinematheque's 2002 retrospective of his films. Moreover, in 2006, the United States Library of Congress deemed Halloween to be "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The action filmmaker Robert Rodriguez credits John Carpenter with having one of the biggest influences on his directing career.

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss interviewed Carpenter about his career and films for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror. Carpenter appears in all three episodes of the series.

Personal life

Carpenter met his future wife, actress Adrienne Barbeau, on the set of his 1978 television movie, Someone's Watching Me. Carpenter was married to Barbeau from January 1, 1979, to 1984. During their marriage, Barbeau starred in The Fog, and also appeared in Escape from New York. The couple had one son, John Cody Carpenter (born May 7, 1984).

Carpenter has been married to producer Sandy King since 1990. King produced a number of Carpenter's later feature films, including They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars, and Escape from L.A. She also functioned as script supervisor for some of these films as well, such as Starman, Big Trouble in Little China and Prince of Darkness.

Carpenter is a Godzilla fan.

He appeared in an episode of Animal Planet's Animal Icons titled "It Came from Japan."

In an interview Carpenter had said that he has been diagnosed with skin cancer several times and that he believes the reason for this was working on The Thing due to the sun's rays bouncing off the snow and onto his face.

Filmography

:See John Carpenter filmography

Further reading

Conrich, Ian & Woods, David. The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror (Directors' Cuts), Wallflower Press (2004). ISBN 1-904764-14-2.

Muir, John Kenneth. The Films of John Carpenter, McFarland & Company, Inc. (2005). ISBN 0-7864-2269-6.

References

External links

Interview with The Onion A.V. Club

Entertainment Weekly interview

Time Out New York interview

DGA magazine interview

Writers Guild of America interview

Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:People from Wilna, New York Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American film score composers Category:American screenwriters Category:Horror film directors Category:Electronic musicians Category:People from Bowling Green, Kentucky Category:University of Southern California alumni

Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Caption	David Cronenberg at Cannes, 2002
Birth name	David Paul Cronenberg
Birth date	March 15, 1943
Birth place	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Director, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1966–present
Religion	Atheist
Spouse	Margaret Hindson (1970–1977)Carolyn Zeifman (1979–)

David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical. In the first half of his career, he explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, although his work has since expanded beyond these genres. He has been called "the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world."

Personal life

Cronenberg was born in Toronto, Ontario, where he currently lives. He is the son of Esther (née Sumberg), a musician, and Milton Cronenberg, a writer and editor. He was raised in a middle-class progressive Jewish family. Cronenberg attended Harbord Collegiate Institute, later graduating from University College, University of Toronto with a degree in literature, having switched from science. He has cited William S. Burroughs and Vladimir Nabokov as influences. He is an atheist and does not believe in an afterlife.

In the 1992 book Cronenberg on Cronenberg, he revealed that The Brood was inspired by events that occurred during the unraveling of his first marriage, which caused both Cronenberg and his daughter Cassandra a great deal of turmoil. The character Nola Carveth, mother of the brood, is based on Cassandra's mother. Cronenberg said that he found the shooting of the climactic scene, in which Nola was strangled by her husband, to be "very satisfying".

Career

After two short sketch films and two short art-house features (the black and white Stereo and the colour Crimes of the Future) Cronenberg went into partnership with Ivan Reitman. The Canadian government provided financing for his films through the 1970s. He alternated his signature "body horror" films such as Shivers with projects reflecting his interest in car racing and bike gangs. Rabid exploited the unexpected acting talents of pornographic actress Marilyn Chambers (Cronenberg's first choice was a young, then-unknown Sissy Spacek). Rabid was a breakthrough with international distributors and his next two horror features gained stronger support.

Over the arc of his career, Cronenberg's films follow a definite progression, a movement from the social world to the inner life. In his early films, scientists modify human bodies, which results in the breakdown of social order (e.g. Shivers, Rabid). In his middle period, the chaos wrought by the scientist is more personal, (e.g. The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome). In the later period, the scientist himself is altered by his experiment (e.g. his remake of The Fly). This trajectory culminates in Dead Ringers in which a twin pair of gynecologists spiral into codependency and drug addiction. His later films tend more to the psychological, often contrasting subjective and objective realities (eXistenZ, M. Butterfly, Spider).

Perhaps the best example of a film that straddles the line between his works of personal chaos and psychological confusion is Cronenberg's "adaptation" of his literary hero William S. Burroughs' most controversial book, Naked Lunch. The book was considered "unfilmable" and Cronenberg acknowledged that a straight translation into film would "cost 100 million dollars and be banned in every country in the world". Instead—much like in his earlier film, Videodrome—he consistently blurred the lines between what appeared to be reality and what appeared to be hallucinations brought on by the main character's drug addiction. Some of the book's "moments" (as well as incidents loosely based upon Burroughs' life) are presented in this manner within the film. Cronenberg stated that while writing the screenplay for Naked Lunch, he felt a moment of synergy with the writing style of Burroughs. He felt the connection between his screenwriting style and Burroughs' prose style was so strong, that he jokingly remarked that should Burroughs pass on, "I'll just write his next book."

Cronenberg has said that his films should be seen "from the point of view of the disease", and that, for example, he identifies with the characters in Shivers after they become infected with the anarchic parasites. Disease and disaster, in Cronenberg's work, are less problems to be overcome than agents of personal transformation. Similarly, in Crash (1996), people who have been injured in car crashes attempt to view their ordeal as "a fertilizing rather than a destructive event". In 2005, Cronenberg would say that he was upset that Paul Haggis had chosen the same name for his Academy Award winning film Crash, feeling it was "stupid" and "very disrespectful."

Aside from The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly, Cronenberg has not generally worked within the world of big-budget, mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, although he has had occasional near misses. At one stage he was considered by George Lucas as a possible director for but was passed. Cronenberg also worked for nearly a year on a version of Total Recall but experienced "creative differences" with producers Dino De Laurentiis and Ronald Shusett. A different version of the film was eventually made by Paul Verhoeven. A fan of Philip K. Dick, author of "We Can Remember it For You Wholesale," the short story upon which the film was based, Cronenberg related (in the biography/overview of his work, Cronenberg on Cronenberg) that his dissatisfaction with what he envisioned the film to be and what it ended up being pained him so greatly that for a time, he suffered a migraine just thinking about it, akin to a needle piercing his eye.

In the late 1990s, Cronenberg was announced as director of a sequel to another Verhoeven film, Basic Instinct, but this also fell through. His recent work, the thriller A History of Violence (2005), is one of his highest budgeted and most accessible to date. He has said that the decision to direct it was influenced by his having had to defer some of his salary on the low-budgeted Spider, but it is one of his most critically acclaimed films to date, along with Eastern Promises (2007) a film about the struggle of one man to gain power in the Russian Mafia.

Cronenberg has collaborated with composer Howard Shore on all of his films since The Brood (1979), (see List of noted film director and composer collaborations) with the exception of The Dead Zone (1983), which was scored by Michael Kamen. Other regular collaborators include actor Robert Silverman, art director Carol Spier, sound editor Bryan Day, film editor Ronald Sanders, his sister, costume designer Denise Cronenberg, and, from 1979 until 1988, cinematographer Mark Irwin. In 2008, Cronenberg directed Howard Shore's first opera, The Fly.

Since 1988's Dead Ringers, Cronenberg has worked with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky on each of his films (see List of noted film director and cinematographer collaborations). Suschitzky was the director of photography for , and Cronenberg remarked that Suschitzky's work in that film "was the only one of those movies that actually looked good", which was a motivating factor to work with him on Dead Ringers.

Having worked with many Hollywood stars, Cronenberg says that he did not get to make a film with an actor he wanted to work with for a long time, Burt Reynolds. Cronenberg remains a staunchly Canadian filmmaker, with nearly all of his films (including major studio vehicles The Dead Zone and The Fly) having been filmed in his home province Ontario. Notable exceptions include M. Butterfly and Spider, most of which were shot in China and England, respectively. Rabid and Shivers were shot in and around Montreal. Most of his films have been at least partially financed by Telefilm Canada, and Cronenberg is a vocal supporter of government-backed film projects, saying "Every country needs [a system of government grants] in order to have a national cinema in the face of Hollywood".

Cronenberg has also appeared as an actor in other directors' films. Most of his roles are cameo appearances, as in Into The Night, Jason X, To Die For, and Alias, but on occasion he has played major roles, as in Nightbreed or Last Night. He has not played major roles in any of his own films, but he did put in a brief appearance as a gynecologist in The Fly; he can also be glimpsed among the sex-crazed hordes in Shivers; he can be heard as an unseen car-pound attendant in Crash; his hands can be glimpsed in eXistenZ; and he appeared as a stand-in for James Woods in Videodrome for shots in which Woods' character wore a helmet that covered his head.

In 2008 Cronenberg realized two extra-cinematographic projects: the exhibition Chromosomes at the Rome Film Fest and the opera The Fly at the LaOpera in Los Angeles and Theatre Châtelet in Paris.

Future projects

In July 2010, Cronenberg completed production on A Dangerous Method, an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure, starring Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, and frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen. The film was produced by independent British producer Jeremy Thomas.

He also plans to write and direct an adaptation of Don Delillo's Cosmopolis.

Awards and recognition

He received the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for Crash.

In 1999, Cronenberg was inducted onto Canada's Walk of Fame. In 2002, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2006 he was awarded the Cannes Film Festival's lifetime achievement award, the Carrosse d'Or.

Cronenberg has appeared on various "Greatest Director" lists. In 2004, Science Fiction magazine Strange Horizons named him the 2nd greatest director in the history of the genre, ahead of better known directors such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Jean-Luc Godard and Ridley Scott. In the same year, The Guardian listed him 9th on their list of "The world's 40 best directors". In addition, in 2007, Total Film named him as the 17th greatest director of all-time.

In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the senior national body of distinguished Canadian scientists and scholars.

In 2009 Cronenberg received the Légion d'honneur from the government of France. The following year Cronenberg was named an honorary patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.

Filmography

As director

;Feature films

Stereo (1969)

Crimes of the Future (1970)

Shivers (1975)

Rabid (1977)

Fast Company (1979)

The Brood (1979)

Scanners (1981)

Videodrome (1983)

The Dead Zone (1983)

The Fly (1986)

Dead Ringers (1988)

Naked Lunch (1991)

M. Butterfly (1993)

Crash (1996)

eXistenZ (1999)

Spider (2002)

A History of Violence (2005)

Eastern Promises (2007)

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Cosmopolis (2012)

;Short films

Transfer (1966)

From the Drain (1967)

Camera (2000)

To Each His Own Cinema (Chacun son cinéma) (2007)

* segment: At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World

;Television series

Programme X

* episode: *Secret Weapons (1972)

Peep Show

* episodes: The Victim (1975) & The Lie Chair [1975]

Teleplay

* episode: The Italian Machine (1976) watch it here (RealMedia)

* episode: 1.12 Faith Healer (1987)

Scales of Justice

* episodes: Regina vs Horvath (1990) & Regina vs Logan (1990)

;Television spots

Jim Ritchie Sculptor (1971)

Letter from Michelangelo (1971)

Tourettes (1971)

Don Valley (1972)

Fort York (1972)

Lakeshore (1972)

Winter Garden (1972)

Scarborough Bluffs (1972)

In the Dirt (1972)

;Commercials

Hydro

* Client: Ontario Hydro

* Product: Energy conservation

* Agency: Burghardt Wolowich Crunkhorn

* Production company: The Partners' Film Company Ltd.

* Format: 4 x 30-second commercials

* Titles: Hot Showers, Laundry, Cleaners, Timers

Caramilk

* Client: William Neilson Ltd.

* Product: Cadbury Caramilk

* Agency: Scali McCabe, Sloves (Canada) Ltd.

* Production company: The Partners' Film Company Ltd.

* Format: 2 x 30-second commercials

* Titles: Bistro, Surveillance

Nike

* Client: Nike International

* Product: Nike Air 180

* Agency: Wieden and Kennedy

* Production company: The Partners' Film Company Ltd.

* Format: 1 x 15-second/4 x 30-second commercials

* Title: Transformation

As producer

Dead Ringers (1988)

Crash (1996)

I'm Losing You (1998)

Drone (2008)

Cosmopolis (2012)

As actor

Into the Night (1985)

The Fly (1986, cameo)

Nightbreed (1990)

To Die For (1995, cameo)

Blood and Donuts (1995)

The Stupids (1996, cameo)

Extreme Measures (1996, cameo)

Last Night (1998)

Resurrection (1999)

Jason X (2002)

Alias (TV) (2003) (Episodes "Remnants" and "Conscious")

Barney's Version (2010, cameo)

Notes

Further reading

Mark Browning (2007): David Cronenberg: Author or Filmmaker? (ISBN 978-1-84150-173-4)

Thomas J. Dreibrodt (2000): Lang lebe das neue Fleisch. Die Filme von David Cronenberg — von 'Shivers' bis 'eXistenZ'. (academic; in German) (ISBN 978-3-932872-05-1)

Serge Grünberg, ed. (2006): David Cronenberg (interviews) (ISBN 978-0-85965-376-3)

Piers Handling (1983): The Shape of Rage: The Films of David Cronenberg (ISBN 978-0-7736-1137-5)

Kim Newman (1989): Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film 1968–1988 (ISBN 978-0-517-57366-2)

Drehli Robnik, Michael Palm, eds. (1992): Und das Wort ist Fleisch geworden. Texte über Filme von David Cronenberg. Vienna, PVS: 1992. ISBN 978-3-901196-02-7

External links

David Cronenberg at Rotten Tomatoes

David Cronenberg Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

An interview at Salon.com (November 1999)

BBC interview with Cronenberg (Video, October 2007)

David Cronenberg Profile by The New York Times Magazine (September 2005)

Category:1943 births Category:Canadian atheists Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian film directors Category:Surrealist filmmakers Category:Canadian Jews Category:Jewish atheists Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Genie Award winners for Best Achievement in Direction Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Jewish actors Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:People from Toronto Category:University of Toronto alumni Category:Living people Category:Genie Award winners for Best Screenplay

Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Name	Takashi Miike 三池 崇史
Caption	Miike at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
Birth date	August 24, 1960
Birth place	Yao, Osaka, Japan
Occupation	Director, producer, writer, actor

is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions. His films range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly.

Biography

Early life

Miike was born in Yao, Osaka, Japan, an area inhabited by the working class and immigrants, mostly from Korea. His family was originally from Kumamoto Prefecture. During World War II, his grandfather was stationed in China and Korea, and his father was born in Seoul. His father worked as a welder and his mother as seamstress. Although he claimed to have attended classes only rarely, he graduated from Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film (Yokohama Hoso Eiga Senmon Gakko) under the guidance of renowned filmmaker Shohei Imamura, the founder and Dean of that institution.

Career

Miike's first films were television productions, but he also began directing several direct-to-video V-Cinema releases. Miike still directs V-Cinema productions intermittently due to the creative freedom afforded by the less stringent censorship of the medium and the riskier content that the producers will allow.

Miike's theatrical debut was the film The Third Gangster (Daisan no gokudô). However it was Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) that was the first of his theatrical releases to gain public attention. The film showcased his extreme style and his recurring themes, and its success gave him the freedom to work on higher-budgeted pictures. Shinjuku Triad Society is also the first film in what is labeled his "Black Society Trilogy", which also includes Rainy Dog (1997) and Ley Lines (1999). He gained international fame in 2000 when his romantic horror film Audition (1999) his violent yakuza epic Dead or Alive (1999), and his controversial manga adaptation of Ichi the Killer played at international film festivals, . He has since gained a strong cult following in the West that is growing with the increase in DVD releases of his works. His latest film premiered In Competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Themes of his work

Miike has garnered international notoriety for depicting shocking scenes of extreme violence and sexual perversions. Many of his films contain graphic and lurid bloodshed, often portrayed in an over-the-top, cartoonish manner. Much of his work depicts the activities of criminals (especially yakuza) or concern themselves with non-Japanese living in Japan. He is known for his black sense of humor and for pushing the boundaries of censorship as far as they will go.

Despite his notorious reputation, Miike has also proven himself to be capable of directing lighthearted children's films (Zebraman, The Great Yokai War), touching period pieces (Sabu), and subdued, moving pictures such as the road movie The Bird People in China. Even in his more violent work, he is given to moments of surprising sentimentality, as in . His dabbling in every sort of genre and emotional range is a testament to his versatility as a director, though a lot of his output is genre-defying. For example, The Happiness of the Katakuris is an unconventional farcical musical-comedy-horror involving bizarre claymation sequences, zombies and b-movie pastiches.

Other less controversial works include Ley Lines and Agitator, which are character-driven, serious crime dramas. Graveyard of Honor (2002) is a remake of the 1975 Kinji Fukasaku film by the same name. Andoromedeia, perhaps one of his less renowned films, is a teen drama starring the pop girl-group Speed.

Critics have sometimes noted the puzzling discrepancy of Miike's artistic development noting that he appears to be simultaneously becoming more radical and more mainstream a director. Films like One Missed Call and The Great Yokai War are his most commercial works to date while films like Izo and the "Box" segment in Three... Extremes are less accessible and target arthouse audiences and fans of extreme cinema.

Despite Miike's voluminous output, it would be erroneous to consider him a dilettante or a director for hire. Academics have recognized Miike as an auteur, noting much depth as well as stylistic and thematic consistency in his body of work. Recurring themes and imagery in his work include reincarnation, birds, family, alienation, chaos and order. Films like Visitor Q and Izo are highly philosophical beneath their violent, taboo-laden exterior. This mingled with his imaginative and often idiosyncratic cinematography makes his work instantly recognizable regardless of the genre he works in.

He wrote the foreword to Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto by Tom Mes and provided a commentary for his segment "Box" from the film "Three Extremes" on the Region 1 DVD release.

American avant-garde guitarist Buckethead released a song called "Imprint (Dedicated to Takashi Miike)" on his album Pepper's Ghost in 2007.

Miike claims that Starship Troopers is his favorite movie. He admires film directors David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Paul Verhoeven.

Controversies

One of his most controversial films was the ultra-violent Ichi the Killer (2001), adapted from a manga of the same name and starring Tadanobu Asano as a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer. The extreme violence was initially exploited to promote the film: during its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2001, the audience received "barf bags" emblazoned with the film's logo as a promotional gimmick (one typically flamboyant gory killing involves a character slicing a man in half from head to groin, and severing another's face, which then slides down a nearby wall).

However, the British Board of Film Classification refused to allow the release of the film uncut in Britain, citing its extreme levels of sexual violence towards women. In Hong Kong, 15 minutes of footage were cut. In the United States it has been shown uncut (unrated). An uncut DVD was also released in the Benelux.

In 2005, Miike was invited to direct an episode of the Masters of Horror anthology series. The series, featuring episodes by a range of established horror directors such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and Dario Argento, was supposed to provide directors with relative creative freedom and relaxed restrictions on violent and sexual content (Some violent content was edited from the Dario Argento-directed episode Jenifer). However, when the Showtime cable network acquired the rights to the series, the Miike-directed episode Imprint was deemed too disturbing for the network. Showtime cancelled it from the broadcast lineup even after extended negotiations, though it was retained as part of the series' DVD release. Mick Garris, creator and executive producer of the series, described the episode as "amazing, but hard even for me to watch... definitely the most disturbing film I've ever seen".

While Imprint has yet to air in the United States, it has aired on Bravo in the UK, on FX in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela, on Nelonen in Finland and on Rai Tre in Italy. Anchor Bay Entertainment, which has handled the DVD releases for the Masters of Horror series in the US, released Imprint on R1 DVD on September 26, 2006.

Filmography

Director

Actor

Agitator (2001), as Shinozaki

Graveyard of Honor (2001), as Restaurant gunman

Ichi the Killer: Episode Zero (2002), Kakihara (voice)

Last Life in the Universe (2003), as Yakuza

Neighbour No. 13 (2005), as Kaneda

Hostel (2006), as Miike Takashi

Dōbutsu no Mori (2006), as Rokusuke/Pascal (voice)

Tenchijin (2009), as Hyogo Kariyasu

(2010), as himself, a friend of Bishop (voice)

Producer

The Making of 'Gemini' (2000)

Ryu ga Gotoku (2006)

Other work

In 2005 Takashi Miike directed a Kabuki style stage-play entitled Demon Pond. The DVD recording of this has been released by Cinema Epoch.

Quotes

"I go to the dentist, not a shrink." (interview with Daniel Robert Epstein) "Me, a 'Master of Horror'? I'm the guy that made 'Salaryman Kintarō'!" (Miike about his movie for the Masters of Horror series).

Further reading

Mes, Tom. Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003. ISBN 1-903254-21-3

Williams, Tony. "Takashi Miike's Cinema of Outrage." cineACTION 64 (2004): 54-62

"Izo: Takashi Miike's History Lesson." Asian Cinema 16.2 (2005): 85-109.

Gerow, Aaron. "The Homelessness of Style and the Problems of Studying Miike Takashi." Canadian Journal of Film Studies 18.1 (2009): 24-43

References

External links

Suicide is for the Birds: Takashi Miike's Tales of De-territorializing Flight at Fantasia 2003 and Beyond

2002 Interview at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film

SuicideGirls interview with Miike by Daniel Robert Epstein

Interview with Takashi Miike by Mark Schilling

Interview on midnighteye.com

Interview with Miike regarding his Yakuza work on 1UP.com

http://web.archive.org/web/20060508104916/www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.01/film.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20060508105742/www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.07/feature_miike_interview.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20060508105746/www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.07/feature_miike.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20060508103046/www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.08/film.shtml

Bibliography

Category:1960 births Category:Japanese film actors Category:Japanese film directors Category:Horror film directors Category:Living people Category:People from Yao, Osaka

Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Name	Ruggero Deodato
Caption	Ruggero Deodato in 2008.
Birth date
Birth place	Potenza, Italy
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1959 - present
Spouse

Ruggero Deodato (born May 7, 1939) is a controversial Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous in cult film circles for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.

Biography

Deodato was born in Potenza, Italy. He grew up in the neighborhood where Rome's major film studios are located. It was there that he learned how to direct under Roberto Rossellini and Sergio Corbucci; he helped to make Corbucci's The Son of Spartacus and Django as an assistant director. Later on in the '60s, he directed some comedy, musical, and thriller films, before leaving cinema to do TV commercials. In 1976 he returned to the big screen with his ultra-violent police flick Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man.

In 1977 he directed a jungle adventure called Ultimo Mondo Cannibale or "The Last Cannibal World" (aka Jungle Holocaust) starring famed British actress Me Me Lai with which he 'rebooted' the cannibal film / mondo genre started years earlier by Italian director Umberto Lenzi.

Late in 1979 he returned to the cannibal subgenre with his ultra-gory Cannibal Holocaust. Deodato created massive controversy in Italy and the United Kingdom following the release of Cannibal Holocaust, which was wrongly claimed by some to be a "snuff film" due to the overly realistic gore effects. Deodato was forced to reveal the secrets behind the film's special effects and to parade the lead actors before an Italian court in order to prove that they were still alive. Deodato also received condemnation, still ongoing, for the use of real animal torture in his films. Deodato's film license was temporarily revoked and he would not get it back until three years later, which then allowed him to release his 1980 thriller La casa sperduta nel parco / "House on the Edge of the Park", which was the most censored of the 'video nasties' in the United Kingdom for its graphic violence. His "Cut And Run" is a jungle adventure thriller, containing nudity, extreme violence and the appearance of Michael Berryman as a crazed, machete-wielding jungle man.

In the '80s he made some other slasher/horror films, including "Phantom of Death", "Dial Help" and "Body Count". In the '90s he turned to TV movies and dramas with some success. Recently, he made a cameo appearance in as a cannibal feasting on his victim’s leg.

Ruggero has made about two dozen films and TV series, his films covering many different genres, including many action films, a western, a barbarian film and even a family film called Mom I Can Do It.

Filmography

Director

Waves of Lust (1975)

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)

Jungle Holocaust (1977) aka Ultimo Mondo Canibale/ The Last Cannibal World

The Concorde Affaire '79 (1979)

Cannibal Holocaust (1979)

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980) aka La Casa Sperduta nel Parco

Raiders of Atlantis (1983)

Cut And Run (1985) aka Amazonia, The White Jungle, aka Inferno in Diretta, aka Hell...Live!

Body Count (1987) aka Camping del Terrore/ Camping Terror

The Barbarians and Company (1987)

Phantom of Death (1988) aka Un Delitto Poco Comune, aka Off Balance

Dial Help (1988) aka Ragno Gelido, aka Minaccia d'amore

The Washing Machine (1993)

Actor

(2007) as a cannibalistic client

Red Warlock - Awakening (2010) as a client

References

External links

Ruggero Deodato interview at Totalscifionline.com

Category:1939 births Category:Italian film directors Category:Horror film directors Category:Living people Category:People from the Province of Potenza

Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Name	Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky
Caption	Alejandro Jodorowsky at Japan Expo 2008 in Paris
Birth date	February 07, 1929
Birth place	Tocopilla, Chile
Occupation	Filmmaker, Actor, Writer
Spouse	Pascale Montadon| years_active = 1948-

Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky, known as Alejandro Jodorowsky, () (born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean filmmaker, playwright, composer and writer with a large cult following. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation." His most notable works include El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973) and Santa Sangre (1989), all of which have had limited release but achieved popularity amongst various countercultural groups. and has been described as an influence on such figures as Marilyn Manson and David Lynch. After a failed attempt to return to filmmaking with a film entitled King Shot starring Marilyn Manson and produced by David Lynch, Alejandro is set to return to cinema with the sequel to El Topo entitled Abel Cain sometime in late 2011 or 2012.

Jodorowsky is also a playwright and play director, having produced over one hundred plays, primarily in Mexico where he lived for much of his life. Alongside this he is also a writer, particularly of comic books - his The Incal even has been noted as having a claim to be "the best comic book" ever written - as well as books on his own theories about spirituality. Jodorowsky has been involved in the occult and various spiritual and religious groups, including Zen Buddhism and forms of Mexican shamanism, and has formulated his own spiritual system, which he has called "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism".

Biography

Early years (1929-1952)

Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in the coastal town of Tocopilla, Chile to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Yekaterinoslav (act. Dnipropetrovsk), Elisavetgrad (act. Kirovohrad) and other Ukrainian cities of the Russian Empire. His father, Jaime Jodorowsky Groismann, was a merchant who was largely abusive to his wife Sara Felicidad Prullansky Arcavi, at one time accused her of flirting with a customer. Angered, he subsequently beat and raped her, getting her pregnant, which led to the birth of Alejandro. Because of this brutal conception, Sara both hated her husband and disliked her son, telling him that "I cannot love you" and rarely showing him tenderness. Alejandro also had an elder sister, but disliked her for he believed that she was selfish, doing "everything to expel me from the family so that she could be the centre of attention." Alongside his dislike for his family, he also held contempt for many of the local people, who viewed him as an outsider because of his status as the son of immigrants, and also for the American mining industrialists who worked locally and treated the Chilean people badly. His family subsequently moved to the city of Santiago, Chile.

He immersed himself in reading, and also began writing poetry, having his first poem published when he was sixteen years old, alongside associating with such Chilean poets as Nicanor Parra and Enrique Lihn. and it was subsequently banned in Mexico.

It was in Mexico City that he encountered Ejo Takata (1928–1997), a Zen Buddhist monk who had studied at the Horyuji and Shofukuji monasteries in Japan before traveling to Mexico via the United States in 1967 to spread Zen. Jodorowsky became a disciple of Takata, and offered his own house to be turned into a zendo. Subsequently Takata attracted other disciples around him, who spent their time in meditation and the study of koans. Eventually, Takata instructed Jodorowsky that he had to learn more about his feminine side, and so he went and befriended the English surrealist Leonora Carrington who had recently moved to Mexico.

El Topo and The Holy Mountain (1970-1974)

In 1970, Jodorowsky released the film El Topo, which is sometimes known in English as The Mole, Knowing how Fando y Lis had caused such a scandal in Mexico, Jodorowsky decided not to release El Topo there, instead focusing on its release in other countries across the world, including Mexico’s northern neighbour, the United States. It was in New York City where the film would play as a "midnight movie" for several months at Ben Barenholtz’s The Elgin cinema. It attracted the attention of rock musician and counter-cultural figure John Lennon, who thought very highly of it, and convinced the president of The Beatles' company Apple Corps, Allen Klein, to distribute it in the United States.

Klein also agreed to give Jodorowsky $1 million to go towards creating his next film. The result was The Holy Mountain, released in 1973. It has been suggested that The Holy Mountain may have been inspired by Rene Daumal's surrealist novel Mount Analogue. The Holy Mountain was another complex, multi-part story that featured a man credited as "The Thief" and equated with Jesus Christ, a mystical alchemist played by Jodorowsky, seven powerful business people representing seven of the planets (Venus and the six planets from Mars to Pluto), a religious training regimen of spiritual rebirth, and a quest to the top of a holy mountain for the secret of immortality. During the completion of The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky received spiritual training from Oscar Ichazo of the Arica School, who encouraged him to take LSD and guided him through the subsequent psychedelic experience. Around the same time (2 November 1973), Jodorowsky participated in an isolation tank experiment conducted by John Lilly.

Shortly thereafter, Allen Klein demanded that Jodorowsky create a film adaptation of Pauline Réage's classic novel of female masochism, Story of O. Klein had promised this adaptation to various investors. Jodorowsky, who had discovered feminism during the filming of The Holy Mountain, refused to make the film, going so far as to leave the country to escape directing duties. In retaliation, Allen Klein made El Topo and The Holy Mountain, to which he held the rights, completely unavailable to the public for over 30 years. Jodorowsky frequently decried Klein's actions in interviews.

Soon after the release of The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky gave a talk at the Teatro Julio Castillo, University of Mexico on the subject of koans (despite the fact that he had initially been booked on the condition that his talk would be about cinematography), at which Ejo Takata appeared. After the talk, Takata gave Jodorowsky his kyosaku, believing that his former student had mastered the art of understanding koans.

Dune and Tusk (1975-1980)

In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights to Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 science fiction novel Dune and asked Jodorowsky to direct a film version. Agreeing, he planned to cast the surrealist artist Salvador Dali as the Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, who requested a fee of $100,000 per hour. He also planned to cast Orson Welles as the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who only agreed when Jodorowsky offered to get his favourite gourmet chef to prepare his meals for him throughout the filming. The book's protagonist, Paul Atreides, was to be played by Jodorowsky's own son, Brontis Jodorowsky. The music would be composed by Pink Floyd, Magma, Henry Cow and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction publications, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that $2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in pre-production, and that Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour movie ("It was the size of a phonebook", Herbert later recalled). Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship. The production for the film collapsed, and the rights for filming were sold once more, this time to Dino de Laurentiis, who employed the American filmmaker David Lynch to direct, creating the film Dune in 1984.

After the collapse of the Dune project, Jodorowsky completely changed course and, in 1980, premiered his children's fable Tusk, shot in India. Taken from Reginald Campbell's novel Poo Lorn of the Elephants, the film explores the soul-mate relationship between a young British woman living in India and a highly prized elephant. The film exhibited little of the director's outlandish visual style and was never given wide release. Jodorowsky has since disowned the film.

Santa Sangre and The Rainbow Thief (1981-1990)

In 1982 Jodorowsky divorced his wife.

In 1989, Jodorowsky completed the Mexican-Italian production Santa sangre (Holy Blood). The film received limited theatrical distribution, putting Jodorowsky back on the cultural map despite its mixed critical reviews. Santa Sangre was a surrealist film with a plot similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. It featured a protagonist who, as a child, saw his mother lose both her arms, and as an adult let his own arms act as hers, and so was forced to commit murders at her whim. Several of Jodorowsky's sons were recruited as actors.

He followed in 1990 with a very different film, The Rainbow Thief. Though it gave Jodorowsky a chance to work with actual "movie stars" Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, executive producer Alexander Salkind effectively curtailed most of Jodorowsky's artistic inclinations, threatening to fire him on the spot if anything in the script was changed (Salkind's wife, Berta Domínguez D., wrote the screenplay).

That same year (1990), Jodorowsky and his family returned to live in France.

In 1995, Alejandro’s son Teo died in an accident whilst his father was busy preparing for a trip to Mexico City to promote his new book. Upon arriving in Mexico City, he gave a lecture at the Julio Castillo Theatre where he once again met Ejo Takata, who at this time had moved into a poor suburb of the city where he had continued to teach meditation and Zen. Takata would die two years later, and Jodorowsky would never get to see his old friend again.

Later life (2000-present)

In 2000, Jodorowsky won the Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF). He attended the festival and his films were shown, including El Topo and The Holy Mountain, which at the time had grey legal status. According to festival director Bryan Wendorf, it was an open question of whether CUFF would be allowed to show both films, or whether the police would show up and shut the festival down.

Until 2007, Fando y Lis and Santa sangre were the only Jodorowsky's works available on DVD. Neither El Topo nor The Holy Mountain were available on videocassette or DVD in the United States or the United Kingdom, due to ownership disputes with distributor Allen Klein. After the dispute's settlement in 2004, however, plans to re-release Jodorowsky's films were announced by ABKCO Films. On January 19, 2007, the website announced that on May 1, 2007, Anchor Bay released a box set including El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando y Lis. A limited edition of the set includes both the El Topo and The Holy Mountain soundtracks. And, in early February 2007, Tartan Video announced its May 14, 2007, release date for the UK PAL DVD editions of El Topo, The Holy Mountain and the 6-disc box set which, alongside with the aforementioned feature films, includes the 2 soundtrack CDs, as well as separate DVD editions of Jodorowsky's 1968 debut feature Fando y Lis (with his 1957 short La cravate aka Les têtes interverties, included as an extra) and the 1994 feature-length documentary La constellation Jodorowsky. Notably, Fando y Lis and La cravate were extensively digitally restored and remastered in London during late 2006, thus providing the perfect complement to the quality restoration work undertaken on El Topo and The Holy Mountain in the States by Abkco, and ensuring that the presentation of Fando y Lis is a significant improvement over the 2001 Fantoma DVD edition. Prior to the availability of these legitimate releases, only inferior quality, optically censored bootleg copies of both El Topo and The Holy Mountain have been circulated on the Internet and on DVD.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jodorowsky attempted to make a sequel to El Topo, called at different times The Sons of El Topo and Abelcain, but could not find investors for the project.

In an interview with Premiere Magazine, Jodorowsky said he intended his next project to be a gangster film called King Shot. However, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper in November 2009, Jodorowsky revealed that he was unable to find the funds to make King Shot, and would instead be entering preparations on Sons of El Topo, for which he claimed to have signed a contract with "some Russian producers". (Raymond J. Markovich, Olga Mirimskaya and Arcadiy Golybovich) - Parallell Media Films on a film entitled Abel Cain which is the sequel to his 1970 film El Topo.

Personal life

Jodorowsky was married to his wife Valerie for many years, from whom he had a number of sons, including Adán, Teo and Cristóbal. Brontis is his older son, which he had with Bernadette Landru. He also has a daughter and two cats.

Psychomagic

Jodorowsky spent over fifteen years reconstructing the original form of the Tarot de Marseille. From this work he moved in to more therapeutic work in three areas: psychomagic, psychogenealogy and initiatic massage. Psychomagic aims to heal psychological wounds suffered in life. This therapy is based on the belief that the performance of certain acts can directly act upon the unconscious mind, releasing it from a series of traumas, some of which are passed down from generation to generation. Psychogenealogy includes the studying of the patient’s personality and family tree in order to best address their specific sources. It is similar, in its phenomenological approach to genealogy, to the Constellations pioneered by Bert Hellinger.

Jodorowsky has several books on his therapeutic methods, including Psicomagia: La trampa sagrada (Psychomagic: The Sacred Trap) and his autobiography La danza de la realidad (The Dance of Reality), which he's filming as a feature length film in March 2011. To date he has published over 23 novels and philosophical treaties, along with dozens of articles and interviews. His books are widely read in Spanish and French, but are for the most part unknown to English-speaking audiences.

Throughout his career, Jodorowsky has gained a reputation as a philosopher and scholar who presents the teachings of religion, psychology and spiritual masters, by molding them into pragmatic and imaginative endeavors. All of his enterprises integrate an artistic approach. Currently Jodorowsky dedicates much of his time to lecturing about his work.

For a quarter of a century, Jodorowsky held classes and lectures for free, in cafés and universities all over the city of Paris. Typically, such courses or talks would begin on Wednesday evenings as tarot divination lessons, and would culminate in an hour long conference, also free, where at times hundreds of attendees would be treated to live demonstrations of a psychological "arbre généalogique" ("tree of genealogy") involving volunteers from the audience. In these conferences, Jodorowsky would pave the way to building a strong base of students of his philosophy, which deals with understanding the unconscious as the "over-self" which is composed of many generations of family relatives, living or deceased, acting on our own psyche, well into our adult lives, and causing our compulsions. It is important to note that of all his work, Jodorowsky considers these activities to be the most important of his life. Though such activities only take place in the insular world of Parisian cafés, he has devoted thousands of hours of his life to teaching and helping people "become more conscious," as he puts it.

Presently, these talks have dwindled to once a month and take place at the "Librairie Les Cent Ciels" in Paris.

Comic books

Jodorowsky started his comic career in Mexico with the creation of Anibal 5 series in the mid 1966 with illustrations by Manuel Moro, and had his turn in drawing his own comic strip in the weekly series Fabulas pánicas that appeared in the Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de México. He also wrote original stories for at least two or three other comic books in Mexico during those days: Los insoportables Borbolla was one of them. After his fourth film, Tusk, he started The Incal, with Jean Giraud (Mœbius). This graphic novel has its roots deep in the tarot and its symbols, e.g., the protagonist of The Incal, John Difool, is linked to the Fool card. The Incal (which would branch off into a prequel and sequel) forms the first in a sequence of several science fiction comic book series, all set in the same space opera Jodoverse (or "Metabarons Universe") published by Humanoids Publishing.

Comic books set in this milieu are Incal (trilogy: Before the Incal/ Incal/ Final Incal), Metabarons (trilogy: Castaka/ The Caste of the Metabarons/ Weapons of the Metabaron) and The Technopriests and also a RPG adaptation, The Metabarons Roleplaying Game. Many ideas and concepts derived from Jodorowsky's planned adaptation of Dune (which he would have only loosely based upon Frank Herbert's original novel) are featured in this universe.

Mœbius and Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson, director of The Fifth Element, claiming that the 1997 film borrowed graphic and story elements from The Incal, but lost their case. The suit was plagued by ambiguity since Mœbius himself had willingly participated in the creation of the film, having been hired by Besson as a contributing artist, but had done so without gaining the approval of Incal co-creator Jodorowsky, whose services Besson did not call upon. For over a decade, Jodorowsky pressured his publisher Les Humanoïdes Associés to sue Luc Besson for plagiarism, but the publisher refused, fearing the inevitability of the final outcome. In a 2002 interview with the Danish comic book magazine Strip!, Jodorowsky actually claimed that he considered it an honour that somebody stole his ideas.

Other action comics by Jodorowsky outside the genre of science fiction include the historically-based Bouncer illustrated by Francois Boucq, Juan Solo (Son of the Gun) and Le Lama blanc (The White Lama), both illustrated by Georges Bess.

Le Cœur couronné (The Crowned Heart, translated into English as The Madwoman of the Sacred Heart), a racy satire on religion set in contemporary times, won Jodorowsky and his collaborator, Jean Giraud, the 2001 Haxtur Award for Best Long Strip. He is currently working on a new graphic novel for the US market.

Jodorowsky's comic book work also appears in Taboo volume 4 (ed. Stephen R. Bissette), which features an interview with the director, designs for his version of Frank Herbert's Dune, comic storyboards for El Topo, and a collaboration with Moebius with the illustrated Eyes of the Cat.

He collaborated with Milo Manara in Borgia (2006), a graphic novel about the history of the House of Borgia.

Comics bibliography

Anibal 5, artwork by Moro (Mexico, 1966)

Fábulas pánicas (issues 1-5), artwork by Jodorowsky [Novaro, México, 1975].

Fabulas pánicas, approx. 120 different comic strips were published by El Heraldo de México (1968–1973)

L'Incal, artwork by Moebius, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 L' Incal Noir, 1981

*2 L'Incal Lumière, 1982

*3 Ce qui est en bas, 1983

*4 Ce qui est en haut, 1985

*5 La Cinquième Essence - 1 Galaxie qui songe, 1988

*6 La Cinquième Essence - 2 La Planète Difool, 1989

Avant l'Incal, artwork by Zoran Janjetov, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Adieu le père

*2 Détective privé de classe "R"

3 Croot

*4 Anarcopsychotiques

*5 Ouisky, SPV et homéoputes

*6 Suicide Allée

Après l'Incal, artwork by Moebius, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Le Nouveau rêve, 2000

Final Incal, artwork by José Omar Ladrönn, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Les Quatre John Difool, 2008

*2 Louz de Gara, 2011

Les Technopères, artwork by Zoran Janjetov, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 La Pré-école Techno

*2 L'École pénitentiaire de Nohope

*3 Planeta Games

*4 Halkattrazz, l'étoile des Bourreaux

*5 La secte des Techno-évêques

*6 Les secrets du Techno-Vatican

*7 Le jeu parfait

*8 La Galaxie promise

Les Aventures d'Alef-Thau, artwork by Arno, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 L'enfant tronc

*2 Le Prince Manchot

*3 Le Roi Borgne

*4 Le seigneur des illusions

*5 L'Empereur Boiteux

*6 L'homme sans réalité

*7 La porte de la vérité

*8 Le triomphe du rêveur (artwork by Covial)

* (artwork by Marco Nizzoli)

Le Lama blanc, artwork by Georges Bess, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Le premier pas

*2 La seconde vue

*3 Les trois oreilles

*4 La quatrième voix

*5 Main ouverte, main fermée

*6 Triangle d'eau, triangle de feu

Juan solo, artwork by Georges Bess, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Fils de flingue

*2 Les chiens du pouvoir

*3 La chair et la gale

*4 Saint salaud

Aliot, 1996, artwork by Víctor de la Fuente, Dargaud

*1: Le fils des ténèbres

Anibal cinq, artwork by Georges Bess, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Dix femmes avant de mourir, 1990

*2 Chair d'orchidée pour le cyborg, 1992

Astéroïde Hurlant (2006)

Borgia, artwork by Milo Manara, Albin Michel

*1 Du sang pour le pape, 2004

*2 Le pouvoir et l'inceste, 2006

*3 Les flammes du bûcher, 2008

*4 Tout est vanité, 20011

Bouncer, artwork by François Boucq, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Un diamant pour l'au-delà, 2001

*2 La pitié des bourreaux, 2002

*3 La justice des serpents, 2003

*4 La vengeance du manchot, 2005

*5 La proie des louves, 2006

Face de lune, artwork by François Boucq, Casterman

*1 La cathédrale invisible, 1992

**1/2 Le dompteur de vagues, 2003

**2/2 La cathédrale invisible, 2003

*2 La pierre de faîte, 1997

**1/2 La pierre de faîte, 2004

**2/2 La femme qui vient du ciel, 2004

*3 ou 5 L'Œuf de l'Âme, 2004

La caste des méta-barons, artwork by Juan Giménez, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Othon le Trisaïeul, 1992

*2 Honorata la Trisaïeule, 1993

*3 Aghnar le Bisaïeul, 1995

*4 Oda la Bisaïeule, 1997

*5 Tête d'Acier l'Aïeul, 1998

*6 Doña Vicenta Gabriela de Rokha l'Aïeule, 1999

*7 Aghora le Père-mère, 2002

*8 Sans nom, le dernier méta-baron, 2004

*Hors série La maison des ancêtres, 2000

*Int La caste des méta-barons - L'intégrale, 2003

Dayal de Castaka, artwork by Das Pastoras, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Le Premier Ancêtre, 2007

Mégalex, artwork by Fred Beltran, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 L'anomalie, 1999

*2 L'ange Bossu, 2002

*3 Le cœur de Kavatah, 2008

Le Cœur couronné, artwork by Moebius, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 La Folle du Sacré Cœur, 1992

*2 Le Piège de l'irrationnel, 1993

*3 Le Fou de la Sorbonne, 1998

Le Dieu jaloux, artwork by Silvio Cadelo, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*1 Le Dieu jaloux, 1984

*2 L'Ange carnivore, 1986

*int La Saga d'Alandor, 1991

Moebius, artwork by Moebius, Les Humanoïdes Associés

*8 Les Yeux du Chat, 1978

*10 Griffes d'Ange, 1994

*11 Chaos

Showman Killer, artwork by Nicolas Fructus, Editions Delcourt

*1 "Un héros sans coeur", 2010

Plays (incomplete)

Zaratustra (Mexico, 1970)

El ensueño

La ópera del orden

El Gorila

Las sillas

Penélope

El diario de un loco

El juego que todos jugamos (Mexico, 1976)

''Lucrecia Borgia" (Mexico, 1977)

Opera panique

El Sueno sin fin (Mexico, 2008)**Opening night April 15

Other work

He weekly comments "good news" for the nightly "author newsreport" of his friend Fernando Sánchez-Dragó in Telemadrid.

Jodorowsky also released a 12" vinyl with the Original Soundtrack of Zarathustra (Discos Tizoc, Mexico, 1970)

Filmography

The Jodorowsky Constellation documentary (1994) directed by Louis Mouchet.

Bibliography

Cuentos Panicos (1963) illustrations by Roland Topor

Teatro Pánico (1965)

Juegos Pánicos (1965)

El Topo, fábula pánica con imágenes (1970) screenplay from the film El Topo

Fábulas Pánicas (1977) reprints from some strips of el Heraldo de Mexico

Las ansias carnívoras de la nada (1991)

Donde mejor canta un pájaro (1992)

Psychomagie/Approches d´une thérapie panique (1995) ISBN 968-6941-04-5

Griffes D´Ange (1996) illustrations by Jean Giraud

Antología Pánica (1996) with Daniel González-Dueñas

Los Evangelios para sanar (1997) ISBN 968-27-0701-3

La Sagesse des blagues;Le doigt et la lune;Les histoires de Mulla Nasrudin (1997) illustrations by George Bess

El niño del jueves negro (1999)

Albina y los hombres-perro (2000)

La Trampa Sagrada (2000)

No basta decir (2000)

La danza de la realidad (2001) Jodorowksy's autobiography ISBN 987-566-067-1

El loro de las siete lenguas (2001)

El Paso del ganso (2001)

Ópera Panique,ou l`éloge de la quotidenneté (2001) play

El tesoro de la sombra (2003)

Fábulas Pánicas (2003) reprints of all strips of el Heraldo de México

El dedo y la luna (2004)

Piedras del camino (2004)

La voie du Tarot (2004)

Yo, el tarot (2004)

El Maestro y las Magas (2006)

The Spiritual Journey Of Alejandro Jodorowsky (2008)

Poesía sin fin (2009)

Metagenealogía (2011), with Marianne Costa.

Theater

La fantasma cosquillosa (farsa iniciática) (1948)

La princesa Araña (asquerosa opereta surrealista para niños mutantes, escrita con Leonora Carrington) (1958)

Melodrama sacramental (1965)

Zaratustra (aventura metafísica) (1970)

El túnel que se come por la cola (auto sacramental pánico) (1970)

El mirón convertido (tragedia pánica) (1971)

Pedrolino (mimodrama ballet) (1998)

Ópera pánica (cabaret trágico) (2001)

Escuela de ventrílocuos (comedia absurda) (2002)

Las tres viejas (melodrama grotesco) (2003)

Hipermercado (paporreta infame) (2004)

El sueño sin fin (drama sublime) (2006)

Sangre real (drama antiguo) (2007).

Teatro sin fin (tragedias, comedias y mimodramas) (Madrid, 2007). Antology.

Le gorille / The gorilla (2010), inspired by Franz Kafka's short story A Report to an Academy (Ein Bericht für eine Akademie, 1917).

Other information

In 2005, Jodorowsky officiated at the wedding of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese.

Jodorowsky once stated: "the panic man is not, he is ever becoming" to reference Alfred Korzybski's influence on his thought.

Sources

Jodorowsky publications in Métal Hurlant BDoubliées Jodorowsky albums Bedetheque Jodorowsky publications in English www.europeancomics.net ;Footnotes

External links

BBC Collective video interview with film clips

Jodorowsky official site

The Symbol Grows: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Jodorowsky le scénariste (contains list of comic works)

Jodo Universe: Inside the Esoteric Mind of Alejandro Jodorowsky (from Res Magazine)

Premiere Magazine interview with Jodorowsky

Publisher of Anarchy and Alchemy book

A Book of the Film web adaptation of the screenplay + rare vintage interviews with Jodorowsky

The Sounds of El Topo free mp3 downloads of the ultrarare Apple and "Shades of Joy" soundtrack releases + sound clips from the film

JODOROWSKO página dedicada a Jodorowsky y su café La Temeraire

Alejandro Jodorowsky - Unseen Dune

Jodorowsky video interview

Jodorowsky interviews Marylin Manson

Dune: Book to Screen Timeline

Jodorowsky - After Screening Talk #1

Jodorowsky - After Screening Talk #2

Alejandro Jodorowsky interview at Totalscifionline.com

Category:Chilean film directors Category:Experimental filmmakers Category:Chilean comics writers Category:French comics writers Category:French Jews Category:Naturalized citizens of France Category:Jodoverse Category:Mexican comics writers Category:Mexican film directors Category:Mimes Category:Alchemists Category:Occultists Category:Mystics Category:Esotericists Category:Psychotherapists Category:Chilean Jews Category:Mexican people of Chilean descent Category:Naturalized citizens of Mexico Category:Chilean people of Russian descent Category:Russian Jews Category:1929 births Category:Living people Category:People from Tocopilla

Coordinates	11°30′″N77°12′″N
Name	Franco Nero
Caption	Franco Nero, August 2008
Birth name	Francesco Sparanero
Birth date	November 23, 1941
Birth place	Parma, Italy
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1962–present
Spouse	Vanessa Redgrave, married on 31 December 2006 ()
Children	Carlo Gabriel Nero, Franquito

Franco Nero (born 23 November 1941) is an Italian actor.

Early life

Nero was born Francesco Sparanero in San Prospero Parmense (province of Parma, Emilia-Romagna), the son of a sergeant in the carabinieri. He grew up in Bedonia and in Milan. He studied briefly at the Economy and Trade faculty of the local university, before leaving to study at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano.

Actor Race

Nero's first film role was a small part in La ragazza in prestito (1964), and he had his first lead role in Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966) a Spaghetti Western and one of his best known films. In 1966 from Django he went on to appear in eight more films released that year including Texas, addio (1967) and Tempo di massacro.

In 1967, he appeared in Camelot as Lancelot, where he met his long time romantic partner, and later on in life his wife, Vanessa Redgrave. Following this he appeared in the mafia film Il giorno della civetta opposite Claudia Cardinale released in 1968.

A lack of proficiency in English tended to limit these roles, although he also appeared in other English language films including The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Enter the Ninja (1981) and Die Hard 2 (1990).

Although often typecast in films like Los amigos (1972) or Keoma (1976) he has attempted an impressive range of characters, such as Abel in John Huston's epic (1966), the humiliated engineer out for revenge in Street Law, the gay lieutenant in Querelle (1982) and Serbian mediaeval hero in Banović Strahinja (1983). He has appeared in over 150 films, and has written, produced and starred in one: Jonathan degli orsi (1993).

More recently, he starred in Hungarian director Gábor Koltay's Honfoglalás (Conquest) in 1996, in Li chiamarono... briganti! (1999) by Pasquale Squitieri and subsequently in Koltay's Sacra Corona (Holy Crown) in 2001.

In 2010, Nero appeared in the film Letters to Juliet with Redgrave.

Personal life

His romantic involvement with British actress Vanessa Redgrave began in 1967 when they met on the set of Camelot. In 1969, they had a son, Carlo Gabriel Sparanero (known professionally as Carlo Nero), a screenwriter and director. After separating for many years, during which they both had relationships with other people, they reunited and married on 31 December 2006. Carlo Nero directed Redgrave in the cinematic adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play The Fever.

Nero walked his future stepdaughter Natasha Richardson down the aisle when she married actor Liam Neeson. She died on 18 March 2009, due to a skiing-related head injury.

In 1987, while filming in Cartagena, Colombia, he was involved in an affair with Mauricia Mena and fathered a son named Franquito.

Discography

1985 - Will Change The World/Cambierà (Lovers, LVNP 802, 7" - with his son Carlo)

References

External links

Category:1941 births Category:Italian film actors Category:Living people Category:People from the Province of Modena Category:Spaghetti Western actors Category:Western (genre) film actors