Anthony Mann

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Anthony Mann, actually Emil Anton Bundesmann (born June 30, 1906 in San Diego , † April 29, 1967 in Berlin ), was an American film director .

Life

Mann began his career in New York City as a stage actor and director on Broadway . The producer David O. Selznick brought him to Hollywood as a unit manager and assistant director , where he made test recordings for the films Gone with the Wind and Rebecca . As a film director, he initially made B-films in the 1940s , including a number of film noirs that are now valued by film historians, such as secret agent T and Escape without a way out , for whose visual profile cameraman John Alton was responsible. The success of these films earned Mann and Alton a contract with the MGM production company .

Mann's heyday began in 1950 with a series of westerns filmed for Universal Pictures . James Stewart played the leading role in five of these, and Borden Chase was often responsible for the script . Both film historians like Georg Seeßlen and directors like Martin Scorsese pointed out the thematic consistency of these films: “Mann's Westerns […] are about a Westerner who, consciously or unconsciously, has already broken with society […] is also expressed in his deeds: strenuous acts of violence that only have their meaning in themselves, but "historically" have no effect. […] In the connection of [sic] emotional and material incentives for violence […] Mann's Westerns refer to the development of the Spaghetti Western . ”(Georg Seeßlen / Claudius Weil: Western-Kino )

A turning point in his career came in 1960 when he was commissioned to direct the MGM production Cimarron . It was his last western and at the same time his first epic film. After arguments with the producer, he was replaced halfway through the shooting by Charles Walters . He came into contact with a large-scale production for the first time as early as 1951: In Quo Vadis he shot the conflagration with the second camera team. The scenes in the gladiator school in Spartacus also came from him. After artistic differences with producer and lead actor Kirk Douglas , he was replaced by Stanley Kubrick . With producer Samuel Bronston he directed El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire , which for a long time was the last monumental film with an ancient background.

After working again with Kirk Douglas in the war film “Heavy Water” , he was just shooting the film Death Dance of a Killer in Berlin when he died of heart failure. Leading actor Laurence Harvey completed the film.

Filmography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , p. 39.
  2. ↑ In: Martin Scorsese: Eine Reise durch den Demokratie (A Century Of Cinema - A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies) , USA 1995.
  3. ^ Georg Seeßlen, Claudius Weil: Western cinema. History and Mythology of Western Films. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1979, pp. 151-153.
  4. ^ Jean-Claude Missiaen: Conversation with Anthony Mann , Framework, 15-17 (1981), pp. 17-20.
personal data
SURNAME Man, Anthony
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bundmann, Emil Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH San Diego
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1967
Place of death Berlin