Bill Condon

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William "Bill" Condon (born October 22, 1955 in New York City , New York ) is an American film director , screenwriter and film producer .

Life

Training and directorial debut

Bill Condon was born in New York in 1955. Fascinated by movies from childhood, he attended Regis High School and then moved to Columbia College at Columbia University in New York , where he later studied philosophy . After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Condon began working as a journalist for film magazines such as American Film and Millimeter . An analytical work published in Millimeter magazine introduced him to the film producer Michael Laughlin in the early 1980s , who wrote the screenplay for Condon's directorial debut The Experiments of Dr. S. (1981). In the thriller , which is set in a small town in the American Midwest , the two leading actors Michael Murphy and Louise Fletcher are confronted with an experimental scientist who turns high school teenagers into unscrupulous murderers. Two years later, Condon wrote the screenplay for Michael Laughlin's second feature film, The Secret of Centerville , which received positive reviews and, like The Experiments of Dr. S. was to become a cult film in the USA in the coming years. In The Secret of Centerville , cast again with Louise Fletcher, Paul Le Mat and Nancy Allen , a university professor searches for an alien invasion in search of his missing wife .

After the first two film productions as a screenwriter, Bill Condon, who is only 1.65 m tall, took his place in the director's chair for the first time in 1987. The thriller Sister, Sister , also known as The Hotel on Death Marsh , which he co- wrote the script with Ginny Cerrella and Joel Cohen , tells the story of adult siblings Lucy and Charlotte who run a bed-and-breakfast in southern Louisiana . Run the hostel. Years before, in self-defense, the two killed Charlotte's childhood friend Jud and sank his body in the nearby swamps . When Jud's brother Matt stops by Lucy and Charlotte, the secret threatens to be revealed. While the performance of the two leading actresses Judith Ivey and Jennifer Jason Leigh was praised, the film plot was criticized, which seemed too based on the works of Alfred Hitchcock .

TV work and success with Gods and Monsters

After the failure of his directorial debut, Bill Condon worked for American television for several years. In 1991 the filmmaker made his television debut as a director with Murder 101 . In the thriller, a successful writer and university professor (played by Pierce Brosnan ) is confronted with the mysterious death of one of his students and is himself suspected of murder. In the same year, the television films Hate of the South , a provocative story about racial hatred in the American southern states, and The Perfect Murder , in which a successful lawyer plans to eliminate the unloved wife with his secretary (played by Teri Hatcher ) followed. That same year, Bill Condon wrote the screenplay for Richard Franklin's action film F / X 2 - The Deadly Illusion , but it would be four years before he was to return to directing a cinema production. After the television works The Beast Behind the Mask (1993) with Robert Ulrich and the then unknown Gwyneth Paltrow and The Man Who Never Died (1995) with Roger Moore in the lead role, Condon directed the film Candyman 2 - The Blood Revenge . The horror film is a sequel to Bernard Roses Candyman's Curse from 1992 and is based on the novel by Clive Barker , with whom Condon wrote the script. It tells the story of a serial killer named Candyman who goes on the hunt for a teacher (played by Kelly Rowan ) in New Orleans and has made over $ 6 million in box office profits.

In 1998, Bill Condon took on the adaptation of Christopher Brams novel Father of Frankenstein , which reports on the last days in the life of homosexual film director James Whale (1889-1957). For the lead role of Whale, who made film history with horror films such as Frankenstein (1931) or Frankenstein's Bride (1935), Condon was able to engage the also homosexual film and theater actor Ian McKellen . The $ 3.5 million independent film , starring Brendan Fraser , Lynn Redgrave and Lolita Davidovich and produced by Clive Barker, was shot in 21 days and became one of the most successful films of the 1998 cinema year Critics praised Condon's intelligent and poetic staging, as well as the acting performances of Ian McKellen and Lynn Redgrave. The drama, which grossed almost 6.4 million US dollars in the US, received the National Board of Review award for best film of the year and three Golden Globe nominations. At the 1999 Academy Awards , Gods and Monsters was nominated for three Academy Awards, but only Bill Condon beat the competition in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

Chicago, Kinsey and Dreamgirls

After the great success of Gods and Monsters , Bill Condon did not return to the director's chair until two years later to direct episode 1112 of the television series The Others . In the format between science fiction and horror , Julianne Nicholson played the lead role of a clairvoyant college student. In 2001 Condon provided the script for the fantasy film The Devil and Daniel Webster , in which Anthony Hopkins, an unsuccessful writer for fame and fortune, sold his soul to the devil. The filmmaker was only able to build on the success of Gods and Monsters a year later with the script for Rob Marshall's musical adaptation of Chicago . The film, starring Richard Gere , Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones , won six Academy Awards at the 2003 Academy Awards, including the trophy for Best Picture of the Year. Bill Condon, himself an Oscar nominee, was left behind against Ronald Harwood , who received an award for his script on Roman Polański's The Pianist . A year later, Condon took as a director and screenwriter successfully the film adaptation of the life of Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1965). The biopic, which was published in Germany under the title Kinsey - The Truth About Sex , was not a financial success, but was in the favor of film critics and received three nominations for the Golden Globe. Leading actor Liam Neeson received the award of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for his role as the controversial sex researcher , while supporting actress Laura Linney received her second Oscar nomination.

In February 2006, filming began on Bill Condon's fifth directorial work for the cinema. The film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dreamgirls from 1981 takes the career of the music group The Supremes as a model. The musical at the time starring Jennifer Holliday , Sheryl Lee Ralph , Loretta Devine , Ben Harney , Cleavant Derricks and Obba Babatundé , won the approval of critics and audiences and was awarded the most important American theater award, Tony , six times in 1982 . For his film version about the rise of three African American singers in the early 1960s, Condon was able to win over Beyoncé , Oscar winner Jamie Foxx , Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover . The film, produced by the film studios DreamWorks SKG and Paramount Pictures , opened in American cinemas on December 21, 2006 and just one month later was able to reach its production costs of 70 million US dollars (approx. 53.7 million euros). import again. American critics were divided on the film, which was awarded three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards. While Dreamgirls was praised by Entertainment Weekly as a "rare film musical with a real ecstasy of joy" , the Washington Post criticized the selection of music based on the songs from the 1980s Broadway musical and spoke of an "unequaled success" . The German film service criticized Bill Condon's directorial work and noted that Dreamgirls would "ultimately [...] drift between artist-drama, musical and historical quasi-bio-pic" .

In 2009, Condon produced the 81st Academy Awards . A year later he directed the television series The Big C (2010). He then took over the direction of the two-part finale of the Twilight saga ( Until (s) the end of the night ); the cinema release of the first part is planned for November 2011. He is currently working on a biography of the actor Richard Pryor , in which Marlon Wayans will play the leading role.

Bill Condon is a member of the Independent Feature Project (IFP) in Los Angeles , a non-profit organization that supports independent films, and the Independent Writers Steering Committee , which was initiated by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Privately, Condon is in a relationship with his longtime partner Jack Morrissey.

Further directorial work

With Breaking Dawn - Bite to the End of the Night, Part 1 (published 2011) and Breaking Dawn - Bite to the End of the Night, Part 2 (published in 2012), Condon staged the last two parts of the Twilight film series, which are based on the novel Bis (p ) based on the end of the night . Received mixed by the critics, both were financially successful worldwide.

In 2013, Inside Wikileaks followed - The Fifth Estate , which is about the story of WikiLeaks . His next film, Mr. Holmes (2015) centered on an aging Sherlock Holmes . Beauty and the Beast , the remake of the 1991 cartoon of the same name , was Condons' most successful film to date in financial terms.

Filmography

Director

Screenwriter

producer

Awards

Oscar

  • 1999: Best Adapted Screenplay for Gods and Monsters
  • 2003: Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Chicago

Golden Globe Award

  • 2003: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Chicago

Further

Bram Stoker Prize

  • 1999: Best Screenplay for Gods and Monsters

British Independent Film Award

  • 1999: Nominated for Best Director for Gods and Monsters

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2005: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Kinsey - The Truth About Sex

Chicago International Film Festival

  • 1998: Second place in the Audience Award for Gods and Monsters

Chlotrudis Award

  • 1999: Nominated for Best Director for Gods and Monsters

Deauville Film Festival

  • 1998: Critics' Prize, nominated for the Great Special Prize for Gods and Monsters

Directors Guild of Great Britain

  • 2005: Nominated for Best International Film Director for Kinsey - The Truth About Sex

Edgar Allan Poe Prize

  • 1992: Best TV movie or TV miniseries for Mord 101
  • 2003: Best Picture for Chicago

Flanders International Film Festival

GLAAD Media Award

  • 2005: Stephen F. Kolzak Prize

Golden Raspberry

  • 2012 : nominated in the category Worst Director for Breaking Dawn - Until the End of the Night - Part 1
  • 2013 : Worst Director for Breaking Dawn - Until the End of the Night - Part 2

Independent Spirit Award

  • 1999: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Gods and Monsters
  • 2005: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Kinsey - The Truth About Sex

Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián

  • 1998: Special Jury Award, nominated in the Best Film category for Gods and Monsters

Satellite Awards

  • 1999: Best Adapted Screenplay for Gods and Monsters
  • 2003: Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Chicago
  • 2005: Nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Kinsey - The Truth About Sex

Saturn Award

  • 1984: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Centerville Secret

Seattle International Film Festival

  • 1998: Best Director for Gods and Monsters

USC Scripter Award

  • 1999: Nominated for Best Screenplay for Gods and Monsters

Writers Guild of America

  • 1999: Nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Gods and Monsters
  • 2003: Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Chicago
  • 2005: Nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Kinsey - The Truth About Sex

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. cf. Film review by Owen Gleiberman at ew.com
  2. cf. Hornaday, Ann: Dream Sequins . In: The Washington Post, December 25, 2006, p. C01
  3. cf. Film review by Jörg Gerle in film-dienst 03/2007
  4. cf. AP : Bill Condon to direct fourth 'Twilight' film . April 28, 2010, 7:18 PM GMT, Los Angeles (accessed via LexisNexis Business )
  5. cf. Boucher, Geoff: Taking Him Seriously . In: Los Angeles Times , February 21, 2010, Part D, p. 1