David Weisman

David Weisman (2009)

David Weisman (born March 11, 1942 in Binghamton , New York , † October 9, 2019 in Los Angeles ) was an American film producer , director , graphic designer and filmmaker who was nominated for an Oscar in 1986 with the drama Kiss of the Spider Woman was.

Life

David Weisman, who was born in upstate New York in 1942, was so overwhelmed by a movie poster for The Sweet Life that he decided to drop out of Syracuse University and attend the School of Fine Arts in the early 1960s . His long-term goal was to design movie posters in Rome. In fact, because he spoke fluent Italian, he managed to come into contact with Federico Fellini , where he created the poster for Fellini's drama Eight and a Half . He also worked for the director Pier Paolo Pasolini .

Weisman's versatile language skills allowed him to work as a freelance artist in Québec as well as in France , Holland , Israel , Germany and Brazil . Back in his native New York, he was hired by Otto Preminger to replace Saul Bass in 1967 to create the graphic design for his southern state drama Tomorrow is a New Day . He then worked as Preminger's assistant for Paramount Pictures . At the same time he turned to experimental filmmakers and worked with a splinter group from the Andy Warhol Factory . During this time he also began to play his cult classic Ciao! Manhattan , which took five years to complete. The semi-documentary film tells of the life and decline of the Susan superstar alias Edie Sedgwick , a New York style icon of the 1960s from Andy Warhol's entourage.

Weisman created the action adventure film Shogun Assassin in 1980 from a series of Japanese samurai films . In 1981 he began work on the documentary The Killing of America , which deals with the development of violence in the United States. It was his first collaboration with Leonard Schrader, whose knowledge of Latin American literature combined with Weisman's familiarity with Brazilian culture benefited the film. After the release of Ciao! Manhattan , which became a box office record when it was revived in 1982, Weisman used the proceeds to purchase the film rights to Manuel Puig's novel The Spider Woman's Kiss . Leonard Schrader then developed the script and preproduction of the film began with Burt Lancaster and Raúl Juliá in the lead roles. In October 1983 Lancaster, who was in poor health, was replaced by William Hurt . Filming in São Paulo , Brazil turned out to be difficult, both in terms of funding and other circumstances. The finished film was then a great success not only for Weisman, who was nominated for an Oscar in the category “Best Picture” , but had to admit defeat to Sydney Pollack and the literary adaptation Out of Africa .

Weiman began the $ 40 million production Wolfsmilch with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in the lead roles in early 1987, but left the project after some time due to creative differences with Héctor Babenco , the director of the film. He then turned to the independent film Brooklyn Kid, starring Sasha Mitchell and Ernest Borgnine , directed by Paul Morrissey , an ex-partner of Andy Warhol.

The film drama Naked Tango , a mythical love story set in the brothels of Buenos Aires in the 1920s, brought him back together with Leonard Schrader, who directed the film produced by Weisman. For the short film Edie: Girl on Fire from 2010, Weisman wrote the script together with Schrader, which is based on the experiences Weisman had with Edie Sedgwick during the shooting of his film Chiao! Manhattan had done. The bilingual action thriller Xtrme City, which he produced in 2011, merged traditions from Hollywood with those from Bollywood , the film said. Martin Scorsese appeared as a co-producer. As in Xtrme City before, Weisman hired Paul Schrader , Leonard Schrader's brother, to write the script for the 2013 film Little K. The theme is the life of the prima ballerina Matilda Felixowna Kschessinskaja , who is said to have had an affair with the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and two other men of the Romanovs .

Weisman's brother Sam is also in the film business; he works as a director.

David Weisman died in October 2019 at the age of 77.

Filmography (selection)

• 1967: Tomorrow is a New Day ( Hurry Sundown ; graphic design)
• 1971: The Telephone Book (assistant director)
• 1972: Ciao! Manhattan (director, graphic design, screenplay, actor, producer)
• 1980: Shogun Assassin (writer, voice, producer)
• 1981: The Killing of America (documentary; graphic design, artistic director)
• 1984: gang of pigs! ( Take This Job and Shove It ; producer)
• 1985: Kiss of the Spider Woman ( Kiss of the Spider Woman , Producer, Soundtrack Je Me moque de L'Amour )
• 1986: Raiders of the Living Dead (executive producer)
• 1987: Wolfsmilch (Ironweed; creative producer)
• 1988: Brooklyn Kid ( Spike of Bensonhurst ; producer)
• 1990: Naked Tango ( Naked Tango ; graphic design, producer)
• 1999: Sleepless in New York (graphic design)
• 2001: It couldn't be worse! (Graphic design)
• 2006: Olhar Estrangeiro (documentary)
• 2008: Tangled Web: Making Kiss of the Spider Woman (video documentary; director)
• 2008: Kiss of the Spider Woman - Making the Musical (short video documentary; director, producer, visual effects)
• 2008: Manuel Puig: The Submissive Woman's Role (video short film; director, producer)
• 2010: Edie: Girl on Fire (short film; director, author)
• 2011: Xtrme City (producer)
• 2013: Little K (producer)

Award

• 1986 : Oscar nomination for Kiss of the Spider Woman

Web links

• David Weisman in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• David Weisman at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ David Weisman at famousbirthdays.com (English), accessed on February 1, 2016.
2. ↑ Eight and a half film poster at filmposter-archiv.de
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} David Weisman - Biography at IMDb - Internet Movie Database (English)
4. ↑ Tomorrow is a new day on filmposter-archiv.de
5. ↑ The 58th Academy Awards | 1986 at oscars.org (English)
6. ↑ David Weisman, 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' Producer, Dies at 77. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .