James Blue

James Blue (born October 10, 1930 in Tulsa , Oklahoma , † June 14, 1980 in Buffalo , New York ) was an American documentary film director.

Life

Born in Tulsa, James Blue grew up in Portland since 1942 . Here he attended Jefferson High until the end (1948). He then studied to graduate from the University of Oregon in 1953 . Two years later he enrolled in the Master of Theater Arts program at the same university. Blue then went to France , where he trained in all cinematic matters at the Paris Institute des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) until 1958 and, with the Paris portrait Paris à l'aube , presented his first professional, short documentary director in 1957. In 1960, IDHEC classmate James Dormeyer Blue placed the French Les Studios Africa in the war-torn colony of Algeria in order to produce short documentary films on site. This stay led to Blue's first full-length documentary, Les Oliviers de la justice (in English: The Olive Trees of Justice). Although not allowed at the Cannes International Film Festival , Blues 'official debut immediately won the Critics' Prize. Then the film manager George Stevens brought junior James Blue to the United States Information Agency (USIA). Here Blue made three short films about US development aid projects in Colombia in 1962 and directed The March, a short film documenting Martin Luther King's historic speech during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

In the meantime, Blue had made a name for himself in documentary film circles, so that in 1965 he was invited to give film courses at UCLA . In the same year he became the first filmmaker to win the Ford Foundation grant. Immediately afterwards he produced a series of documentary interviews with fellow directors like Jean Renoir . Also in 1965, Blue directed the four-minute prologue to George Roy Hill's monumental feature film Hawaii . In 1967, Few Notes on Our Food Problem was followed by another USIA production on the hunger problem in the third world. This 36-minute short film earned James Blue was nominated for a 1969 Oscar in the category Best Documentary one. After a trip to the American Film Institute , Blue went to Houston, where he began teaching again. In 1972 he became involved in the film sector for the US National Education Association. After several years of abstinence from film projects, James Blue resumed working behind the camera in 1973 and over the next five years produced several documentaries on African topics in East Africa. In 1977 he founded the Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP) with colleague Gerald O'Grady. Most recently he devoted his documentaries to the subject of urban living and increasingly used video cameras and Super 8 film cameras. The result was the two documentaries Who Killed the Fourth Ward? and The Invisible City . Most recently, Blue returned to teaching and taught at the State University of New York in Buffalo and in London. Weakened by a serious illness, James Blue died of stomach cancer at the age of 49 in Buffalo .

Filmography

As a documentary director, unless otherwise stated:

• 1952: Hamlet (8mm film)
• 1956: The Silver Spur (16mm film)
• 1957: Paris à l'aube
• 1958: Une Tragédie en Trois Mauvaises Actions
• 1960: Amal
• 1960: Le voleur
• 1960: Le jardin des roses
• 1961: Le menuisier
• 1962: Les Oliviers de la justice (also screenplay)
• 1962: Evil Wind Out
• 1962: A Letter From Colombia
• 1962: The School of Rincon Santo
• 1963: The March
• 1965: Hawaii (only opening scene)
• 1967: A Few Notes on Our Food Problem (also production)
• 1971–73: Karate Texas (Super 8 film) (unfinished)
• 1974: Harambee (also sound)
• 1974: Boran Women
• 1974: Boran cookers
• 1975: Kenya Boran
• 1977: Who Killed Fourth Ward? A non-fiction Mystery in Three Parts (Super 8 film)
• 1978: The Invisible City: The Houston Housing Crisis

Web links

• James Blue in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Notes on James Blue on jamesbluetribute.com