John Boorman

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John Boorman at the 2014 Cannes International Film Festival
John Boorman (1974)

John Boorman , CBE (born January 18, 1933 in Shepperton , Surrey , England ) is a British director , screenwriter and film producer .

Life

After attending a Catholic school, Boorman worked, among other things, as the owner of a laundry dryer and an author for the Manchester Guardian . In 1955, he started as a film editor for Internet Television News, directed Southern Television and worked his way up to director of the documentary division of BBC Bristol .

Boorman's first directorial work was the comedy Catch Us If You Can! from 1965 starring Dave Clark from pop group The Dave Clark Five . Hollywood noticed him, and in 1967 Boorman was able to shoot the thriller Point Blank with Lee Marvin in the lead role for the production company MGM , which was positively received by audiences and critics. After the film was released, Boorman received a letter from director David Lean congratulating him on his film.

Another film for MGM followed in 1968, the war drama We Are Hell , about two enemy soldiers stranded on a Pacific island during World War II . Once again, Boorman worked with Lee Marvin and screenwriter Alexander Jacobs , a former BBC colleague. Despite the success of Point Blank , the director had less artistic freedom with this film and had to accept changes from the company management. The Hell We Are turned out to be the first financial flop in Boorman's career.

Back in England, Boorman shot the comedy Leo the Last (1969) with Marcello Mastroianni . At the 1970 Cannes International Film Festival , he was awarded the Director's Prize, but the film was commercially disappointing.

Boorman then prepared a film adaptation of JRR Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings , which was not realized due to financial difficulties of the production studio United Artists , which had also produced Leo the Last . At least he was able to use the experiences made during the preparations later: “Everything I learned, the technical problems that I had to overcome when planning Lord of the Rings , I applied to Excalibur . That was my compensation. "

John Calley of Warner Brothers offered Boorman next project, an adaptation of the novel Deliverance (=  river trip ) by James Dickey . Boorman agreed to act as director and producer . The adventure film Everyone's Dying to Die was a huge hit with a Burt Reynolds- led group of canoeists clashing with hillbilly folks. Despite multiple nominations, including for the Oscar and the British Academy Film Award , the film went away empty-handed at the award ceremonies.

Calley tried to win Boorman for the film adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist , but the director preferred his dream project Zardoz . The fantasy film Zardoz starring Sean Connery was shot in Ireland in 1973 with a comparatively low budget of 1 million US dollars . Like Excalibur later , Zardoz also benefited from Boorman's technical experience from the failed Lord of the Rings project. The dystopia about a sterile future society failed at the box office and was controversial among the critics.

After the success of The Exorcist , William Friedkin's film adaptation of Blatty's novel, Warner Brothers commissioned a sequel. This time Boorman accepted the offer to direct, but neither the script, which had been rewritten several times, nor the cast (instead of Richard Burton , Boorman had wanted to win Jon Voight for the lead role) met his wishes. Exorcist II - The heretic failed the audience and critics.

With the fantasy film Excalibur , Boorman was able to land another artistic and commercial success. At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, for example, he received the award for “Best Artistic Contribution”. At the Oscars and the British Academy Film Awards, however , Excalibur shared the fate of Everyone's First To Die - he was nominated but couldn't win a prize.

The Emerald Forest (1985) was based on a factual report: In 1972the son of a Peruvian engineer was kidnappedin the Brazilian jungleand years later found by his father as a full member of an Amazon tribe. Boorman turned the material into an adventure story about the conflict between civilization and untouched nature. The main role was played by his son Charley Boorman . His children Katrine, Charley's twin sister Daisy and Telsche Boorman (the latter is no longer alive) also regularly took on smaller roles in his films.

His next film, Hope and Glory (1987), was autobiographical . It tells the story of a nine-year-old boy from London who grew up in the hail of bombs of World War II and met the horrors of war with a thirst for adventure and humor. Despite numerous nominations, Boorman once again came away empty-handed.

After the comedy The Time of the Colorful Birds , Boorman turned to the genre of the film essay with I Dreamed I Woke Up and his contribution to Lumiére et Compagnie . In 1995 he returned to the feature film with Rangoon: In the Heart of the Storm .

In 1998 Boorman won the 1998 Cannes Film Festival for Best Director with the biography The General , the authentic story of Irish gangster Martin Cahill .

This was followed by the John le Carré film The Tailor of Panama with Pierce Brosnan and the apartheid drama In My Country . The latter premiered at the 2004 Berlinale , where Boorman also acted as the godfather of the Berlinale Talent Campus .

His next film was about the Irish economic miracle : The Tiger's Tail (2006) did not have a German theatrical release, as did his 2014 sequel to Hope And Glory entitled Queen And Country .

Boorman has lived in County Wicklow, Ireland, since 1969. In 2003 he published an autobiography called Adventures of a Suburban Boy ( German adventure of a suburban boy ).

Filmography (selection)

Web links

literature

  • Rolf Giesen , John Boorman: John Boorman - Hope and Glory * Hope and Glory. The portrait of the cinema magician. Goldmann, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-442-08984-0 .
  • John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , (English).
  • Marcus Stiglegger: [Article] John Boorman. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Film directors. Biographies, descriptions of works, filmographies. 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2008 [1. Ed. 1999], ISBN 978-3-15-010662-4 , pp. 76-78 [with references].

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b How to turn matter into spirit , article on Telegraph.co.uk, August 25, 2003, accessed January 23, 2013.
  2. ↑ John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , p. 48, p. 83 ff.
  3. ^ Brian Hoyle: The Cinema of John Boorman , Scarecrow Press, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0810883956 , p. 37.
  4. ^ Brian Hoyle: The Cinema of John Boorman , Scarecrow Press, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0810883956 , p. 42 ff.
  5. ↑ John Boorman - A very English visionary is back , article in The Independent, August 21, 2009, accessed January 23, 2013.
  6. ^ "Everything I learned, the technical problems I had to resolve in planning for 'The Lord Of The Rings,' I applied to 'Excalibur.' That was my recompense. ”- Interview on Salon.com of April 2, 2001, accessed January 23, 2013.
  7. ↑ John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , p. 181.
  8. ^ Brian Hoyle: The Cinema of John Boorman. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (Maryland) 2012, p. 91.
  9. ↑ John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , pp. 204-205 and p. 211.
  10. ↑ John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , pp. 215-218.
  11. ↑ John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003, ISBN 0-571-216951 , p. 300.
  12. ^ Entry on John Boorman in "Irish Film & TV Research Online" at Trinity College Dublin , accessed on January 25, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Boorman, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director, screenwriter and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Shepperton , Surrey, England, United Kingdom