Richard Lester

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Richard Lester, 2014

Richard Lester (born January 19, 1932 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) is an American film director , film producer and author . He has worked as a director of the Beatles films Yeah Yeah Yeah and Hi-Hi-Hilfe! as well as from adventure films such as The Three Musketeers , Superman II and Superman III internationally known.

life and work

Born Richard Lester Liebman in Philadelphia , he was soon considered a child prodigy and began studying at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 15 , where he became interested in British film at an early age , especially comedies by Ealing Studios . In 1953 Lester moved to London and then worked as a director for independent television stations. The shows produced by him gained the attention of the actor Peter Sellers , who engaged him to the BBC - radio comedy The Goon Show prepare for British television. It received the title Idiot Weekly there and became an early success as well as the subsequent shows A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred (both 1956).

An early success as a film director Lester achieved in 1963 with the film comedy The Mouse on the Moon (The Mouse on the Moon) with Margaret Rutherford that the hit movie The Mouse That Roared continued.

A short film by Lester starring Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), is said to have been one of the Beatles' favorite films . When they decided in 1964 to make a movie, Lester was hired from a list of candidates to direct the film Yeah Yeah Yeah (A Hard Day's Night) . The film turned out to be hugely beneficial for the Beatles' music. In contrast to previous music films by Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard , Lester relied on his two Beatles films, above all, on a typical surrealistic humor peppered with irony. A Hard Day's Night already contained sequences of scenes that are still part of the viewing habits in the music clip industry today, such as the simultaneous use of different camera positions for live performances. Lester's film completely redefined the way pop music was shown on screen, making it one of the most influential music films in film history.

Lester captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s in his films more successfully than almost any other director. In 1965, Lester turned the comedy The Knack (The Knack ... and How to Get It) with an early film music of the later master composers of the James Bond films , John Barry , and the second film of the Beatles Hi-Hi-help! (Help!) . He was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Certain Kniff . In Lester's film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) of the silent movie star played Buster Keaton in 1966 his last film role, in color and with dialogue. 1967 followed with How I Won the War (How I Won the War) , a satirical anti-war film with Beatle John Lennon in a supporting role.

After the films Petulia and The Bed-Sitting Room flopped at the box office in the late 1960s and Lester only shot commercials at times, he succeeded with the adventure film The Three Musketeers (The Three Musketeers , 1973) and the simultaneous sequel The Four Musketeers (The Four Musketeers , which hit theaters in 1974) made a comeback . In 1976, he directed the film Robin and Marian (Robin and Marian) with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as the aged lovers Robin Hood and Lady Marian, who radically broke with earlier cinematic depictions of the Robin Hood legend. Its 1979 sequel to the classic film Two Bandits was a failure. In contrast, Lester was commercially successful in the early 1980s with the second and third installments of the Superman films with Christopher Reeve , of which at least the second installment was able to convince the majority of critics.

1989 came with The Return of the Musketeers (The Return of the Musketeers) a sequel to those films of the 1970s with the same actors in their then roles in the cinemas. Roy Kinnear , who starred in d'Artagnan's servant Planchet, fell from his horse while filming and died of his injuries. Lester and the film producer reached a court settlement with Kinnears' survivors for £ 650,000 in damages. The failure of the film at the box office and in particular Kinnear's death apparently moved the then 56-year-old Lester to withdraw from the film business. Then he turned the concert film Get Back (1991) with Linda and Paul McCartney . In 2007, when asked what could bring him out of retirement, Lester replied, "Death."

Lester is considered to be a stylistically unique director who was able to convincingly stage radical, formally innovative as well as classically elegant films. A big fan of his work is the director Steven Soderbergh , who published the book Getting Away with It: Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw together with him in 2000 . Lester has lived in England since the 1950s.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Diane Rosenfeldt: Richard Lester: A guide to references and resources . GK Hall, 1978. ISBN 978-0816181858 .
  • Neil Sinyard: The Films of Richard Lester . Barnes & Noble, 1985. ISBN 978-0389205548 .
  • Andrew Yule: Richard Lester and the Beatles: A Complete Biography of the Man Who Directed a Hard Day's Night and Help! . Donald I. Fine Inc., 1995. ISBN 978-1556114359 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Lester | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved August 13, 2020 (American English).
  2. ^ Richard Lester: A hard day's life. June 26, 1999, accessed August 13, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Richard Lester. Retrieved August 13, 2020 (American English).
  4. ↑ Behind the scenes with the Beatles and Richard Lester. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .
  5. ^ Richard Lester | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved August 13, 2020 (American English).
  6. ^ Richard Lester | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos. Retrieved August 13, 2020 (American English).
  7. ↑ Andrew James Johnston: Robin Hood. Story of a legend. CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64541-9 , p. 106.
  8. ↑ Actor's family get pounds 650,000 over fatal stunt. October 5, 1994, accessed August 13, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Peter Sobczynski: Keep Moving !: The Films of Richard Lester. | Features | Roger Ebert. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Richard Lester. Retrieved August 13, 2020 (American English).
  11. ↑ Peter Sobczynski: Keep Moving !: The Films of Richard Lester. | Features | Roger Ebert. Retrieved August 13, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Getting Away With It or: the Hidden Gem of Steven Soderbergh's Career. In: Frameland. January 9, 2018, accessed August 13, 2020 (American English).
  13. ^ British Film Institute paper from 2012
personal data
SURNAME Lester, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director, producer, and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania