Richard Macdonald (film architect)

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Richard Macdonald , also Richard MacDonald , (born June 1, 1919 in Yeovil , Somerset , England , † May 29, 1993 in Los Angeles , California , United States ) was a British film architect .

Life

Macdonald received his artistic training at the Royal College of Art from 1939 and was drafted a little later for military service. In 1946 he finished his studies and began assisting his older and more experienced fellow film architect Edward Carrick . Then McDonald worked as a teacher and taught painting at Leeds College and the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London.

His contact with the US director Joseph Losey , who fled McCarthy's witch hunters from the USA to Great Britain, turned out to be decisive . Since his arrival in London, Macdonald worked from the late autumn of 1953 on Losey's early British films ( "The Beast Awakens", "Demon Woman", " The Deadly Trap ", " The Trail leads nowhere ", " You are damned " ) as a draftsman and decorator to. At the same time, Macdonald was also active in advertising. For Losey's Franco-Italian production " Eva ", Macdonald began to design film structures for the first time as chief architect in 1961. The cooperation with Joseph Losey lasted until the end of the 1970s. For Losey, Macdonald designed “neat rooms and interpersonal cold worlds for both the educated British bourgeoisie and the class-conscious gentry”.

Richard Macdonald had also been a sought-after production designer in Hollywood since the early 1970s. There he created the decorations for some partly pretentious, partly ambitious A-films, especially for the directors Norman Jewison , John Schlesinger and Ken Russell . “For Russell, McDonald designed the claustrophobic-hallucinatory scenarios of a roller coaster ride through one's own subconscious ( “ The Hell Trip ” ) and the dim side of a double life between bourgeoisie and red light district ( “ China Blue by day and night ” ). His last three works, consistently expensive A-films, prove McDonald's diversity. After the spy story " Das Russland-Haus " , which was marked by gray unitary socialism and dusty, smoky thinkers' rooms , Richard McDonald then designed the morbid decadence of a gruesomely beautiful horror palace for the " Addams Family " while he was working on his last work, the adaptation of John Grisham's hit thriller " The company " that traced the world of the alert rising yuppies. "

Macdonald also worked as a painter, his work has been exhibited in London galleries.

Movies

only as chief architect (complete)

literature

  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 173.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 173.
personal data
SURNAME Macdonald, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacDonald, Richard; McDonald, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film architect
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Yeovil , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1993
Place of death Los Angeles , United States