Ridley Scott

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Ridley Scott (2015)

Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30, 1937 in South Shields , England ) is a British film director and film producer . Today he is considered one of the most renowned and influential directors and has shaped the narrative styles of several film genres. His best-known films Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Legende (1985), Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and The Martian (2015) developed their own styles in film history.

Scott owns Scott Free Productions , a film production company founded in 1995 .

Life

Scott was born the son of a professional soldier. His father, whom he rarely saw, served with the Royal Engineers ( combat support troops for the British Army ). After stays in Cumbria , Wales and Germany , the family settled in Stockton-on-Tees in the north of England (the industrial landscape later inspired scenes in Blade Runner ).

Scott studied graphic design and painting at West Hartlepool College of Art from 1954 to 1958 and received his diploma with honors. He then studied graphic design ( MA , 1960 to 1962) at the Royal College of Art in London , where David Hockney was one of his fellow students. He graduated with honors in 1963. Scott received a one-year travel grant to the United States and was employed by Time Life , where he worked with documentarists Richard Leacock and DA Pennebaker .

On his return in 1965 he accepted an apprenticeship at the BBC as a production designer . This position led him to work on popular television productions such as the police series Z-Cars or the science fiction series Out of the Unknown . After a short time he was accepted into the training program for directors and directed some episodes himself.

In 1968 Scott left the BBC to start Ridley Scott Associates (RSA). In addition to his brother Tony, directors such as Alan Parker , Hugh Hudson and Hugh Johnson worked on the project . RSA became one of the most successful commercial film houses in Europe, on whose behalf Scott is responsible for over 2000 commercials; many of them were honored at the Cannes and Venice festivals .

Ridley Scott is known in the industry as an economic director, as he usually gets by on a third of the shooting days of his colleagues. According to his own words, he owes this to his past as an advertising and video spot director and the fact that he shoots some scenes with up to 15 cameras at the same time.

From 2000, when she got a supporting role in Gladiator , Scott was in a relationship with the Costa Rican actress Giannina Facio , daughter of the diplomat and politician Gonzalo Facio (1918-2018). The couple married in June 2015.

In 2003, Scott was by the Queen due to its contribution to the arts to beat Knight .

His brother was the film director Tony Scott , the 2012 suicide committed. His sons Luke and Jake and daughter Jordan are also in the movie business.

plant

Scott's trademark is a distinctly aesthetic and painterly visual style, which has developed through years of experience as a production designer and director of commercials. Together with his brother Tony he ran the production company for commercials Ridley Scott Associates (RSA) from the 1970s .

Scott's first themed film The Duelists (1977) was not a great commercial success, but received enough criticism to enable Scott to make the science fiction film Alien (1979).

His next film, Blade Runner (1982), based on the novel Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick , is set in a gloomy, futuristic Los Angeles . The work was so visually impressive that it served as inspiration for an entire generation of cyberpunk literature, music, and art.

As a result, Scott made Legende (1985), The Man in the Background (1987) and Black Rain (1989), none of which could build on the importance and success of previous works. Over the years, however, Legend established itself as a fantasy cult film and was supplemented in 2002 with a restored Director's Cut .

The accusation that the critics have consistently put forward of putting visual style before content and character drawing has been refuted with Thelma & Louise (1991). In addition to good reviews, Scott received his first Oscar nomination for best director.

This was followed by the Columbus film 1492 - The Conquest of Paradise (1992), White Squall - Tearing Current (1996) and The Jane Files (1997) again films that failed artistically and commercially. In particular, the military film The Jane Files , in which Demi Moore plays a woman who wants to be the first member of the Navy Seals , was attacked because of what many critics consider undifferentiated pro-military stance.

With Gladiator Scott celebrated a triumphant comeback in 2000 . The film was very successful with the audience and won the Golden Globe 2001 in addition to the Oscar for best film in 2000. The directorial performance was also nominated, but Scott did not receive the award.

He received another Oscar nomination for the controversial war film Black Hawk Down (2001), which deals with an unsuccessful US military operation in Somalia and translates it into impressive images. Black Hawk Down shaped the newer action representation and helped documentary camera work to achieve a breakthrough in the art of film.

Scott directed Hannibal (2001), the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991, directed by Jonathan Demme ).

In 2005/06 the film Kingdom of Heaven followed in two versions . A good year after the novel A good year by his compatriot Peter Mayle appeared in 2006 . It is about a bank manager who inherits a vineyard in Provence from his uncle and then decides to turn his life around. The main role is played by the Australian actor Russell Crowe .

Together with his brother Tony he produced the miniseries The Company - On behalf of the CIA for the American cable broadcaster TNT , which was broadcast in August 2007. The Company tells the story of three Yale graduates who after the war on the part of the CIA of or KGB in the Cold War are involved. In the main roles are u. a. Chris O'Donnell , Michael Keaton, and Alfred Molina seen.

In October 2008, Ridley Scott confirmed that he had to wait 25 years for the rights to the book The Forever War by Joe Haldeman for a film version became available. Scott plans to film this book in 3D.

For the US television channel CBS , he has produced the series Good Wife since 2009 . The broadcast began in the USA in September 2009, in Germany at ProSieben at the end of March 2010. Here, too, Ridley Scott worked with his brother Tony.

With the production Robin Hood , which was shot in 2009 , Scott presented another historical film . The 63rd Cannes Film Festival opened on May 12, 2010 with his 22nd feature film, based on a script by Brian Helgeland with Russell Crowe in the title role .

Ridley Scott worked on the first film adaptation of Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World for the cinema in 2009 . The film was to be produced by him and Leonardo DiCaprio , and Farhad Safinia was to be the screenwriter . Scott was also expected to direct, but the film has not yet been made.

The film Prometheus was originally planned as a prequel to its first major hit Alien . Jon Spaihts wrote the script ; Damon Lindelof revised the script for 20th Century Fox . In the US, the cinema release took place on June 8, 2012. In 2017, the sequel Alien: Covenant followed . In the same year he filmed the kidnapping case of John Paul Getty III with Alles Geld der Welt . In the wake of the Kevin Spacey scandal , who was confronted with allegations of sexual harassment from the end of October 2017, the film team and Sony Pictures decided to cut all scenes with Spacey from the film. Scott had to re- shoot these scenes with Christopher Plummer at short notice .

Filmography (selection)

As a director

As a producer

As an executive producer

Awards (selection)

Films in the top 250 of the IMDb
space Movie
47 gladiator
52 Alien - The creepy creature from a strange world
148 Blade runner
Academy Awards
Golden Globe Award

Emmy

  • 2001 : Nomination for Outstanding Television Film for Citizen Kane - The Hollywood Legend
  • 2002 : Award for Outstanding Television Film for Churchill - The Gathering Storm
  • 2008 : Nomination in the Outstanding Miniseries category for The Andromeda Strain
  • 2009 : Nomination in the category Outstanding TV film for blood, sweat and tears
  • 2010 : Nomination for Outstanding Drama Series for Good Wife
  • 2011 : Nomination in the Outstanding Drama Series category for Good Wife
  • 2011 : Nomination in the Outstanding Miniseries category for The Pillars of the Earth
  • 2011 : Award in the Nonfiction Special category for Gettysburg
  • 2014 : Nomination for Outstanding TV Movie for Killing Kennedy
  • 2015 : Nomination in the category Outstanding Television Film for Killing Jesus
British Academy Film Award
Saturn Award
British Fantasy Award
  • 1980: Award for Alien - The uncanny creature from an alien world as best film
  • 1983: Blade Runner awarded for best film

literature

  • Inge Kirsner: Action esthete, frequent filmmaker, identity seeker: Ridley Scott and his cinema worlds. In: Thomas Bohrmann, Werner Veith, Stephan Zöller (Eds.): Handbuch Theologie und Popular Film. Volume 2, Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76733-2 , pp. 111-121.
  • Georg Seeßlen : I saw C-Beams glitter. He set standards with his SF films, but his other films also often feel like science fiction. In: Sascha Mamczak , Sebastian Pirling, Wolfgang Jeschke (eds.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 2013. Heyne, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-453-53444-5 , pp. 246-280.

Web links

Commons : Ridley Scott  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TV feature film, 27/08, p. 17.
  2. ↑ Ridley Scott and Son Both Tie the Knot in 2015 (English), accessed on January 25, 2018
  3. ^ Guardian.co.uk: Ridley Scott made The Eternal War . October 13, 2008 (accessed May 31, 2010)
  4. ↑ firstshowing.net: Ridley Scott filmed The Forever War in 3D . March 26, 2009 (accessed May 31, 2010)
  5. ↑ cf. Film Festival: Ridley Scott's “Robin Hood” opens Cannes. Spiegel Online , March 26, 2010 (accessed April 4, 2010)
  6. ↑ moviepilot.de: Ridley Scott films Brave New World with Leonardo DiCaprio
  7. ↑ The Top 250 of the IMDb (as of January 9, 2018)
  8. ^ Ridley Scott. In: Science Fiction Awards Database. Retrieved November 21, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Scott, Ridley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scott, Sir Ridley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director and producer
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH South Shields , England, UK