Hollywood Leading Men
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Final details--Science Bldg 185, 7-9pm, Thurs.
The inclass portion will be an essay that will ask you to repond to some element from the book we used for our text, Heroes, Antiheroes, and Dolts. I'm not specifiying what specific element or statement from the text you might be discussing. What I did ask, though, or rather allow, is that you go through the latter chapter (post Fifties) and cull particular quotations you find signficant and bring them with you. In your essay you'll be able to use those quotations for support or to refute--whichever fits in your view. If you have further questions, comment here or email me.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Denzel Washington Biography
Denzel Washington:
Born: December 8, 1954
He was the son of a Pentecostal minister and a beautician and a former Gospel singer.
He attended Fordham University, receiving a BA in Journalism
Actor, Director, Screenwriter, and Film Producer
Getting onto the screen: He was cast as Dr. Philip Chandler in the medical drama TV series, St. Elsewhere, on NBC from 1982-1988.
This series pushed the envelope thematically. It was one of the first to address AIDS publically.
Film Career: Washington was a front-running, leading actor in the ‘80s and ‘90s, though his career seems far from over.
Actor Trademarks:
He commonly plays roles of real-life figures.
Example: Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas, and Herman Boone.
He really gets into his roles by extensive preparation. Many times, in real-life, he will take on the duties and responsibilities that his character really has for an extended time. Example: When preparing to play a boxing role in the movie The Hurricane, he worked out for a year with L.A. boxing trainer Terry Claybon.
He directed: Both of these films are based on true stories
Antwone Fisher
The Great Debaters
Awards:
Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world [1990]
First African-American actor to receive two Academy Awards
Two Golden Globes
Tony Award
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for Mississippi Masala.
Director:
Mira Nair
Born: October 15, 1957
She was born in India and attended Delhi University and later she attended Harvard.
Film Career: She began acting then later turned to directing.
Many of her films have a central theme dealing with interracial relationships like we will see in Mississippi Masala. Many of the elements we see in her films are a reflection into her own life. She married a native Ugandan, Mahmood Mamdani in Uganda when she was researching for tonight’s film in 1988.
Currently she resides in New York where she teaches in the Film Division of the School of Arts at Columbia University.
Some of her other works include:
Salaam Bombay! (1988)
The Perez Family (1995)
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Vanity Fair (2004)
Amelia (2009)
She was offered the job of directing Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (2007)
She was nominated for numerous awards and has won over 23 various awards including:
1988: New Generation Award
1988: Lilian Gish Award (Excellence in Feature Film), Los Angeles Women in Film Festival
2002: UNESCO Award
FOR Mississippi Masala:
1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay), Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala (with Sooni Taraporevala)[24]
1991: Critics Special Award, São Paulo International Film Festival: Mississippi Masala
1992: Best Director (Foreign Film), Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Mississippi Masala
Movie Overview:
Release Date: February 5, 1992
This story was inspired by the observation of many motels in the Deep South that were owned and operated by Asian Indians who had arrived in America via Uganda where they had lived for several generations. She learned about that in 1972 all Asians Indians were ordered to leave Uganda by the leader, Idi Amin.
Unlike most Hollywood movies or television shows, Mississippi Masala avoids stereotypical portrayals of minority members.
You will not find in this film an Indian-American who speaks English with a thick accent and runs a 24-hour convenience store, or an Afro-American who hangs around street corners all day long and collects unemployment benefits. Instead, we see minority members being portrayed as real human beings with feelings just like anybody else's.
On the other hand, male Anglo-Saxons, who rarely appear in the movie, receive a different treatment. Whenever they make an appearance, something terrible occurs. For example, we will see a crazy driver screaming and shouting at Demetrus after he rear-ended his car; a cold and uncaring banker who threatens to repossess Demetrus' van if he fails to come up the loan payment; the police brutality heaped on Demetrus and Mina during their arrest; teenagers who play loud music and trash their motel room; and an unreasonable customer who complains about the high motel room rates.
Mississippi Masala- In Hindi: spicy… keep an eye open to the metaphor! =)
Hitchcock, North by Northwest
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Jonathan Demme - Director of Philadelphia
Robert Jonathan Demme was born on Feruary 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York. He is known for directing The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, Philadelphia in 1993, The Manchurian Candidate in 2004 and Rachel Getting Married in 2008. He also produced the last three movies. He won an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs, and it won "in all major categories, including Best Picture and Best Director." (movies.yahoo.com.) He is five foot ten. He was divorced to Evelyn Prucell. Now he is married to Joanne Howard and has three children. The children are Josephine Demme, Ramon Castle Demme and Brooklyn James Demme. His mother Dorothy Demme was in some roles in several of her son's movies. She died on November 20, 1995.
He has some trademarks like: he regularly casts Charles Napier and Chris Isaak in his movies. He makes sure the characters look directly in the camera. He often uses New Order songs in his movies scores. He also uses the steadicam a lot with handheld shots interspersed.
Here is some trivia. He cast a lot of the same actors in his movies, including Denzel Washington, Paul Lazar, Ted Levine and Tracey Walter. Eight of the actors he directed where in Oscar nominated performances; they are Mary Steerburgen, Jason Robards, Christine Lahti, Dean Stockwell, Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks and Anne Hathaway. Four of these people won Oscars for acting in Demme's movies; they are Steerburgen Hopkins, Foster and Hanks.
Here are some personal quotes. "I don't think it's sacrilegious to remake any movie, including a good or even great movies. I think what's sacrilegious is to make a bad movie, whether it's a remake or an original. It's what I always tell my actor friends, anybody who's in this, the (business), you've gotta try to hold out and only do the scripts, do the material that offers you the opportunity to do your best work. Because if you do stuff that doesn't give you that opportunity? Your work's not gonna be good. And you're gonna suffer in the long run from that. So I don't care if it's a remake if it's a great script with parts in it that can sttract fatastic actors, God, you know, to make the movie." (IMDB)
Here is another quote: "I was really hooked on movies at a very young age. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), along with Seven Days in May (1964), Fall-Safe (1964), and Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. (1964) were this quartet of anarchistic black-and-white American movies, each of which did things that you just didn't do in American movies, especially in the realm of irrevernce toward politics and government institutions and the Army. I was what, 16, it was shocking, it was thrilling and, interestingly, it predated my exposure to the French New Wave so, in a way, this was the American, a certain kind of new wave in American movies." (IMDB)
Jonathan Demme was a very energetic versatile and optimistic director of movies that are character driven. He started making B movies in the 1970's like "Caged Heat" in 1974 and "Crazy Mama" in 1975 to become one of Hollywood's most acclaimed filmmaker. He directed ten movies after "Crazy Mama" and before "Silence of the Lambs".
"Though many viewed the director's decision to film "Philadelphia" (1993) as a mea culpa in response to the charges of homophobia in "The Silence of the Lambs," which were leveled by members of the gay press who decried the complex sexuality of the film's killer, Demme had actually been working on the project with openly gay screenwriter Ron Nywsaner as early as 1988. Nonetheless, the moving courtroom drama dealing with discrimination against gays and PWAs (People with AIDS) was a landmark in mainstream Hollywood history. Greeted with mixed reviews, "Philadelphia" provied an attention-getting and Oscar-winning role for Tom Hanks as the afflicted homosexual lawyer who loses his job when he becomes symptomatic from AIDS. Depite some acclaim, the film was criticized for lacking the strong character development, mischief and sense of the unexpected that characterized Demme's best work." (movies.yahoo.com)
He directed many more films after this. One was called "Beloved" that starred Oprah Winfrey. He directed a remake of the 1962 thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" in 2004. In 2008, he directed the family drama "Rachel Getting Married" which starred Debra Winger and Anne Hathaway.
Bibliography: (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001129/bio
(movies,yahoo.com) http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800018279/bio