Aram Avakian
Encyclopedia
Aram A. Avakian was an American film editor and director.
Directed ground-breaking indie film End of the Road

Life and work

Aram "Al" Avakian was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1926, of Armenian parents from Iran and Soviet Georgia. He graduated Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, New York, United States founded in 1887 known for its rigorous course of studies. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from...

 and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 before serving as a Naval officer on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. On the GI Bill after the war he went to France where he attended the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

. There he was part of a tight group of young friends who defined the American literary movement of 1950's Paris, including Terry Southern
Terry Southern
Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...

, William Styron
William Styron
William Clark Styron, Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.For much of his career, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...

, John P. Marquand Jr., and George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...

. In 1953, Avakian returned to the United States and apprenticed under Gjon Mili
Gjon Mili
Gjon Mili was an Albanian-American photographer best known for his work published in Life.-Biography:Born to Vasil Mili and Viktori Cekani in Korçë, Albania, Mili came to the United States in 1923. In 1939, Mili landed a job as a freelance photographer for Life...

 who got him started in documentary editing. In his spare time Avakian took still photographs of the legendary jazz sessions his brother the jazz producer George Avakian
George Avakian
George Avakian is an American record producer and executive known particularly for his work with Columbia Records, and his production of albums by Miles Davis and other notable jazz musicians....

 recorded. . From 1955 to 1958, Avakian was the editor of Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...

's program See It Now
See It Now
See It Now is an American newsmagazine and documentary series broadcast by CBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show. From 1952 to 1957, See It Now won four Emmy Awards and was nominated three times...

.

He soon became a feature film editor and director. In 1958, he edited and co-directed Jazz on a Summer's Day
Jazz on a Summer's Day
Jazz on a Summer's Day is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie...

, filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...

 and credited with being "the first feature-film documentary of a music festival." He also edited the 1960 feature film Girl of the Night
The Girl of the Night (1960 film)
Girl of the Night is a movie made in 1960 by Joseph Cates.This was based on a best seller written by Harold Greenwald, The Call Girl.-Cast:*Anne Francis *Lloyd Nolan Girl of the Night is a movie made in 1960 by Joseph Cates.This was based on a best seller written by Harold Greenwald, The Call...

, "acknowledged for its early use of the freeze frame and the jump cut." His credits as an editor also included Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...

's Sin of Jesus (1960), The Miracle Worker
The Miracle Worker (1962 film)
The Miracle Worker is a 1962 American biographical film directed by Arthur Penn. The screenplay by William Gibson is based on his 1959 play of the same title, which originated as a 1957 broadcast of the television anthology series Playhouse 90...

 (1962), Arthur Penn
Arthur Penn
Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...

's Mickey One
Mickey One
Mickey One is a 1965 surrealistic dramatic film starring Warren Beatty and directed by Arthur Penn from a script by Alan Surgal. Its kaleidoscopic camerawork, film noir atmosphere, lighting and design aspects, Kafkaesque paranoia, philosophical themes and Warren Beatty's performance in the title...

 (1965), in which Avakian also plays the disembodied voice of Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

's tormentor, and Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose (film)
Honeysuckle Rose is a 1980 romantic drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving.-Plot:...

 (1979).
Avakian was an innovator.

Avakian directed 1970 movie End of the Road, which received an "X" rating for its graphic depiction of an abortion. For End of the Road Avakian received the Golden Leopard Award of the Locarno International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...

 LIFE Magazine (November 7, 1969) covered the film in a spectacular 9-page article, and in-depth interviews ran in Esquire and Playboy. In a review of the film in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Roger Greenspun wrote of End of the Road: "The precise truth of, say, 5 in a summer afternoon on the lawn of an assistant professor in a small country college has perhaps never been caught in a commercial movie before -- but that is the kind of precise truth this movie captures again and again." The film stars James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, Dorothy Tristan, and Harris Yulin. In the film Avakian also plays The Landlord, The Pigman, and the voice of the psychiatrist on the phone. George Avakian
George Avakian
George Avakian is an American record producer and executive known particularly for his work with Columbia Records, and his production of albums by Miles Davis and other notable jazz musicians....

, the great jazz producer and brother of Aram oversaw the music. Avakian's old friend the distinguished novelist Terry Southern
Terry Southern
Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...

 co-produced the film, and co-wrote the screenplay with Avakian and Dennis McGuire.

End of the Road is an early indie picture which bucked Hollywood conventions and was before its time. Many of the cast and crew went on to distinguished careers. The film gained a cult following at art movie houses across the U.S., where audiences would speak aloud the lines while they watched the midnight screenings.
End of the Road, has been resurrected by the great director Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing commercial Hollywood films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but he has also directed smaller less...

, and Warner Bros. Mr. Soderbergh has directed a documentary on the making of the film, for inclusion on the BluRay,
scheduled for release in 2012 by Warner Brothers, as part of a series of great rediscovered movies.

Avakian directed Cops and Robbers (1973) and 11 Harrowhouse
11 Harrowhouse
11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 British film directed by Aram Avakian. It was adapted by Charles Grodin based upon the novel by Gerald A. Browne with the screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom...

 (1974). and a lost film made in Paris, in French, in the early 1970s.

From 1983 to 1986, Avakian was chairman of the film department at State University of New York at Purchase
State University of New York at Purchase
Purchase College, State University of New York, is a public four-year college located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges in the State University of New York system...

.

For fifteen years, Avakian was married to actress and writer Dorothy Tristan until 1972, but during the last two years of his life his companion was former ballerina Allegra Kent
Allegra Kent
Allegra Kent is an American ballet dancer and actress.Born in Santa Monica, Kent studied with Bronislava Nijinska and Carmelita Maracci before joining the School of American Ballet. After graduating, she joined the New York City Ballet in 1953 at the age of 15, and was promoted to principal in 1957...

. His brother is the famed music producer George Avakian
George Avakian
George Avakian is an American record producer and executive known particularly for his work with Columbia Records, and his production of albums by Miles Davis and other notable jazz musicians....

. His children with Dorothy Tristan are photojournalist/author Alexandra Avakian and guitarist Tristan Avakian.

As Editor

  • Jazz on a Summer's Day
    Jazz on a Summer's Day
    Jazz on a Summer's Day is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie...

     (1960)
  • Girl of the Night
    The Girl of the Night (1960 film)
    Girl of the Night is a movie made in 1960 by Joseph Cates.This was based on a best seller written by Harold Greenwald, The Call Girl.-Cast:*Anne Francis *Lloyd Nolan Girl of the Night is a movie made in 1960 by Joseph Cates.This was based on a best seller written by Harold Greenwald, The Call...

     (1960)
  • The Miracle Worker (1962)
  • Lilith
    Lilith (film)
    Lilith is a film written and directed by Robert Rossen. It is based on a novel by J. R. Salamanca and stars Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, Peter Fonda, Kim Hunter and Gene Hackman...

     (1964)
  • You're a Big Boy Now
    You're a Big Boy Now
    You're a Big Boy Now is a 1966 film with Peter Kastner, Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Julie Harris and Karen Black, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on a 1963 novel, also titled You're a Big Boy Now, by David Benedictus....

     (1966)
  • The Comedians (1967)
  • The Next Man
    The Next Man
    The Next Man is a 1976 American political action thriller film starring Sean Connery, Adolfo Celi, Cornelia Sharpe and Charles Cioffi. Critical reaction at its opening was not positive. Music for the film features New York guitarist Frederic Hand.-Plot:The film is set during the Arab oil embargo...

     (1976)
  • Honeysuckle Rose
    Honeysuckle Rose (film)
    Honeysuckle Rose is a 1980 romantic drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving.-Plot:...

     (1980)

(Partial list)

As Director

  • Jazz on a Summer's Day
    Jazz on a Summer's Day
    Jazz on a Summer's Day is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie...

     (with Bert Stern
    Bert Stern
    Bertram Stern is an American fashion and celebrity portrait photographer.-Marilyn Monroe:His best known work is arguably The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,500 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three day period, six weeks before her death, taken for Vogue...

    ) (1959)
  • Lad, A Dog
    Lad, A Dog (film)
    Lad: A Dog is a 1962 American dramatic film based on the 1919 novel Lad: A Dog written Albert Payson Terhune. Starring Peter Breck, Peggy McCay, Carroll O'Connor, and Angela Cartwright, the film blends several of the short stories featured in the novel, with the heroic Lad winning a rigged dog...

     (with Leslie H. Martinson
    Leslie H. Martinson
    Leslie "Les" H. Martinson is an American television and film director. He is married to television host and writer Connie Martinson.-Career:...

    ) (1962)
  • The End of the Road
    The End of the Road (1970 film)
    End of the Road is a 1970 film directed by Aram Avakian. It stars Stacy Keach and Harris Yulin. It was rated X for an abortion scene. It won an award at the 1970 Locarno International Film Festival. A nine-page Life Magazine article was published on Aram Avakian and End of the Road on November 7,...

     (1970)
  • Cops and Robbers (1973)
  • 11 Harrowhouse
    11 Harrowhouse
    11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 British film directed by Aram Avakian. It was adapted by Charles Grodin based upon the novel by Gerald A. Browne with the screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom...

    (1974)

(Partial list)
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