Bob Gosse
Encyclopedia
Bob Gosse is an American film producer
and director. He has also acted in several movies.
, New York. After graduating with a BFA
degree from the film program
at SUNY Purchase
in 1986, Gosse joined the independent film
scene in New York City
, creating short films and features. He was married to Robin Tunney but divorced in 2006. In 2010, he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
, School of Filmmaking in Producing.
, Ted Hope
, Nick Gomez
and Michael Almereyda
. The company's first feature was Gomez' Laws of Gravity (1992). It gained wide notice for a low-budget, independent production and impressed not only critics but filmmakers—Martin Scorsese
, Spike Lee
, Sidney Lumet
, and Woody Allen
included.. He also directed The Last Home Run
(filmed in 1996 and released in 1998)
Even while specializing in production, Gosse received recognition as an actor, working in such movies as Nowhere Man (2005). His notoriety in the downtown nightlife scene coupled with his performances in 1991's My Birthday Cake (directed by Whitney Ransick) and the Hartley-helmed Theory of Achievement led to his courting by William Morris Agency
that same year.
Gosse pushed the boundaries of "lo-fi" filmmaking when he produced Almereyda's PixelVision feature, Another Girl, Another Planet (1992). It was cited by the National Society of Film Critics
in 1992 "for expanding the possibilities of experimental filmmaking."
At The Shooting Gallery, Gosse supported other first-time filmmakers including Morgan J. Freeman
, Danny Leiner
and Billy Bob Thornton
.
In 1995, Gosse tried his hand at directing by shooting the first screenplay
by playwright
Matthew Weiss. The result, Niagara, Niagara
, premiered to acclaim. Lead actress Robin Tunney
took home the prestigious Volpi Cup at the 1997 Venice International Film Festival for her portrayal of a woman with Tourette syndrome
. In its American premiere, the film was panned by most critics and has now been largely forgotten.
Gosse's follow-up was an adaptation
of journalist Alec Wilkinson's non-fiction
book A Violent Act. Meanwhile, he was still developing films at The Shooting Gallery.
By late 1999, Gosse was at work on another adaptation, a play by theater scribe Wendy Hammond. The stage play, Julie Johnson, was shot as a feature film beginning in 2000 and it starred Lili Taylor
, Courtney Love
, Mischa Barton
and the late Spalding Gray
. It was released in 2005 by Regent Entertainment.
of 2001, and Gosse moved west to Los Angeles
to produce TV pilots and films. These would include Tim McCann
's Runaway
(2005) and Almereyda's Tonight At Noon (2006), the latter starring Connie Nielsen, Ethan Hawke
, Rutger Hauer, and Lauren Ambrose.
Gosse is living in Winston-Salem, NC and collaborating on a new screenplay about a Las Vegas filmmaker during the 1960s. He has spent time working for the 2008 Democratic Party
nomination of Barack Obama
.
Most recently, Gosse directed Tucker Max
's film, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
.
, whom he met when they were both students at SUNY Purchase.
On October 5, 1997, Gosse married Robin Tunney
in New York City; they had met while working together on Niagara, Niagara. They separated in late 2002, and divorced in 2006 but remain close friends.
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
and director. He has also acted in several movies.
Background
Gosse was born on Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York. After graduating with a BFA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
degree from the film program
Film school
The term film school is used to describe any educational institution dedicated to teaching aspects of filmmaking, including such subjects as film production, film theory, digital media production, and screenwriting. Film history courses and hands-on technical training are usually incorporated into...
at SUNY 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...
in 1986, Gosse joined the independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
scene in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, creating short films and features. He was married to Robin Tunney but divorced in 2006. In 2010, he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
, School of Filmmaking in Producing.
New York operations
Gosse founded independent film company The Shooting Gallery with Larry Meistrich in 1991. His collaborators included Hal HartleyHal Hartley
Hal Hartley is an American film director, screenwriter, producer composer, who became a key figure in the American independent film movement of the 1980s and 1990s...
, Ted Hope
Ted Hope
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City.As the American Indie wave hit in the early 90’s, Ted was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work...
, Nick Gomez
Nick Gomez
Nick Gomez is an American film director and actor. He has directed for a number of television and film studios. He has also acted in a few minor films...
and Michael Almereyda
Michael Almereyda
Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His most well known work is Hamlet , starring Ethan Hawke.-Early life:...
. The company's first feature was Gomez' Laws of Gravity (1992). It gained wide notice for a low-budget, independent production and impressed not only critics but filmmakers—Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
, Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
, and Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
included.. He also directed The Last Home Run
The Last Home Run
The Last Home Run is a 1996 film directed by Bob Gosse.It tells the story of Jonathan Lyle, an elderly man in a nursing home who is transformed by a mystic, for five days, into a 12-year-old boy playing Little League Baseball.The Last Home Run also starred Jordi Vilasuso and Vinnette Justine...
(filmed in 1996 and released in 1998)
Even while specializing in production, Gosse received recognition as an actor, working in such movies as Nowhere Man (2005). His notoriety in the downtown nightlife scene coupled with his performances in 1991's My Birthday Cake (directed by Whitney Ransick) and the Hartley-helmed Theory of Achievement led to his courting by William Morris Agency
William Morris Agency
WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...
that same year.
Gosse pushed the boundaries of "lo-fi" filmmaking when he produced Almereyda's PixelVision feature, Another Girl, Another Planet (1992). It was cited by the National Society of Film Critics
National Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
in 1992 "for expanding the possibilities of experimental filmmaking."
At The Shooting Gallery, Gosse supported other first-time filmmakers including Morgan J. Freeman
Morgan J. Freeman
Morgan J. Freeman is an American film director. In 1997, his debut feature, Hurricane Streets, became the first narrative film to win three awards at the Sundance Film Festival...
, Danny Leiner
Danny Leiner
Danny Leiner is a film director whose credits include The Great New Wonderful, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Dude, Where's My Car?, Layin' Low, and Time Expired...
and Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone...
.
In 1995, Gosse tried his hand at directing by shooting the first screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Matthew Weiss. The result, Niagara, Niagara
Niagara, Niagara
Niagara, Niagara is a 1997 film directed by Bob Gosse, and starring Henry Thomas , Robin Tunney as well as Michael Parks , John Ventimiglia and Stephen Lang ....
, premiered to acclaim. Lead actress Robin Tunney
Robin Tunney
Robin Jessica Tunney is an American actress. She is best known for her lead roles in the movie The Craft and the television series Prison Break and The Mentalist.-Early life:...
took home the prestigious Volpi Cup at the 1997 Venice International Film Festival for her portrayal of a woman with Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by multiple physical tics and at least one vocal tic; these tics characteristically wax and wane...
. In its American premiere, the film was panned by most critics and has now been largely forgotten.
Gosse's follow-up was an adaptation
Adaptation
An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
of journalist Alec Wilkinson's non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book A Violent Act. Meanwhile, he was still developing films at The Shooting Gallery.
By late 1999, Gosse was at work on another adaptation, a play by theater scribe Wendy Hammond. The stage play, Julie Johnson, was shot as a feature film beginning in 2000 and it starred Lili Taylor
Lili Taylor
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
, Courtney Love
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs...
, Mischa Barton
Mischa Barton
Mischa Anne Marsden Barton is a British-American fashion model, film, television, and stage actress, best known for her role as Marissa Cooper in the American television series The O.C..-Early life:...
and the late Spalding Gray
Spalding Gray
Spalding Rockwell Gray was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist and monologuist...
. It was released in 2005 by Regent Entertainment.
Los Angeles operations
The Shooting Gallery suffered from the dot-com bustDot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
of 2001, and Gosse moved west to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to produce TV pilots and films. These would include Tim McCann
Tim McCann (director)
Tim McCann is an American film director and a professor of film and a director at his alma mater SUNY-Purchase.He directed his first feature film, Desolation Angels, in 1995, made on a budget of less than $50,000...
's Runaway
Runaway (2005 film)
Runaway is a 2005 film directed by Tim McCann. It is about two siblings, Michael and Dylan Adler, twenty-one and eight years old respectively, who run away from home and attempt to start a new life because of a pedophile father....
(2005) and Almereyda's Tonight At Noon (2006), the latter starring Connie Nielsen, Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role...
, Rutger Hauer, and Lauren Ambrose.
Gosse is living in Winston-Salem, NC and collaborating on a new screenplay about a Las Vegas filmmaker during the 1960s. He has spent time working for the 2008 Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
nomination of Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
Most recently, Gosse directed Tucker Max
Tucker Max
Tucker Max is an American author and public speaker. He chronicles his drunken and sexual encounters in the form of short stories on his website TuckerMax.com, which has received millions of visitors since Max launched it for a bet in 2002, making him an Internet celebrity.Max's book I Hope They...
's film, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (film)
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is a 2009 American comedy film loosely based on the work and persona of writer Tucker Max, who co-wrote the screenplay. In an interview with Shave Magazine Max explained that the film is not "a direct recount or retelling. It says it is based on true events because it...
.
Personal life
In the early 1990s, Gosse lived with actress Parker PoseyParker Posey
Parker Christian Posey is an American actress. She became known during the 1990s after a series of roles in several well-received independent films. As a result, she has often been referred to as the "Queen of the Indies"....
, whom he met when they were both students at SUNY Purchase.
On October 5, 1997, Gosse married Robin Tunney
Robin Tunney
Robin Jessica Tunney is an American actress. She is best known for her lead roles in the movie The Craft and the television series Prison Break and The Mentalist.-Early life:...
in New York City; they had met while working together on Niagara, Niagara. They separated in late 2002, and divorced in 2006 but remain close friends.