Hal Hartley
Encyclopedia
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. He is best known for his films Trust, Amateur
and Henry Fool
, which are notable for deadpan humour and offbeat characters quoting philosophical dialogue.
His films provided a career launch for a number of actors, including Adrienne Shelly
, Edie Falco
, Martin Donovan
, Parker Posey
, Karen Sillas
and Elina Löwensohn
. Hartley frequently scores his own films using his pseudonym Ned Rifle, and his soundtracks regularly feature music by indie rock acts Yo La Tengo
and P J Harvey.
in southern Long Island
, New York
, the son of an ironworker. Hartley had an early interest in painting and attended the Massachusetts College of Art
in Boston
where he studied art and developed an interest in filmmaking. In 1980, he was accepted to the filmmaking program at the State University of New York at Purchase
in New York, where he met a core group of technicians and actors who would go on to work with him on his feature films, including his regular cinematographer Michael Spiller
.
, in 1988. Made on a shoestring budget and filmed in his native Long Island, it was an unconventional love story about a suburban Long Island teenager (played by Adrienne Shelly
, a Hartley regular) falling in love with a handsome mechanic with a criminal past (Robert John Burke). The screenplay featured what have become Hartley's trademarks - deadpan humour, offbeat, stilted, pause-filled dialogue, and characters posing philosophical questions about the meaning of life, combined with a degree of stylisation in acting, choreography and camera movement. The film received positive reviews and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival
, establishing Hartley as a distinctive new talent in the burgeoning independent filmmaking movement.
Hartley's next film, Trust (1990), followed similar themes and style to The Unbelievable Truth
, again an offbeat romantic comedy starring Adrienne Shelly as a Long Island teenager who forms a complex romantic relationship with a mysterious criminal (played by Martin Donovan, another Hartley regular). Trust won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival
. Hartley followed this with the short feature Surviving Desire
(1991), a romantic comedy about a college professor (Donovan) who has an affair with a student (Mary B. Ward). Simple Men
(1992), a drama about two brothers (played by Burke and Bill Sage
) who reunite to search for their father and encounter two women in a small town (Karen Sillas and Elina Löwensohn), was entered in competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival
.
His next feature, Amateur
(1994), marked a change of pace for Hartley, exploring more sombre themes and with a more tragic tone. Described as "a metaphysical thriller", it starred the French actress Isabelle Huppert
as a former nun
trying to write pornographic fiction who meets Thomas (Martin Donovan), a man suffering from amnesia, and Sophia (Elina Löwensohn), Thomas's wife and a porn star who reveals that Thomas was a violent criminal and pornographer.
Hartley developed Flirt (1995) as an extension of his short film of the same name made in 1993. The film is a triptych of three separate characters involved in romantic entanglements in different cities - New York, Berlin
and Tokyo
- with each story using the same dialogue. The film stars Hartley regulars Bill Sage
, Parker Posey
, Martin Donovan
, Dwight Ewell
and the Japanese actress Miho Nikaido
, whom Hartley married in 1996.
Hartley achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with his next feature, Henry Fool
(1997), a darkly comic drama about a near-catatonic garbageman
, Simon Grim (James Urbaniak
), and his slutty sister Fay (Parker Posey), who meet Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan
), a libertine and aspiring novelist who inspires Simon to write and seduces Fay and her depressed mother (Maria Porter). Simon's literary output, an epic poem written in blank verse
, becomes a national sensation, winning acclaim and controversy for its pornographic content. Simon eventually becomes a literary celebrity, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. While Henry's writing career fades, he is coerced into marrying Fay, whom he has gotten pregnant, and abandons writing and takes Simon's old job as a garbageman to support his family. The film garnered positive reviews and was entered into competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival
, where Hartley won the Best Screenplay Award
.
Hartley was invited to contribute the American entry to a series of films financed by French television to celebrate the Millennium. His entry, a black comedy entitled The Book of Life (1998) was shot entirely on digital video in New York in 1998. The story imagines Jesus (Martin Donovan) returning to Earth on the eve of the Millennium to open the Book of Life (stored on an Apple Mac laptop) which will start the Apocalypse
. Jesus, accompanied by Mary Magdalene
(singer PJ Harvey
) becomes enamoured of humanity and argues with Satan
(Thomas Jay Ryan
) as to whether or not to end human civilisation. The film also features a voice-over
by William Burroughs as a radio preacher and Yo La Tengo
, who appear as a Salvation Army band. The film screened on French television and had a limited commercial release in cinemas.
Hartley's next feature No Such Thing (2001) tells the story of Beatrice (Sarah Polley
), a tabloid journalist
whose fiancé is killed by a monster in Iceland
. Beatrice's editor (Helen Mirren
) orders Beatrice to go to Iceland to interview the monster (Robert John Burke), who is a sensitive philosopher. The pair return to New York where the newspaper makes them celebrities. The film is intended as a satire of news media's obsession with celebrities and manipulating events to create news headlines. The film also stars Julie Christie
as a doctor sympathetic to the monster's cause. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard
section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
.
The Girl from Monday
(2005) continued Hartley's critical and satiric interest in media manipulation
and the negative consequences of business monopolization
and globalization
. Filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, the film is set in a future dystopia
where people are encouraged to record their sexual encounters as an economic transaction and thus increase their consumer buying power. The film stars Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd
and Tatiana Abracos. It premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and received a limited cinematic release, receiving mostly negative reviews.
In late 2005, Hartley moved from New York to Berlin and began preparing Fay Grim
, an intended sequel to Henry Fool. The film, which starred Parker Posey, James Urbaniak and Thomas Jay Ryan reprising their roles from Henry Fool, was a comedy-drama in which Fay is coerced by a CIA agent (Jeff Goldblum
) to try to locate notebooks that belonged to Henry (now a fugitive). Fay learns that the notebooks contain classified information that could compromise US security, leading Fay into a search around the world to find them. The film was shot in 2006 in locations in Berlin, Paris, and Istanbul and premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival
. It had a limited cinematic release in 2007 and received mixed reviews.
, between the religious community known as the Branch Davidian
s and the US federal government), was first produced at the Salzburg Festival
and then later that year in Antwerp. It was also staged in the US in 2001.
.
From 2001 through 2004 Hartley was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University
, while simultaneously editing No Such Thing, shooting The Girl From Monday
, and writing Fay Grim
.
He was awarded a fellowship by The American Academy in Berlin
in late 2004, where he did research related to a proposed large-scale project concerning the life of French educator and social activist Simone Weil
.
, who had been one of the stars of his film Flirt.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film director, screenwriter, producer composer, who became a key figure in the American 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...
movement of the 1980s and 1990s. He is best known for his films Trust, Amateur
Amateur (film)
Amateur is a 1994 film written and directed by Hal Hartley starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan and Elina Löwensohn.-Title:The title is also an acronym, encompassing elements of the film* Accountancy* Murder* Amnesia* Torture* Ecstasy...
and Henry Fool
Henry Fool
Henry Fool is a 1997 American seriocomic film written, produced and directed by Hal Hartley, featuring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Parker Posey. As in The Unbelievable Truth, an earlier Hartley film, expectation and reality again conflict....
, which are notable for deadpan humour and offbeat characters quoting philosophical dialogue.
His films provided a career launch for a number of actors, including Adrienne Shelly
Adrienne Shelly
Adrienne Shelly , was an American actress, director and screenwriter. Making her name in independent films such as 1989's The Unbelievable Truth and 1990's Trust, Shelly transitioned to a writing and directing career in subsequent years...
, Edie Falco
Edie Falco
Edith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles in Oz as Diane Wittlesey, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and as the titular character on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie...
, Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan is an American stage and film actor. He has had a long collaboration with the director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, including Trust , Surviving Desire , Simple Men , Flirt , Amateur , and The Book of Life...
, Parker Posey
Parker 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"....
, Karen Sillas
Karen Sillas
Karen Sillas is an American stage and film actress. She graduated from the Acting Conservatory of the State University of New York...
and Elina Löwensohn
Elina Löwensohn
Elina Löwensohn is a Romanian-born American actress.-Biography:Löwensohn was born in Bucharest, Romania. After the death of her father, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, her mother emigrated to the United States with her, where her mother went on a hunger strike in order to get a visa for...
. Hartley frequently scores his own films using his pseudonym Ned Rifle, and his soundtracks regularly feature music by indie rock acts Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...
and P J Harvey.
Early life
Hartley was born in LindenhurstLindenhurst
Lindenhurst is the name of some places in the United States of America:*Lindenhurst, Illinois*Lindenhurst, New York*Lindenhurst, the estate of John Wanamaker...
in southern Long Island
Long 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
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the son of an ironworker. Hartley had an early interest in painting and attended the Massachusetts College of Art
Massachusetts College of Art
Massachusetts College of Art and Design is a publicly-funded college of visual and applied art, founded in 1873. It is one of the oldest art schools, the only publicly-funded free-standing art school in the United States, and was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
where he studied art and developed an interest in filmmaking. In 1980, he was accepted to the filmmaking program at the 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...
in New York, where he met a core group of technicians and actors who would go on to work with him on his feature films, including his regular cinematographer Michael Spiller
Michael Spiller
Michael Alan Spiller is an American cinematographer and television director.Spiller has directed on numerous series and has also served as a cinematographer prior to directing and worked frequently with Hal Hartley. He was a regular director on the HBO series, Sex and the City where he also served...
.
Feature films
Hartley shot his first feature film, The Unbelievable TruthThe Unbelievable Truth (film)
The Unbelievable Truth is a 1989 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley, starring Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke. It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in 1990 at the Sundance Film Festival. The region 1 DVD was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on March 11,...
, in 1988. Made on a shoestring budget and filmed in his native Long Island, it was an unconventional love story about a suburban Long Island teenager (played by Adrienne Shelly
Adrienne Shelly
Adrienne Shelly , was an American actress, director and screenwriter. Making her name in independent films such as 1989's The Unbelievable Truth and 1990's Trust, Shelly transitioned to a writing and directing career in subsequent years...
, a Hartley regular) falling in love with a handsome mechanic with a criminal past (Robert John Burke). The screenplay featured what have become Hartley's trademarks - deadpan humour, offbeat, stilted, pause-filled dialogue, and characters posing philosophical questions about the meaning of life, combined with a degree of stylisation in acting, choreography and camera movement. The film received positive reviews and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, establishing Hartley as a distinctive new talent in the burgeoning independent filmmaking movement.
Hartley's next film, Trust (1990), followed similar themes and style to The Unbelievable Truth
The Unbelievable Truth (film)
The Unbelievable Truth is a 1989 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley, starring Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke. It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in 1990 at the Sundance Film Festival. The region 1 DVD was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on March 11,...
, again an offbeat romantic comedy starring Adrienne Shelly as a Long Island teenager who forms a complex romantic relationship with a mysterious criminal (played by Martin Donovan, another Hartley regular). Trust won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. Hartley followed this with the short feature Surviving Desire
Surviving Desire
Surviving Desire is a 1991 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley. It stars Martin Donovan, Julie Kessler, Matt Malloy, Merritt Nelson, and Mary B. Ward.-Plot:...
(1991), a romantic comedy about a college professor (Donovan) who has an affair with a student (Mary B. Ward). Simple Men
Simple Men
Simple Men is a 1992 American film written and directed by Hal Hartley, starring Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Karen Sillas and Martin Donovan. It was the debut film of actress Holly Marie Combs in a supporting role...
(1992), a drama about two brothers (played by Burke and Bill Sage
Bill Sage
William "Bill" Sage III is an American actor and alumnus of State University of New York at Purchase.- Filmography :* Simple Men ... as Dennis McCabe* Flirt ... as Bill...
) who reunite to search for their father and encounter two women in a small town (Karen Sillas and Elina Löwensohn), was entered in competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival
1992 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Gérard Depardieu *John Boorman *Carlo Di Palma *Jamie Lee Curtis *Joële Van Effenterre *Lester James Peries *Nana Djordjadze *Pedro Almodóvar *René Cleitman...
.
His next feature, Amateur
Amateur (film)
Amateur is a 1994 film written and directed by Hal Hartley starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan and Elina Löwensohn.-Title:The title is also an acronym, encompassing elements of the film* Accountancy* Murder* Amnesia* Torture* Ecstasy...
(1994), marked a change of pace for Hartley, exploring more sombre themes and with a more tragic tone. Described as "a metaphysical thriller", it starred the French actress Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
as a former nun
trying to write pornographic fiction who meets Thomas (Martin Donovan), a man suffering from amnesia, and Sophia (Elina Löwensohn), Thomas's wife and a porn star who reveals that Thomas was a violent criminal and pornographer.
Hartley developed Flirt (1995) as an extension of his short film of the same name made in 1993. The film is a triptych of three separate characters involved in romantic entanglements in different cities - New York, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
- with each story using the same dialogue. The film stars Hartley regulars Bill Sage
Bill Sage
William "Bill" Sage III is an American actor and alumnus of State University of New York at Purchase.- Filmography :* Simple Men ... as Dennis McCabe* Flirt ... as Bill...
, Parker Posey
Parker 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"....
, Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan
Martin Donovan is an American stage and film actor. He has had a long collaboration with the director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, including Trust , Surviving Desire , Simple Men , Flirt , Amateur , and The Book of Life...
, Dwight Ewell
Dwight Ewell
-Career:Ewell was born in Williamston, North Carolina to teenage parents. His father fought in Vietnam and served six years in the United States military while Dwight's mother took care of Dwight and his younger sister. Unhappy in her marriage, at 21 years old, Dwight's mom took the children up...
and the Japanese actress Miho Nikaido
Miho Nikaido
Miho Nikaidō is a Japanese actress.In 1996 she was engaged to US director Hal Hartley who had recently cast her in his movie Flirt...
, whom Hartley married in 1996.
Hartley achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with his next feature, Henry Fool
Henry Fool
Henry Fool is a 1997 American seriocomic film written, produced and directed by Hal Hartley, featuring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Parker Posey. As in The Unbelievable Truth, an earlier Hartley film, expectation and reality again conflict....
(1997), a darkly comic drama about a near-catatonic garbageman
Waste collector
A waste collector is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and remove refuse and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal...
, Simon Grim (James Urbaniak
James Urbaniak
James Christian Urbaniak is an American actor. Urbaniak was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. He lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife Julie and their twins, son Severn Jerzy and daughter Esme Maeve....
), and his slutty sister Fay (Parker Posey), who meet Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan
Thomas Jay Ryan
Thomas Jay Ryan is a veteran stage actor who also starred in the 1997 film Henry Fool.Ryan attended Carnegie Mellon University and has worked in such prestigious theaters as the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven...
), a libertine and aspiring novelist who inspires Simon to write and seduces Fay and her depressed mother (Maria Porter). Simon's literary output, an epic poem written in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, becomes a national sensation, winning acclaim and controversy for its pornographic content. Simon eventually becomes a literary celebrity, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. While Henry's writing career fades, he is coerced into marrying Fay, whom he has gotten pregnant, and abandons writing and takes Simon's old job as a garbageman to support his family. The film garnered positive reviews and was entered into competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival
1998 Cannes Film Festival
The 51st Cannes Film Festival was held on May 13-24, 1998. The Palme d'Or went to the Greek film Mia aioniotita kai mia mera by Theo Angelopoulos.- Jury :*Martin Scorsese *Alain Corneau *Chiara Mastroianni...
, where Hartley won the Best Screenplay Award
Best Screenplay Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Screenplay Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival...
.
Hartley was invited to contribute the American entry to a series of films financed by French television to celebrate the Millennium. His entry, a black comedy entitled The Book of Life (1998) was shot entirely on digital video in New York in 1998. The story imagines Jesus (Martin Donovan) returning to Earth on the eve of the Millennium to open the Book of Life (stored on an Apple Mac laptop) which will start the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
. Jesus, accompanied by Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
(singer PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
) becomes enamoured of humanity and argues with Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
(Thomas Jay Ryan
Thomas Jay Ryan
Thomas Jay Ryan is a veteran stage actor who also starred in the 1997 film Henry Fool.Ryan attended Carnegie Mellon University and has worked in such prestigious theaters as the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven...
) as to whether or not to end human civilisation. The film also features a voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
by William Burroughs as a radio preacher and Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo, sometimes abbreviated as YLT, is an American alternative rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan , Georgia Hubley , and James McNew .Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential...
, who appear as a Salvation Army band. The film screened on French television and had a limited commercial release in cinemas.
Hartley's next feature No Such Thing (2001) tells the story of Beatrice (Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley is a Canadian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series, Road to Avonlea...
), a tabloid journalist
Yellow journalism
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
whose fiancé is killed by a monster in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
. Beatrice's editor (Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
) orders Beatrice to go to Iceland to interview the monster (Robert John Burke), who is a sensitive philosopher. The pair return to New York where the newspaper makes them celebrities. The film is intended as a satire of news media's obsession with celebrities and manipulating events to create news headlines. The film also stars Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
as a doctor sympathetic to the monster's cause. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...
section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
2001 Cannes Film Festival
The 2001 Cannes Film Festival started on May 14 and ran until May 25. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.-Jury:* Liv Ullmann, President * Mimmo Calopresti * Charlotte Gainsbourg...
.
The Girl from Monday
The Girl from Monday
The Girl from Monday is a 2005 American film directed by Hal Hartley. The film deals with the consequences of business monopolization and globalization. Filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, the film was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival...
(2005) continued Hartley's critical and satiric interest in media manipulation
Media manipulation
Media manipulation is an aspect of public relations in which partisans create an image or argument that favours their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding...
and the negative consequences of business monopolization
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
and globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
. Filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, the film is set in a future dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
where people are encouraged to record their sexual encounters as an economic transaction and thus increase their consumer buying power. The film stars Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd
Sabrina Lloyd
Sabrina Lloyd is an American film and television actress.She has played the roles of Wade Welles in the science fiction series Sliders, and Natalie Hurley in the ABC sitcom Sports Night.-Early life:...
and Tatiana Abracos. It premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and received a limited cinematic release, receiving mostly negative reviews.
In late 2005, Hartley moved from New York to Berlin and began preparing Fay Grim
Fay Grim
Fay Grim is a 2006 film written and directed by Hal Hartley. The film is a sequel to Hartley's 1997 film Henry Fool, and revolves around the title character, played by Parker Posey, the sister of Simon Grim . The plot revolves around Fay's attempt to unravel an increasingly violent mystery in Europe...
, an intended sequel to Henry Fool. The film, which starred Parker Posey, James Urbaniak and Thomas Jay Ryan reprising their roles from Henry Fool, was a comedy-drama in which Fay is coerced by a CIA agent (Jeff Goldblum
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn "Jeff" Goldblum is an American actor. His career began in the mid-1970s and he has appeared in major box-office successes including The Fly, Jurassic Park and its sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Independence Day...
) to try to locate notebooks that belonged to Henry (now a fugitive). Fay learns that the notebooks contain classified information that could compromise US security, leading Fay into a search around the world to find them. The film was shot in 2006 in locations in Berlin, Paris, and Istanbul and premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival
2006 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2006 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 7 to September 16, 2006. Opening the festival was Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn's The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, a film that "explores the history of the Inuit people through the eyes of a father and daughter."In a press release...
. It had a limited cinematic release in 2007 and received mixed reviews.
Short films
In addition to his feature work, Hartley has made a number of short films, many of which have been collected and re-released in DVD anthologies.Theatre
Hartley's stage play Soon, a drama dealing with the confrontation at Waco, TexasWaco Siege
The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, and ended violently 50 days later on April 19. The siege began when the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, a property located east-northeast of Waco,...
, between the religious community known as the Branch Davidian
Branch Davidian
The Branch Davidians are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists , a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1930...
s and the US federal government), was first produced at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
and then later that year in Antwerp. It was also staged in the US in 2001.
Awards
In 1996, Hartley was made Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French RepublicOrdre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
.
From 2001 through 2004 Hartley was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, while simultaneously editing No Such Thing, shooting The Girl From Monday
The Girl from Monday
The Girl from Monday is a 2005 American film directed by Hal Hartley. The film deals with the consequences of business monopolization and globalization. Filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, the film was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival...
, and writing Fay Grim
Fay Grim
Fay Grim is a 2006 film written and directed by Hal Hartley. The film is a sequel to Hartley's 1997 film Henry Fool, and revolves around the title character, played by Parker Posey, the sister of Simon Grim . The plot revolves around Fay's attempt to unravel an increasingly violent mystery in Europe...
.
He was awarded a fellowship by The American Academy in Berlin
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a research and cultural institution in Berlin whose stated mission is to foster a greater understanding and dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Germany.The American Academy was founded in September 1994 by a group of prominent...
in late 2004, where he did research related to a proposed large-scale project concerning the life of French educator and social activist Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...
.
Personal life
In 1996, Hartley married the Japanese dancer and actress Miho NikaidoMiho Nikaido
Miho Nikaidō is a Japanese actress.In 1996 she was engaged to US director Hal Hartley who had recently cast her in his movie Flirt...
, who had been one of the stars of his film Flirt.
Filmography
- The Unbelievable TruthThe Unbelievable Truth (film)The Unbelievable Truth is a 1989 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley, starring Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke. It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize in 1990 at the Sundance Film Festival. The region 1 DVD was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on March 11,...
(1989) - Trust (1990)
- Surviving DesireSurviving DesireSurviving Desire is a 1991 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley. It stars Martin Donovan, Julie Kessler, Matt Malloy, Merritt Nelson, and Mary B. Ward.-Plot:...
(1991) - Simple MenSimple MenSimple Men is a 1992 American film written and directed by Hal Hartley, starring Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Karen Sillas and Martin Donovan. It was the debut film of actress Holly Marie Combs in a supporting role...
(1992) - AmateurAmateur (film)Amateur is a 1994 film written and directed by Hal Hartley starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan and Elina Löwensohn.-Title:The title is also an acronym, encompassing elements of the film* Accountancy* Murder* Amnesia* Torture* Ecstasy...
(1994) - Flirt (1995)
- Henry FoolHenry FoolHenry Fool is a 1997 American seriocomic film written, produced and directed by Hal Hartley, featuring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Parker Posey. As in The Unbelievable Truth, an earlier Hartley film, expectation and reality again conflict....
(1997) - The Book of Life (1998)
- No Such Thing (2001)
- The Girl from MondayThe Girl from MondayThe Girl from Monday is a 2005 American film directed by Hal Hartley. The film deals with the consequences of business monopolization and globalization. Filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, the film was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival...
(2005) - Fay GrimFay GrimFay Grim is a 2006 film written and directed by Hal Hartley. The film is a sequel to Hartley's 1997 film Henry Fool, and revolves around the title character, played by Parker Posey, the sister of Simon Grim . The plot revolves around Fay's attempt to unravel an increasingly violent mystery in Europe...
(2006) - Meanwhile (2012, still in production)
Short Films Directed by Hartley
- Kid (1984)
- The Cartographer's Girlfriend (1987)
- Dogs (1988)
- Ambition (1991)
- Theory of Achievement (1991)
- Flirt (1993)
- Opera No. 1 (1994)
- NYC 3/94 (1994)
- Iris (1994)
- The New Math(s) (2000)
- KimonoKimonoThe is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...
(2000) - The Sisters of Mercy (2004)
- A/Muse (2010)
- Implied Harmonies (2010)
- The Apologies (2010)
- Adventure (2010)
- Accomplice (2010)