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John Boorman
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John Boorman (born January 18, 1933) is an English filmmaker, currently based in Ireland, best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, The General and Zardoz.
man was born in Shepperton, Middlesex, the son of Ivy (née Chapman) and George Boorman. He was educated at the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey, even though his family was not Roman Catholic.
man first began by working as a drycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s and then he moved into TV documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming the head of the BBC's Bristol-based Documentary Unit in 1962.
Capturing the interest of producer David Deutsch, he was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success of A Hard Day's Night (directed by Richard Lester in 1964): Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about competing pop group Dave Clark Five.
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Encyclopedia
John Boorman (born January 18, 1933) is an English filmmaker, currently based in Ireland, best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, The General and Zardoz.
Biography
Early life
Boorman was born in Shepperton, Middlesex, the son of Ivy (née Chapman) and George Boorman. He was educated at the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey, even though his family was not Roman Catholic.
Career
Boorman first began by working as a drycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s and then he moved into TV documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming the head of the BBC's Bristol-based Documentary Unit in 1962.
Capturing the interest of producer David Deutsch, he was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success of A Hard Day's Night (directed by Richard Lester in 1964): Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about competing pop group Dave Clark Five. While not as successful commercially as Lester's film, it smoothed Boorman's way into the film industry. Boorman was drawn to Hollywood for the opportunity to make larger-scale cinema and in Point Blank (1967), a powerful interpretation of a Richard Stark novel, brought a stranger's vision to the decaying fortress of Alcatraz and the proto-hippy world of San Francisco. Lee Marvin gave the then-unknown director his full support, telling MGM he deferred all his approvals on the project to Boorman.
After Point Blank, Boorman re-teamed with Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune for the robinsonade of Hell in the Pacific (1968), which tells a fable story of two representative soldiers stranded together on an island.
Returning to the UK, he made Leo The Last (US/UK, 1970). This film exhibited the influence of Federico Fellini and even starred Fellini regular Marcello Mastroianni, and won him a Best Director award at Cannes.
Boorman achieved much greater resonance with Deliverance (US, 1972, adapted from a novel by James Dickey), the odyssey of city people played by Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty as they trespass into Appalachian backwoods and discover their inner savagery. This film became Boorman's first true box office success, earning him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for "Best Director" and "Best Picture" (1972).
At the beginning of the 1970s, Boorman was planning to film The Lord of the Rings and corresponded about his plans with the author, J. R. R. Tolkien. Ultimately the production proved too costly though some elements and themes can be seen in Excalibur.
A wide variety of films followed: Zardoz (1974), starring Sean Connery, was a post-apocalyptic science fiction piece, set in the 24th century. According to the director's film commentary, the 'Zardoz world' was on a collision course with an "effete" eternal society, which it accomplished, and in the story must reconcile with a more natural human nature.
Boorman was selected as director for Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), but the resultant film was widely ridiculed and regarded by many as a total failure.
Excalibur (UK, 1981), a long held dream project of Boorman's, is well-remembered as a mythical film and one of the very few "true" retellings of the Arthurian legend and tragedy. Boorman cast actors Nicol Williamson and (now Dame) Helen Mirren against their protests as the two disliked each other intensely, but Boorman felt their mutual antagonism would enhance their characterizations of the characters they were playing. The production was based in the Republic of Ireland where Boorman had relocated. For the film he employed all of his children as actors and crew and several of Boorman's later films have been 'family business' productions.
Hope and Glory (1987, UK) is his most autobiographical movie to date, a retelling of his childhood in London during The Blitz. Produced by Goldcrest Films with Hollywood financing the film proved a Box Office hit in the US, earning "Best Director", "Best Original Screenplay" and "Best Picture" Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Boorman; the film also swept the nominations board at that year's BAFTA's. However his 1990 US produced comedy about a dysfunctional family, Where the Heart Is, was a major flop.
Very eco-conscious, Boorman's The Emerald Forest (1985), a rainforest adventure, casts his actor son Charley Boorman as an eco-warrior, mingling commercially-required elements — action and near-nudity — with anthropological detail and the gorgeous threat of a green inferno (the film was adapted into a book of the same name by award winning author Robert Holdstock). When his friend David Lean died in 1991, Boorman was announced to be taking over direction of Lean's long planned adaptation of Nostromo, though the production collapsed. Beyond Rangoon (US, 1995) and The Tailor of Panama (US/Ireland, 2000) both explore unique worlds with alien characters stranded and desperate in them.
In 1999, Boorman won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for The General, his black-and-white biopic of Martin Cahill. The film is about the somewhat glamorous, yet mysterious, criminal in Dublin who was killed, apparently by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
His most recent film, The Tiger's Tail, is set in contemporary Ireland.
Boorman's next project will be a fictional account of the life of Roman Emperor Hadrian (entitled Memoirs of Hadrian), written in the form of a letter from a dying Hadrian to his successor. The film is slated for a 2010 release. Antonio Banderas was initially in talks to be cast as Hadrian, but it is now believed that Daniel Craig will take on the role instead.
Personal life
Boorman lives in Annamoe, County Wicklow, Ireland, close to the famous Glendalough twin lakes. He has seven children. His son Charley Boorman has a career as an actor but reached a wider audience when he and actor Ewan McGregor made a televised motorbike trip across Europe, Central Asia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and the Midwest USA during 2004. His daughter Katrine (Igrayne in Excalibur) works as an actress in France. John Boorman's daughter Telsche wrote the screenplay for Where the Heart Is. She died of cancer in 1997.
Filmography
Further reading
External links
- , article by Boorman in The Guardian arguing that the current Hollywood studio system promotes mediocrity and is unsustainable
- Infos, timeline, special files, pics and much more about 'Zardoz' (1974)
- for The Lord of the Rings
- A documentary about John Boorman who came in Paris (France), in 2006, to present Point Blank with the French critic Michel Ciment.
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