Terry Zwigoff
Encyclopedia
Terry Zwigoff is an American filmmaker whose work often deals with misfits, antiheros, and themes of alienation
. His fiction films are the features Ghost World
(2001), Bad Santa
(2003), and Art School Confidential (2006). Zwigoff began his career making documentary films
: Louie Bluie (1985) about an obscure blues
and string band
musician Howard Armstrong, and Crumb
(1995) about the artist Robert Crumb
and his two brothers, Maxon
and Charles
.
Of the documentaries
, Crumb
, in particular, was critically acclaimed, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival
, the DGA
award, the NY Film Critics Circle Award
, the LA Film Critics
Award, and the National Society of Film Critics
Award. Gene Siskel
named Crumb
the best film of 1995 as did over ten other major film critics. Crumb
appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists of important critics. When Crumb
failed to receive an Oscar nomination, there was an outcry from the media which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
to revamp their documentary nomination process that previously had been dominated by the distributors of documentary films.
Zwigoff’s first fiction feature film was the comedy-drama Ghost World
(2001). Zwigoff and co-writer Daniel Clowes
were nominated for an Academy Award
for Best Screenplay
and won the Independent Spirit Award
. Ghost World
was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards
and two AFI
awards. USA Today
and The Washington Post
called it the best film of the year. And like Crumb
, Ghost World
also appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists.
Zwigoff’s next film was the black comedy Bad Santa
(2003) whose star, Billy Bob Thornton
, was nominated for a Golden Globe award
. The film cost $23 million to make and grossed over $76 million worldwide.
Zwigoff’s latest feature film was Art School Confidential (2005) whose best known stars are John Malkovich
, Jim Broadbent
, and Angelica Huston. Art School Confidential was Zwigoff’s second collaboration with writer Daniel Clowes
.
Zwigoff, raised in Chicago
, moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and there met Robert Crumb
, who shared his interest in pre-war American roots music
. Zwigoff, who plays cello
and mandolin
, joined Crumb
’s string band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders
with whom he recorded several records.
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
. His fiction films are the features Ghost World
Ghost World (film)
Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...
(2001), Bad Santa
Bad Santa
Bad Santa is a 2003 American screwball black comedy film directed and co-written by Terry Zwigoff, produced by the Coen brothers, and starring Billy Bob Thornton as the title character and Tony Cox as his partner in crime. Actors Bernie Mac and John Ritter co-star...
(2003), and Art School Confidential (2006). Zwigoff began his career making documentary films
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
: Louie Bluie (1985) about an obscure blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and string band
String band
A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass.-String bands in old-time music:...
musician Howard Armstrong, and Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
(1995) about the artist Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
and his two brothers, Maxon
Maxon Crumb
Maxon Crumb is an American artist and the younger brother of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. He currently lives at the Windsor Hotel on Sixth Street in San Francisco and has lived there since about 1980....
and Charles
Charles Crumb
Charles Vincent Crumb, Jr. was an American artist closely associated with his famous younger brother, the cartoonist Robert Crumb....
.
Of the documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
, in particular, was critically acclaimed, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 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...
, the DGA
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
award, the NY Film Critics Circle Award
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
New York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
, the LA Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
Award, and 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:...
Award. Gene Siskel
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted the popular review show Siskel & Ebert At the Movies from 1975 until his death....
named Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
the best film of 1995 as did over ten other major film critics. Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists of important critics. When Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
failed to receive an Oscar nomination, there was an outcry from the media which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
to revamp their documentary nomination process that previously had been dominated by the distributors of documentary films.
Zwigoff’s first fiction feature film was the comedy-drama Ghost World
Ghost World (film)
Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...
(2001). Zwigoff and co-writer Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
were nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best 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...
and won the Independent Spirit Award
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
. Ghost World
Ghost World (film)
Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...
was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
and two AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
awards. USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
called it the best film of the year. And like Crumb
Crumb (film)
Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
, Ghost World
Ghost World (film)
Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...
also appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists.
Zwigoff’s next film was the black comedy Bad Santa
Bad Santa
Bad Santa is a 2003 American screwball black comedy film directed and co-written by Terry Zwigoff, produced by the Coen brothers, and starring Billy Bob Thornton as the title character and Tony Cox as his partner in crime. Actors Bernie Mac and John Ritter co-star...
(2003) whose star, 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...
, was nominated for a Golden Globe award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
. The film cost $23 million to make and grossed over $76 million worldwide.
Zwigoff’s latest feature film was Art School Confidential (2005) whose best known stars are John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
, Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
, and Angelica Huston. Art School Confidential was Zwigoff’s second collaboration with writer Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
.
Zwigoff, raised in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and there met Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
, who shared his interest in pre-war American roots music
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
. Zwigoff, who plays cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, joined Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
’s string band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders
R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders
R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders are a string band playing songs from, and in the style of, the 1920s. Their three 33⅓ rpm albums, all recorded in the 1970s on the Blue Goose label, were titled R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders , R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders No. 2 , and R....
with whom he recorded several records.
Filmography (Directing Credits)
- Louie Bluie (1985) Also Producer
- CrumbCrumb (film)Crumb is a 1994 documentary film about the noted underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell and David Lynch, it won widespread acclaim, including both the Grand Jury Prize and best cinematography prize at the Sundance Film Festival...
(1994) Also Producer - Ghost WorldGhost World (film)Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...
(2001) Also Writer - Bad SantaBad SantaBad Santa is a 2003 American screwball black comedy film directed and co-written by Terry Zwigoff, produced by the Coen brothers, and starring Billy Bob Thornton as the title character and Tony Cox as his partner in crime. Actors Bernie Mac and John Ritter co-star...
(2003) - Art School Confidential (2006)
External links
- Interview - Now Playing magazine
- Terry Zwigoff's Santa: He's Making a List And Checking His Escape Routes Twice - New York Times Interview