Allan King

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For other people with the same name, see Alan King (disambiguation).
Allan King
Born
Allan Winton King

(1930-02-06)February 6, 1930
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
DiedJune 15, 2009(2009-06-15) (aged 79)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Occupation(s)Film director
Film producer
Years active1956 – 2006
Spouse(s)Phyllis Leiterman (1952-before 1970)
Patricia Watson (1970-before 1987)
Colleen Murphy (1987–2009)
AwardsOrder of Canada

Allan Winton King, OC (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009),[1] was a Canadian film director.

Life

Born in

Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.[2]

With documentary filmmakers

W5.[3]

In 2002, he was made an Officer of the

Vancouver International Film Centre.[5]

King married three times: first to Phyllis Leiterman in 1952, then to screenwriter Patricia Watson in 1970, and finally to screenwriter Colleen Murphy in 1987.[3] He collaborated with both Watson and Murphy on film projects. He wrote Who Has Seen the Wind with Watson in 1976[3] and directed Murphy's screenplay for Termini Station in 1989.

Pre-eminent documentarian

For his films, King used the documentary technique

cinema-verite. He ran Allan King Films Limited in Toronto
. King described his style as "actuality drama – filming the drama of everyday life as it happens, spontaneously without direction, interviews or narrative." He said that he wanted to "serve the action as unobtrusively as possible" by becoming very familiar with both the environment and the people he filmed by paying particular attention to movement patterns, routines, and light quality.

Warrendale

Warrendale was a film about emotionally-disturbed children who lived in a Toronto institution with the same name. Warrendale used an experimental "holding" technique of safely restraining children who lost control because of fear, rage, or grief. The therapy was designed to push children to verbalize their emotions so that they would learn to identify and deal with their emotions, and it was also supposed to replace drugs or other techniques. The film was not an exposé of holding and neither chastised nor applauded the school's approach, but it was instead an absorbing, empathetic glimpse of children in distress.

Unlike Frederick Wiseman, who spent only a short time exploring an institution before he began filming, King spent much time with subjects beforehand so that he would develop trust with his subjects. King spent four weeks at Warrendale with 12 children and another two weeks there with his camera crew before filming began.

The

Belle de Jour
.

A Married Couple

Despite censorship, King continued to push cultural taboos. In 1969, he directed

Clive Barnes described A Married Couple as "quite simply one of the best films I have ever seen."[citation needed
] The film was issued by the Criterion Collection in a set titled Eclipse series 24: The Actuality Dramas of Allan King.

Other genres

During more than 50 years of filmmaking, King worked in every film genre except animation, creating an enormous and diverse portfolio. To support his documentaries, King also directed episodic television and feature films. His first dramatic feature film, Who Has Seen the Wind (1976), based on the novel by

Golden Reel Award
for the highest-grossing Canadian film of the year. Many television dramas that he directed won top awards.

In 2003, he produced

Salvation Army Toronto Grace Health Centre
as they came to terms with their deaths. It won awards at film festivals in Toronto and Berlin.

Death

King died from

brain cancer on June 15, 2009, at 79, in his home in Toronto.[6]

Filmography

Films and telefilms

Television series

Further reading

  • Seth Feldman, ed., Allan King: Filmmaker, Indiana University Press 2002,
    ISBN 0-9689132-1-0
  • Stanley Kaufmann, Children of Our Time, 1967;
  • Nik Sheehan, Crisis, What Crisis, 2002)

See also

References

  1. ^ "Documentary filmmaker Allan King dead at 79". CTV.ca. 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2009-06-15.
  2. ^ Memories of Maria: A Contribution to the Discussion on "The Image of the Working Class in Canadian Media", Allan King, Take One, December 1, 2001
  3. ^ a b c Haig-King Film Arts Ltd. fonds at Library and Archives Canada.
  4. ^ "MoMA retrospective celebrates veteran filmmaker Allan King". CBC News, April 24, 2007.
  5. ^ "Rudy Buttignol reminisces about Canadian documentary great Allan King". The Georgia Straight, September 16, 2009.
  6. ^ "Canadian documentary maker Allan King dies at 79". CBC News, June 15, 2009.

External links

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