Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann | |
---|---|
Born | Alfred Zinnemann April 29, 1907 |
Died | March 14, 1997 London, England | (aged 89)
Alma mater | École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1932–1982 |
Notable work | |
Spouse |
Renee Bartlett (m. 1936) |
Children | Tim Zinnemann |
Awards | Academy Award for Best Director 1954 From Here to Eternity 1967 A Man for All Seasons Academy Award for Best Picture 1952 Benjy |
Alfred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907 – March 14, 1997) was an Austrian-American[1] film director and producer. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and play adaptations. He began his career in Europe before emigrating to the US, where he specialized in shorts before making 25 feature films during his 50-year career.
He was among the first directors to insist on using authentic locations and for mixing stars with non-professional actors to give his films more realism. Within the film industry, he was considered a maverick for taking risks and thereby creating unique films, with many of his stories being dramas about lone and principled individuals tested by tragic events. According to one historian, Zinnemann's style demonstrated his sense of "psychological realism and his apparent determination to make worthwhile pictures that are nevertheless highly entertaining."
Among his films were
Zinnemann directed and introduced a number of stars in their U.S. film debuts, including
Early life
In Austria, discrimination had been part of life since time immemorial. It was always there, oppressive, often snide, sometimes hostile, seldom violent. It was in the air and one sensed it at all levels, in school, at work and in society. A Jew was an outsider, a threat to the country's culture. Born in Austria-Hungary (now Poland), and raised as an Austrian, he would still never truly belong.
—Fred Zinnemann[3]: 11
Zinnemann was born in Rzeszów,[1][2][4][5] the son of Anna (Feiwel) and Oskar Zinnemann, a doctor.[6][7] His parents were Austrian Jews.[8][9] He had one younger brother.
Zinnemann grew up in
While growing up in the First Austrian Republic, which had been formed as a rump state of a fallen Empire in 1918 and which he later described as, "a tiny, defeated, impoverished country",[11] Zinnemann wanted to become a musician, but went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1927.[8]
While studying law, he became drawn to films and convinced his parents to let him study film production in the
Career as director
Early career
Zinnemann worked in
Although he was fascinated by the artistic culture of Germany, with its theater, music and films, he was also aware that the country was in a deep economic crisis. He became disenchanted with Berlin after continually seeing decadent ostentation and luxury existing alongside desperate unemployment. The wealthy classes were moving more to the political right and the poor to the left. "Emotion had long since begun to displace reason," he said.[3]: 16 As a result of the changing political climate, along with the fact that sound films had arrived in Europe, which was technically unprepared to produce their own, film production throughout Europe slowed dramatically. Zinnemann, then only 21, got his parents' permission to go to America where he hoped filmmaking opportunities would be greater.[3]: 16
He arrived in New York at the end of October 1929, at the time of the stock market crash. Despite the financial panic then beginning, he found New York to be a different cultural environment:[3]: 17
New York was a terrific experience, full of excitement, with a vitality and pace then totally lacking in Europe. It was as though I had just left a continent of zombies and entered a place humming with incredible energy and power.[3]: 17
He took a Greyhound bus to Hollywood a few months later following the completion of his first directorial effort for the Mexican cultural protest film, The Wave, in Alvarado, Mexico. He established residence in North Hollywood with Henwar Rodakiewicz,
He was twenty-two but he said he felt older than the forty-year-olds in Hollywood. But he was jubilant because he was then certain that "this was the place one could breathe free and belong."[3]: 18 But after a few years he became disillusioned with the limited talents of Hollywood's elites.
1940s
After some directing success with some short films, he graduated to features in 1942, turning out two B mysteries,
After World War II, Zinnemann learned that both of his parents had been murdered in the
1950s
Perhaps Zinnemann's best-known work is High Noon (1952), one of the first 25 American films chosen in 1989 for the National Film Registry. With its psychological and moral examinations of its lawman hero Marshall Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper and its innovative chronology whereby screen time approximated the 80-minute countdown to the confrontational hour, the film broke the mold of the formulaic western. Working closely with cinematographer and longtime friend Floyd Crosby, he shot without filters, giving the landscape a harsh "newsreel" quality that clashed with the more painterly cinematography of John Ford's westerns.[15] During production he established a strong rapport with Gary Cooper, photographing the aging actor in many tight close-ups which showed him sweating, and at one point, even crying on screen.
Screenwriter Carl Foreman apparently intended High Noon to be an allegory of Senator Joseph McCarthy's vendetta against alleged Communists. However, Zinnemann disagreed, insisting, late in life, that the issues in the film, for him, were broader, and were more about conscience and independent, uncompromising fearlessness. He says, "High Noon is "not a Western, as far as I'm concerned; it just happens to be set in the Old West."
Film critic Stephen Prince suggests that the character of Kane actually represents Zinnemann, who tried to create an atmosphere of impending threat on the horizon, a fear of potential "fascism", represented by the gang of killers soon arriving. Zinnemann explained the general context for many of his films: "One of the crucial things today [is] trying to preserve our civilization."[12]: 86
Prince adds that Zinnemann, having learned that both his parents were murdered in the Holocaust, wanted Kane willing to "fight rather than run", unlike everyone else in town. As a result, "Zinnemann allies himself" with the film's hero.[12]: 86 Zinnemann explains the theme of the film and its relevance to modern times:
I saw it as a great movie yarn, full of enormously interesting people ... only later did it dawn on me that this was not a regular Western myth. There was something timely – and timeless – about it, something that had a direct bearing on life today. To me it was the story of a man who must make a decision according to his conscience. His town – symbol of a democracy gone soft – faces a horrendous threat to its people's way of life. Determined to resist, and in deep trouble, he moves all over the place looking for support but finding that there is nobody who will help him; each has a reason of his own for not getting involved. In the end, he must meet his chosen fate all by himself, his town's doors and windows firmly locked against him. It is a story that still happens everywhere, every day.[3]: 96–97
For his screen adaptation of the play
Zinnemann's next film, From Here to Eternity (1953), based on the novel by James Jones, was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and would go on to win 8, including Best Picture and Best Director. Zinnemann fought hard with producer Harry Cohn to cast Montgomery Clift as the character of Prewitt, although Frank Sinatra, who was at the lowest point of his popularity, cast himself in the role of "Maggio" against Zinnemann's wishes.[17] Sinatra would later win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. From Here to Eternity also featured Deborah Kerr, best known for prim and proper roles, as a philandering Army wife. Donna Reed played the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke, a prostitute and mistress of Montgomery Clift's character which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 1953.
In
His next film was A Hatful of Rain (1957), starring Don Murray, Eva Marie Saint and Anthony Franciosa, and was based on the play by Michael V. Gazzo. It is a drama story about a young married man with a secret morphine addiction who tries to quit and suffers through painful withdrawal symptoms. The film was a risk for Zinnemann, since movie depictions of drug addiction and withdrawal were rare in the 1950s.[12]: 3
Zinnemann rounded out the 1950s with
I have never seen anyone more disciplined, more gracious or more dedicated to her work than Audrey. There was no ego, no asking for extra favors; there was the greatest consideration for her co-workers.[3]: 166
1960s
In 1965 he was a member of the jury at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.[19]
Zinnemann's fortunes changed once again with
After this, Zinnemann was all set to direct an adaptation of
1970s
By the early 1970s, Zinnemann had been out of work since the cancellation of Man's Fate; he believed it had "marked the end of an era in picture making and the dawn of a new one, when lawyers and accountants began to replace showmen as head of the studios and when a handshake was a handshake no longer."
The Day of the Jackal was followed four years later by
1980s
Zinnemann's final film was Five Days One Summer (1982), filmed in Switzerland and based on the short story Maiden, Maiden by Kay Boyle. It starred Sean Connery and Betsy Brantley as a "couple" vacationing in the Alps in the 1930s, and a young Lambert Wilson as a mountain-climbing guide who grows heavily suspicious of their relationship. The film was both a critical and commercial flop, although Zinnemann would be told by various critics in later years that they considered it an underrated achievement.[24] Zinnemann blamed the film's critical and commercial failure for his retirement from filmmaking: "I'm not saying it was a good picture. But there was a degree of viciousness in the reviews. The pleasure some people took in tearing down the film really hurt."[25]
Final years and death
Zinnemann is often regarded as striking a blow against ageism in Hollywood.[by whom?][26] The apocryphal story goes that in the 1980s, during a meeting with a young Hollywood executive, Zinnemann was surprised to find the executive didn't know who he was, despite having won four Academy Awards, and directing many of Hollywood's biggest films. When the young executive asked Zinnemann to list what he had done in his career, Zinnemann reportedly answered, "Sure. You first." In Hollywood, the story is known as "You First," and is often alluded to when veteran creators find that upstarts are unfamiliar with their work.[27]
Zinnemann insisted, "I've been trying to disown that story for years. It seems to me Billy Wilder told it to me about himself."[28]
Zinnemann died of a heart attack in London, England on March 14, 1997.[29] He was 89 years old. Zinneman's remains were cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and the cremated remains were collected from the cemetery. His wife died on December 18, 1997.[30]
Directing style
His films are characterized by an unshakable belief in human dignity; a realist aesthetic; a preoccupation with moral and social issues; a warm and sympathetic treatment of character; an expert handling of actors; a meticulous attention to detail; consummate technical artistry; poetic restraint; and deliberately open endings.
—Arthur Nolletti,[12]: 1
film historian
Zinnemann's training in documentary filmmaking and his personal background contributed to his style as a "
Because he started his film career as a cameraman, his movies are strongly oriented toward the visual aspects. He also said that regardless of the size of an actor's part, he spends much time discussing the roles with each actor separately and in depth. "In this way we make sure long before the filming starts that we are on the same wavelength," he says.[3]: 223
Zinnemann's films are mostly dramas about lone and principled individuals tested by tragic events, including High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953); The Nun's Story (1959); A Man For All Seasons (1966); and Julia (1977). Regarded as a consummate craftsman, Zinnemann traditionally endowed his work with meticulous attention to detail to create realism, and had an intuitive gift for casting and a preoccupation with the moral dilemmas of his characters. His philosophy about directing influenced director Alan Parker:
My mentor was the great director, Fred Zinnemann, whom I used to show all my films to until he died. He said something to me that I always try to keep in my head every time I decide on what film to do next. He told me that making a film was a great privilege, and you should never waste it.[31]
In From Here to Eternity, for example, he effectively added actual newsreel footage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which enhanced and dramatized the story. Similarly, in A Hatful of Rain, he used a documentary style to present real life drug addiction in New York City. Zinnemann again incorporated newsreel footage in Behold a Pale Horse, about the Spanish Civil War. The Day of the Jackal, a political thriller about an attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, was shot on location in newsreel style, while Julia placed the characters in authentic settings, as in a suspenseful train journey from Paris to Moscow during World War II.[8] According to one historian, Zinnemann's style "demonstrates the director's sense of psychological realism and his apparent determination to make worthwhile pictures that are nevertheless highly entertaining."[8]
Filmography
Feature films
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1936 | Redes | |
1942 | Kid Glove Killer | |
Eyes in the Night | ||
1944 | The Seventh Cross | |
1946 | Little Mister Jim | |
1947 | My Brother Talks to Horses | |
1948 | The Search | |
1949 | Act of Violence | |
1950 | The Men | |
1951 | Teresa | |
1952 | High Noon | |
The Member of the Wedding | ||
1953 | From Here to Eternity | |
1955 | Oklahoma! | |
1957 | A Hatful of Rain | |
1959 | The Nun's Story | |
1960 | The Sundowners | |
1964 | Behold a Pale Horse | |
1966 | A Man For All Seasons | |
1973 | The Day of the Jackal | |
1977 | Julia | |
1982 | Five Days One Summer |
Short films
Year | Film | Oscar nominations | Oscar wins |
---|---|---|---|
1937 | Friend Indeed | ||
1938 | They Live Again | ||
That Mothers Might Live | 1 | 1 | |
The Story of Doctor Carver | |||
1939 | Weather Wizards | ||
While America Sleeps | |||
Help Wanted | |||
One Against the World | |||
The Ash Can Fleet | |||
Forgotten Victory | |||
1940 | Stuffie
|
||
The Great Meddler | |||
The Old South | |||
A Way in the Wilderness | |||
1941 | Forbidden Passage | 1 | |
Your Last Act | |||
1942 | The Greenie | ||
The Lady or the Tiger?
|
|||
1951 | Benjy (documentary) | 1 | 1 |
Unfinished films
Year | Title | Replaced by |
---|---|---|
1945 | The Clock | Vincente Minnelli |
1958 | The Old Man and the Sea | John Sturges |
Awards and honours
Over the course of Zinnemann's career he has received three
- Academy Award for Best Short Subject, One-Reel: That Mothers Might Live (1938).
- Golden Globe for Best Film Promoting International Understanding: "The Search" (1948).
- Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject: Benjy (1951).
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director: High Noon (1952).
- Academy Award for Best Director, Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures: From Here to Eternity (1953).
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director: The Nun's Story (1959).
- Academy Award for Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, and Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures: A Man for All Seasons (1966).
- D. W. Griffith Award, 1971.
- Order of Arts and Letters, France, 1982.
- U.S. Congressional Lifetime Achievement Award, 1987.
- John Huston Award, Artists Right Foundation, 1994.
References
- ^ a b c "Fred Zinnemann will return to Rzeszów. In August for an extraordinary film festival". rzeszow-news. July 12, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
- ^ a b "The Immigrant who Directed The American Classic High Noon". Forbes. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Fred Zinnemann, A Life in the Movies. An Autobiography, Macmillan Books, (1992)
- ^ "Why Fred Zinnemann never mentioned his native Rzeszów?". biznesistyl. August 16, 2018.
- ^ "Civil Registration Book of Jewish Children in Rzeszów 1906–1909". National Records Office in Rzeszów. 1909. Archived from the original on October 30, 2020. Retrieved August 26, 2018 – via Archival resources online.
- ISBN 9780684190501. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books. pages 48-49
- ISBN 9781578066988. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hillstrom, Laurie Collier. International Dictionary of Films and filmmakers-2: Directors, 3rd ed. St. James Press (1997) p. 1116-1119
- ^ the London telegraph: "The music behind Hollywood's golden age – As the Proms pays tribute to Hollywood's golden age, Tim Robey looks at the composers who redefined the film score" By Tim Robey. August 24, 2013.
- ^ Fred Zinnemann (1992), A Life in the Movies: An Autobiography, Charles Scribner Sons. Pages 7–8.
- ^ Fred Zinnemann (1992), A Life in the Movies: An Autobiography, Charles Scribner Sons. Page 7.
- ^ a b c d e f g Nolletti, Arthur, ed. The Films of Fred Zinnemann: Critical Perspectives, State Univ. of N.Y. Press (1999)
- ^ "ned scott biography". www.thenedscottarchive.com. Archived from the original on June 22, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9781578066988. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ J. E. Smyth, "Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema of Resistance", Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2014. Pages 103–04.
- ^ The Member of the Wedding review, The Digital Bits, July 28, 2016
- ISBN 9781578066988. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 9781578066988. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ "4th Moscow International Film Festival (1965)". MIFF. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
- ^ "5th Moscow International Film Festival (1967)". MIFF. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
- ^ a b Gray, Timothy M.; Natale, Richard (March 17, 1997). "Zinnemann dies at 89". Variety.
- ^ Arthur Nolletti, ed., The Films of Fred Zinnemann: Critical Perspectives, SUNY Press, 1999, p. 20
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: iwillspyonyou (March 1, 2011). "Vanessa Redgrave's 'Zionist Hoodlums' Speech Shocks Hollywood". Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via YouTube.
- ISBN 9780791442265. Retrieved August 3, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ^ Gritten, David (June 21, 1992). "MOVIES : A Lion in His Winter : At 85, Fred Zinnemann looks back on a life in film; his anecdote-rich autobiography earns the rave reviews his last movie didn't". Los Angeles Times.
- ISBN 9780786481729.
- ^ Weinraub, Bernard (September 14, 1994). "At Lunch with: John Gregory Dunne; The Bad Old Days in All Their Glory". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2007.
- ^ Gritten, David (June 21, 1992). "MOVIES : A Lion in His Winter : At 85, Fred Zinnemann looks back on a life in film; his anecdote-rich autobiography earns the rave reviews his last movie didn't". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "Zinnemann, Fred 1907–1997". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
- ^ "Overview for Fred Zinnemann". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
- ^ Emery, Robert J. The Directors, Allworth Press, N.Y. (2003) pp. 133–154
External links
- Fred Zinnemann at IMDb
- Literature on Fred Zinnemann
- Fred Zinnemann papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- Fred Zinnemann (in German) from the online-archive of the Österreichische Mediathek