Mark Jonathan Harris
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Mark Jonathan Harris (born 1941) is an American documentary filmmaker probably best known for his films Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000) and The Long Way Home (1997). He has directed three documentaries which have gone on to win Oscars, across three different decades.
Educated at
Harris started out as a crime reporter for the Chicago City News Bureau, and reports that on his first story he went into a police station and had his car stolen from in front of it. The police called him a few weeks later to ask if he had found his car. Harris tried investigative journalism next but quit after realizing he did not like to embarrass people.
Harris believes that filmmakers can construct a
Harris' film The Long Way Home deals with the experience of Jewish refugees after
As a documentary filmmaker, Harris casts his films carefully, talking to people beforehand and deciding who has an interesting story and who tells it well on camera. He also refuses to start filming immediately, but prefers to talk with the subjects for about an hour beforehand.
He is currently the producer of a documentary called "With One Hand Tied",[1] which is based on the book "Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II".[2]
Harris is also the author of various children's books, a side career he stumbled into the mid-1980s: he returned to journalism because he could not find funding for a documentary he wanted to make. After writing an article about a young child, he was contacted by an agent who asked him to write children's literature and has since written several children's books.
Harris is currently a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California.
References
- ^ "With One Hand Tied". IMDB.com.
- ^ "Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II". Los Angeles Sentinel. June 25, 2009.