Paul Morrison (director)
Paul Morrison | |
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Born | 1944 (age 79–80) Psychotherapist |
Paul Morrison (born 1944, London) is a British
Early life and education
Morrison was born in London to a family of ethnic Eastern European Jews from
He made his first film while attending University College School[1] as a boy. He used Super 8 film to shoot a Keystone Cops-inspired silent comedy, The Doubry Film, with his friends acting. He recalls it as his most joyous experience as a filmmaker.
Upon leaving school Morrison studied economics at Churchill College, Cambridge, where he was in the same cohort as Tony Atkinson and graduated with a first-class degree in 1966.[1] While at Cambridge, Morrison tried acting but found he was more suited to directing. He directed a number of plays and short plays, including Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, with Robert Cushman as Goldberg.
Afterwards he attended the Royal College of Art Film School on their one-year course (1966-67). The following year he accepted a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard University's Kennedy Graduate School to study the Sociology of Underdevelopment. While there he became a part-time projectionist with the Ivy Film Club; he could view and analyse films overnight before they had to be returned.
He also worked with Josh Waletzky on a drama film about a rent strike. He worked with Morgan Fisher on several highly regarded conceptual films, including The Director and His Actor Look at Footage....
Career
After Morrison returned to London, he started work with the BBC, making short films for the nightly current affairs programme 24 Hours. He moved up to longer pieces, working with a young John Humphrys on an expose of conditions at Ashford Remand Centre. He made a series of films with Kenneth Allsop on ecological issues. He hired the first black presenter to make a film exposing the systematic undervaluing of black children’s scholastic ability.
In 1969 Morrison made a
In 1970 Morrison left the BBC and went to work with a Community Arts Project, Inter-Action, where he led the films division. He encouraged young people and community groups to make their own films, using the newly available portable Sony and Akai cameras. He also made experimental participatory films with Geoff Hoyle, an actor, comic and mime.
While still at Inter-Action, Morrison was sought out by producer Irving Teitelbaum from Kestrel Films. He directed several sponsored films for Kestrel, notably Like Other People, about sexuality and disability. It won the
At Inter-Action the tragic death of a colleague resulted in Morrison seeking help to face difficult feelings. For the first time he sought psychotherapy and to learn its deep and lasting value.
Paul left Inter-Action to become a founder member of the Newsreel Collective, helping make campaign and educational films. These included Divide and Rule – Never! against racism, and True Romance etc. about relationships and sexual preference. The script for the latter was workshopped with the young people who performed in it. Divide and Rule – Never! won first prize at Oberhausen. True Romance etc! was runner-up for the Grierson award.
During the same period, Morrison was deeply engaged in the nascent men's movement. It explored redefining men’s roles and masculinity in response to
With the advent of
About Men… explored issues of masculinity via a group of Coventry men. They came together once a week with the filmmakers to examine their conceptions of what it was to be a man.
A Change of Mind opened up the world of psychotherapy. It included moving sequences of therapeutic sessions filmed live. It mixed old and newer schools of psychotherapy.
A Sense of Belonging was about issues of British-Jewish identity. It featured dozens of ordinary and extraordinary Jews who had previously been unknown. This series was produced through APT Film and Television, which Morrison founded with Andy Porter and Tony Dowmunt.
In this period, he also directed a feature documentary From Bitter Earth: Artists of the Holocaust, for BBC. It recounted artists who bore witness, at the risk of death, to the ghettoes and death camps of World War II.
Morrison wrote and directed his first fiction feature film, Solomon & Gaenor. It also explored issues of Jewish identity, as it was a love story between a young Orthodox Jewish man and Welsh woman, set in 1911, during anti-Jewish riots in the Welsh valleys. Morrison worked to raise funds for the film.
During this extended period, he also completed his modular training at Spectrum Centre for Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy. He began to practise as a therapist.
Solomon & Gaenor starred
Morrison wrote and directed his nilm, Wondrous Oblivion, a
In 2007 Morrison shot
For the next ten years, Morrison maintained his therapy practice and was otherwise caught up in family care. He did not work in film. In 2018 he retired as a psychotherapist.
In 2019 Morrison returned to filmmaking. He wrote and directed 23 Walks, an older person’s dog-walking love story, starring Alison Steadman and Dave Johns. It was released in 2020.[2]
Morrison has two films in active development. Windermere explores a group of 1970s political activists who re-unite post-
Filmography
- Solomon and Gaenor(1999)
- Wondrous Oblivion (2003)
- Little Ashes (2008)
- 23 Walks (2020)
References
- ^ a b "Cambridge Tripos Examination results", The Times, 23 June 1966, p. 18.
- ^ Felperin, Leslie (24 September 2020). "23 Walks review – dog-lovers follow the path to romance". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 November 2023.