René Balcer
René Balcer | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Canadian, American |
Occupation(s) | Writer, producer, director, showrunner, photographer |
René Balcer (born February 9, 1954) is a Canadian-American
, as well as a photographer and documentary film-maker.Early life
He was born in
Career
Balcer is noted for writing and showrunning the television series Law & Order, and for creating and showrunning its spin-off series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was hired as staff writer on Law & Order's first season in 1990, becoming showrunner in the show's seventh season in 1996. During his tenure as showrunner, Law & Order won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series; became a Top Ten drama in the Nielsen ratings;[7] was syndicated to TNT Network in a deal which at the time was the most expensive off-network series sale ever to cable;[8] received an unprecedented five-season pick-up from NBC;[9] and tied Gunsmoke for longest-running TV drama.[10]
Balcer won an
In writing about legal issues, Balcer has drawn on his own experiences with law enforcement and his first-hand encounter with the brutal application of authoritarian power - at age 16, he was picked up as a suspected
His work has been recognized outside the entertainment community: in 1999 and 2000, he received the
Balcer has received additional recognitions, including being commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear in 2008; in the Season Five episode of The Sopranos, "In Camelot", Chris's writing friend JT (played by Tim Daly) tells Chris that he has a meeting with René Balcer about a writing job. Balcer's altercation with a Fox employee during the Writers Guild strike on January 10, 2008 became the subject of a joke by David Letterman during his monologue on January 12, 2008. At the North Dakota Museum of Art, Balcer's Law & Order episodes are played in a continuous loop in the installation Barton Benes Period Room: 21st Century Artist Studio.[14]
In October 2009, Balcer came under attack by right-wing bloggers for an episode of Law & Order about the Bush Administration's Enhanced Interrogation policy.
Balcer was
In 2012, Balcer created the series Jo,[20] an English-language cop drama set in Paris and starring Jean Reno, Wunmi Mosaku and Celyn Jones. Shot in Paris, the eight-episode series premiered internationally in January 2013.[21] Jo was ranked fourth in a listing of the Top 30 Best French Detective Series.[22] In 2013, he served as showrunner and executive producer of the CBS pilot, The Ordained, with Charlie Cox.[23]
In 2013, Balcer made two short videos: Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi,[24] was shot in China and is a zen meditation on the dynamics of tea leaves in fluid, the video is available on Vimeo[25] and YouTube;[26] the other, Blue Sky,[27] was shot in Nice, France and is an "unhinged zen piece" featuring the music of Chinese contemporary composer Huang Ruo, the video is available on Vimeo[28] and YouTube.[29]
In 2015, Balcer wrote and produced For Justice, a pilot for CBS directed by
In 2017, Balcer co-directed, co-wrote and produced the documentary Above the Drowning Sea,[33] narrated by Julianna Margulies and Tony Goldwyn. The documentary tells the epic story of thousands of Austrian Jewish refugees who escaped the Holocaust and found refuge in Shanghai. The film was an Official Selection at 31 international film festivals, winning the Golden Dragon Award for Best Documentary at the Ferrara Film Festival along with other awards and nominations at other festivals.
In the summer of 2017, Balcer wrote and produced the limited series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, a kaleidoscopic take on the notorious 1989 murders of Beverly Hills socialites by their sons.[34] Created by Balcer, the series stars Edie Falco, Heather Graham, Josh Charles, Elizabeth Reaser and Anthony Edwards. The eight-episode series aired in the Fall of 2017 on NBC.
In 2019, Balcer created FBI: Most Wanted. The series stars Julian McMahon, Kellan Lutz, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Roxy Sternberg and Nathaniel Arcand, and premiered on CBS on January 7, 2020.[35] It was that season's highest-rated new drama. FBI: Most Wanted was renewed for a fourth and fifth season on May 9, 2022.[36]
Balcer has served on the jury for Best Drama Series at the 2013 Monte-Carlo Television Festival,[37] and on the jury for Best Television Miniseries or Film at the 2014 Shanghai Television Festival.[38]
During his early days in Hollywood, Balcer was an usher at the
Balcer is a distant cousin of actress Alana de la Garza, sharing a common relative Juan Cortina, a Mexican folk hero known as the Rio Grande Robin Hood.[39]
Other activities
In November 2023,René Balcer: Seeing As, a retrospective of Balcer's street and landscape photography, was published by ACC Art Books (UK). Writing in the book's introduction, art historian
In the summer of 2011, Balcer collaborated with Chinese artist Xu Bing on an artwork that was part of Xu Bing's exhibition Tobacco Project Virginia at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in September of that year.[42] The Washington Post named Tobacco Project Virginia one of the Top Ten art exhibitions of 2011.[43] Balcer's contribution—a poem entitled Backbone using Virginia tobacco plantation brand names as a tribute to the enslaved black women who picked the tobacco—was integrated by Xu Bing into an installation. The work is now part of the VMFA's permanent collection.
Balcer later turned the poem into a blues song, Backbone (Mattawin Music), featuring the blues artists Captain Luke on vocals and Big Ron Hunter on guitar and produced by
In 2006, Balcer donated a collection of works by the Japanese woodblock artist
In 2010, through his Mattawin Company, Balcer sponsored the publication of a 13-volume catalogue of the works of the Wuming (No Name) Group, a cooperative of underground Chinese artists during the Cultural Revolution.[49] In the fall of 2011, Balcer and his wife Carolyn organized and sponsored the exhibition Blooming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974–1985 at New York's China Institute, featuring works from the Wuming, Stars and Grass groups of experimental artists.[50] A larger iteration of the exhibit, Light Before Dawn, opened at the new Asia Society Museum in Hong Kong in May 2013.[51][52]
The exhibit was accompanied by a new documentary written and produced by Balcer, The No Name Painting Association, about the Wuming Group.[53] The documentary was an official selection at some thirty festivals in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, garnering a dozen awards and nominations.
In 2011, Mattawin sponsored the publication of a book of photographs by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei New York 1983–1993.[54] In 2014, it sponsored the art exhibit Oil and Water: Reinterpreting Ink at New York's Museum of Chinese in America.[55]
Mattawin also co-published A Token of Elegance (2015), a historical and photo survey of cigarette holders as objets d'art;
Balcer has contributed essays to Impressions: The Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America,[60] and It Begins with Metamorphosis: Xu Bing.[61]
Balcer has lectured widely about writing, art and the duties of artists in free societies, notably at
Filmography
- Averbach Vs. Zak (1976) Short
- Solid State (1976) Short
- Turcot Interchange (1978) Short
- Twist of Fate (1979) Short
- Out on the Edge (1989) TV movie
- Nasty Boys (1990) TV series
- Solar Crisis(1990) Feature Film - Uncredited Rewrite
- Stranger in the Family (1991) TV movie
- Law & Order (1990–2010) TV series
- Star Trek:The Next Generation(1992) TV Series
- The Crow (1994) Feature Film - Uncredited Rewrite
- Judge Dredd (1995) Feature Film - Uncredited Rewrite
- People V (1995) TV movie
- Mission Protection Rapprochée (1997) TV series
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) TV series
- Hopewell (2000) TV movie
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–2011) TV series
- Proof of Lies (2006) TV movie
- Paris Criminal Inquiries (2007–2008) TV series
- Law & Order Criminal Intent Russia (2007–2009) TV series
- Law & Order: UK (2009–2014) TV series
- Xu Bing Tobacco Project Virginia (2011) Documentary Short
- Law & Order LA(2011) TV series
- The Ordained (2013) TV movie
- Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi (2013) Video Short
- Jo (2013) TV series
- The No Name Painting Association (2013) Documentary Short
- Blue Sky (2013) Video Short
- For Justice (2015) TV Movie
- Big Orange Predator (2016) Video Short
- The Legend of Embroidery (2017) Documentary Short
- Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders (2017) Mini-series
- Above The Drowning Sea (2017) Documentary Feature
- FBI (2019) TV series
- FBI: Most Wanted (2020) TV series
Awards and nominations
- 1994 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as producer
- 1995 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as supervising producer
- 1996 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as co-executive producer
- 1997 Won for Best Drama Series Law & Order as executive producer
- 1998 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as executive producer
- 1999 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as executive producer
- 2000 Nominated for Best Drama Series Law & Order as executive producer
- 1998 Won for Best Episode Episodic Drama
- 2000 Nominated for Best Episode Episodic Drama
- 1997 Won for Law & Order
- 1998 Nominated for Best Television Series - Drama Law & Order as executive producer
- 1999 Nominated for Best Television Series - Drama Law & Order as executive producer
- 1993 Won for Best Television Episode + One Nomination
- 1994 Nominated for Best Television Episode
- 1995 Nominated for Best Television Episode
- 1998 Two Nominations for Best Television Episode
- 1999 Won for Best Television Episode
- 2000 Won for Best Television Episode + Two Nominations
- 2003 Nominated for Best Television Episode
- 2004 Nominated for Best Television Episode
- 2005 Won for Best Television Episode + Three Nominations
- 1997 Won for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television
American Psychological Association
- 1989 Award of Excellence
- 1995 Nancy Susan Reynolds Award
International Monitor Award
- 1999 Best Achievement for Film Originated Television Series
ABA Silver Gavel Award for the Media & the Arts
- 1999 Silver Gavel Award for Television
- 2000 Silver Gavel Award for Television
- 2004 Margaret Sanger Award
- 2006 Nominated for Banff Rockie Awardfor Best Television Series
Reims International Television Festival
- 2006 Best Series or Serial
- 2006 Career Award
International Mystery Writers Festival
- 2010 Career Angie Award
- 2010 Champion of Justice Award
Alliance for Children's Rights
- 2010 National Champion for Children Award
Indie Fest
- 2013 Award of Merit for Best Documentary Short
California International Shorts Festival
- 2013 Won for Best Documentary Short
Accolade Competition
- 2013 Award of Merit for Best Short Documentary
Best Shorts Competition
- 2013 Award of Excellence for Best Short Documentary
Kansas City Film Festival
- 2014 Won for Best US/International Short Documentary
Richmond International Film Festival
- 2014 Best of Festival for Documentary Short Film
- 2014 Nominated for Grand Prize Best Documentary Short
Williamsburg Independent Film Festival
- 2014 Distinctive Honors for Best Documentary Short
Portsmouth International Film Festival
- 2014 Won for Best Short Documentary
Madrid International Film Festival
- 2014 Nominated for Best Documentary Short
- 2018 Nominated for Best Director of a Feature Documentary
- 2018 Nominated for Scientific and Educational Award
- 2018 Nominated for Knight Documentary Achievement Award
Pasadena International Film Festival
- 2018 Nominated for Best Documentary
Ferrara Film Festival
- 2018 Golden Dragon Award for Best Documentary
- 2018 Nominated for Best Cinematography for a Feature
New Jersey International Film Festival
- 2018 Honorable Mention, Best Documentary
Hamilton Film Festival
- 2018 Best Documentary
Sunrise Film Festival
- 2019 Best Documentary
- 2019 Honorable Mention for Best Documentary
See also
- List of famous Montrealers
- List of Quebec actors and actresses
References
- ^ "Drowning Sea Tells Tale of Jewish Refugees who fled to China". Jerusalem Post. October 2, 2017.
- ^ "A Masterwork Apocalypse Now". Cinema Canada. June 1979.
- ^ "The LA Magnet". Cinema Canada. December 1980.
- ISBN 0786414340.
- ^ "Asner, Falk Star in Greasy Spoon Broadcast". Los Angeles Times. November 14, 1988.
- ISBN 0-7434-5798-6.
- ^ "1999-2000 TV Show Ratings". classic TV Database.
- ^ "TNT Snags Law Rights". Variety. January 6, 1999.
- ^ "NBC Renews Law & Order in Five-Year Pact". The Buffalo News. May 3, 2000.
- ^ "NBC Renews Law & Order". The Hollywood Reporter. May 18, 2009.
- ^ "Why We Love Crime Fiction". NPR.org. National Public Radio. August 5, 2009. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
- ^ "New York Unite Special Les Dessous de la serie Culte inspiree de faits reels". Eiffel Post. June 5, 2021.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 15, 2016. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "North Dakota Museum of Art | Barton Benes". Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
- ^ "The People v. The Torture Team: Six Questions for Law & Order's René Balcer—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)". Harpers.org. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ "CBC steps into the cold with Balcer-By Andrew Fry (Drama Quarterly)". dramaquarterly.com. March 23, 2016. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ "The People v. The Torture Team: Six Questions for Law & Order's René Balcer—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)". Harpers.org. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Hale, Mike (May 25, 2010). "A 'Law & Order' Farewell: These Were Their Stories - NYTimes.com". Artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Andreeva, Nellie (May 19, 2010). "'L&O' Veteran Rene Balcer To Run 'LOLA'". Deadline.com.
- ^ "Jo (TV Series 2013– ) - IMDb". IMDb. Archived from the original on November 3, 2016. Retrieved 2012-11-16.
- ^ "Ttvmedianews - Production on Red Arrow International's New Series is Underway - Producción - Contenidos - 19_RedArrow_comienza_produccion_Jo". www.ttvmedianews.com. Archived from the original on February 5, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
- ^ "TVshowpilot - The 30 Best French Detective Series and Crime Dramas". www.tvshowpilot.com. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
- ^ "Rene Balcer Joins CBS Pilot 'The Ordained' as Executive Producer/Showrunner". March 12, 2013. Archived from the original on July 22, 2014. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
- ^ "Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi". IMDb. February 24, 2013. Archived from the original on April 4, 2016. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
- ^ "Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi". January 14, 2014. Archived from the original on January 15, 2016. Retrieved 2015-02-06.
- ^ "Watching Tea Leaves in Shanxi - YouTube". YouTube. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved 2015-02-06.
- ^ "Blue Sky". IMDb. December 18, 2013. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved 2013-12-21.
- ^ "Blue Sky on Vimeo". Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
- YouTube
- ^ "Ava DuVernay: "Selma" Director to Direct "For Justice" Pilot from Rene Balcer". Variety. February 10, 2015.
- ^ Goldberg, Lesley (October 31, 2013). "Starz, Owen Wilson Developing FBI Drama 'WonderWorld'". The Hollywood Reporter.
- ^ "Law & Order Veteran Rene Balcer Nabs 10-Episode Order for Arctic Drama". The Hollywood Reporter. March 16, 2016.
- ^ "Julianna Margulies and Tony Goldwyn to Narrate Rene Balcer's Documentary "Above the Drowning Sea"". Deadline. March 1, 2017.
- ^ "Rene Balcer set NBC's "Law & Order: True Crime Menendez Murders". Deadline. July 15, 2016.
- ^ "CBS Orders Dramas Evil FBI Most Wanted All Rise". Deadline. May 9, 2019.
- ^ "FBI-shows-renewed-for-two-seasons-each". Deadline. May 9, 2022.
- ^ "2013 Juries" (PDF). Monte-Carlo Television Festival. June 2013.
- ^ "20th Shanghai TV Festival Jury Introduction". STVF. June 2014. Archived from the original on January 15, 2018. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
- ^ "Rene Balcer". IMDB.com.
- ^ "Seeing As René Balcer". November 2, 2023.
- ^ "René Balcer, Kyoto 2009, From the photo project Sea of Meanings: A Monster Walks the Earth". September 2011.
- ^ "Let My People Show". Archived from the original on February 7, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ "Philip Kennicott's top art and architecture of 2011". The Washington Post. September 11, 2001. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Steger, Martha (May 9, 2012). "Burning Bridges | Arts and Culture | Style Weekly – Richmond, VA local news, arts, and events". Style Weekly. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Kirk, Sarah (February 10, 2012). "Ink | Contemplating Nicotine: Xu Bing's "Tobacco Project" | Art21 Blog". Blog.art21.org. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ Carey, Chanda (July 1, 2015). "Xu Bing:Erasure and Impermanence". Yishu: Journal of Chinese Contemporary Art.
- YouTube
- ^ "Enriched collections". Apollo Magazine. April 24, 2010. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ISBN 9789888028337.
- ^ "BLOOMING IN THE SHADOWS: UNOFFICIAL CHINESE ART, 1974–1985 – ArtfixDaily Calendar". Artfixdaily.com. December 11, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ "Light before Dawn: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974-1985". Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
- ^ "Light Before Dawn: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974-1985 - My Art Guides". Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2013.
- ^ "The No Name Painting Association". IMDb. Archived from the original on August 7, 2016. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
- ^ "Ai Weiwei: New York 1983 – 1993, Photo Exhibit and Book". Gail Pellett Productions. August 16, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
- ^ "Museum of Chinese in America opens "Oil & Water: Reinterpreting Ink"". Archived from the original on April 1, 2016. Retrieved 2014-06-16.
- ^ "Mama says that santa claus does not come to poor people". New York Times. November 26, 2015.
- ^ "Chow down on these Chinese eats". appleeats. March 26, 2020.
- ^ "The Autumn Harvest for the Next Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2021". September 23, 2020.
- ^ Ryan M. Allen Ji Liu (October 4, 2016). "Kuo Ping Wen Scholar Reformer Statesman".
- ^ Rene Balcer (2013). "Kawase Hasui Collecting a Versatile Modern Master". Impressions Number 34.
- ISBN 978-9881227232.
External links
- Rene Balcer on Cop Shows, Black Lives Matter and more by Adi Tantimedh Bleeding Cool News
- The apocrypha Interview: Rene Balcer Archived July 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine by Kitteridge
- Balcer debates FCC commissioner on TV Violence Wall Street Journal
- Rene Balcer on NPR's Talk of the Nation
- Vanity Fair Article
- CBC Interview with Rene Balcer and Tonight Show's Peter Sears
- September 25 2009 interview by Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald on torture and L & O 20th Season premiere
- NPR Interview with Rene Balcer and Walter Moseley
- NPR interview with Balcer re:choosing stories
- Harper's Magazine Interview with Rene Balcer
- America Magazine Interview with Rene Balcer
- Article on Balcer's Beijing Speech
- NPR interview with Balcer on 5/24/10 re: series finale
- Concordia University Honorary Degree Citation Archived January 15, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, November 2008, Concordia University Records