Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: John Schlesinger dies

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Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 07-25-2003, 03:24 PM:

AP reports director John Schlesinger died today at the age of 77.
Apparently suffered a stroke earlier this week.
His best work, Midnight Cowboy and Marathon Man.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-25-2003, 03:59 PM:

[Frown]

Everybody's SAD

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-25-2003, 05:38 PM:

Midnight Cowboy... I had the pleasure of showing when I lived in Key West, Florida when it debut in 1969 at the Strand Theater on Duval Street. There was a running joke in the film when Voight would ask "Do you know so and so?"....which would make the Key West locals roar with laughter; because the name was of a corrupt island politician [Smile]

Tonight I will be crossing the 36th Causeway to Miami Beach, the site where Dustin Hoffman's Rizzo dies....and view the sunset light reflections with a thought of a director / creator who left a mark in good cinema.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-25-2003, 10:50 PM:

Director John Schlesinger dies at 77

John Schlesinger, the openly gay director who won an Academy Award for the controversial film "Midnight Cowboy," died on Friday in Palm Springs, Calif., at the age of 77.

He was taken off life support on Thursday at Desert Regional Medical Center, the Associated Press reported. His condition had worsened in recent weeks from a stroke he suffered in 2000.

"Midnight Cowboy" broke cinematic ground in 1969 with its homosexual theme and depiction of two men's gritty survival attempts in New York City.

In a 1969 review, Box Office magazine said: "How the mass audience is going to react to this United Artists release is anybody's guess, since it can honestly be said there's never been anything quite like it."

The film, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, became the first X-rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture. Nominated for seven awards, "Midnight Cowboy" also won for best director and adapted screenplay.

In an interview in 1970, Schlesinger explained that he preferred to make films about underdogs and outsiders. "I'm more interested in the failures of this world than the successes," he said.

Schlesinger followed with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in 1971, another film that explored homosexuality. His work on the film won him another Oscar nomination.

Many of his more than two dozen films are acclaimed thrillers, including "Marathon Man" (1976), "The Falcon and the Snowman" (1985) and "Pacific Heights" (1990). His other films include "Darling" (1965), "Madame Sousatzka" (1988) and "Cold Comfort Farm" (1995).

His last film, in 2000, was "The Next Best Thing," featuring Madonna as a yoga teacher who has a baby with her gay best friend, played by Rupert Everett.

Born in London in 1926, Schlesinger started his career as a character actor.

He lived in Palm Springs with his partner of 30 years, photographer Michael Childers.

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Posted by John Stewart (Member # 989) on 07-26-2003, 01:29 AM:

We just happened to have MIDNIGHT COWBOY/TAXI DRIVER booked this thur/friday. Don't think I have seen MIDNIGHT since it first came out and I had forgotten how good it is. Especially the music. Love Harry Neilson.

John

Posted by Andrew Duggan (Member # 1302) on 07-26-2003, 03:21 AM:

I read they took him off life support today. This is a real shame. Marathon Man is one of my Top 5 All Time Favorites, as well as one of my Top 5 Quoted Movies of all time. He was an extremely fime filmmaker and I hope he gets the credit he deserves for it. RIP.

Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 07-26-2003, 11:58 AM:

In 1962 I showed John Schlesinger’s first commercial film “TERMINUS,” which was a 30 minute B+W featurette, about a day in the life of travellers at London’s Waterloo railway station made for British Transport Films. You can see this delightful and beautifully photographed film coupled with the 25 minute 1936 film “NIGHT MAIL” documentary on a mail train from London to Scotland. Available on VHS pal only at present from www.amazon.co.uk

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-26-2003, 03:30 PM:

Try remaking that today and Auden's poem would read something like 'Here is the night mail, stuck at the border... 'cause the GNER engine is out of order...' [Roll Eyes]

Dig 'em up and give us another M1, that's what I say.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-26-2003, 05:41 PM:

Bernard wrote:

quote:

In 1962 I showed John Schlesinger’s first commercial film “TERMINUS,” which was a 30 minute B+W featurette, about a day in the life of travellers at London’s Waterloo railway station made for British Transport Films.

Today, over fifty years after the first of them were made, the films of the BTF unit are still popular, and regular screenings are still held at a number of venues in the uk. Many have also been released on video over the years.

There is a web site, and forum devoted to the works of BTF here:

http://www.britishtransportfilms.co.uk/

If you scroll down to the bottom of the opening page, there is a BTF advert, fearuring a very unhappy little boy, from 'Terminus'. He is said to be related to John Schlesinger, but I don't know what relation he was. In the film he is discovered 'lost' on the concourse of Waterloo Station by a police officer, who takes him to the Station Master's office until his mother can be found, there he is given a typewriter to play with to keep him amused, and quiet! It seems that he wasn't acting, they got his mother to move away while he wasn't looking, so he was genuinely 'lost', as far as he was concerned!

Some of the films were made purely for staff training purposes, but many were intended for public consumption, and were released in 35mm for cinemas, and also in 16mm for schools, clubs, institutes etc.

My own preference is mainly for the older, black and white titles, including:

Terminus, already mentioned.

'The Elephant will never Forget' made for London Transport about the last week of trams in London, in 1952.

'Every Valley', about South Wales in the 1950s, strangely, this is set to music from Handel's Messiah, but I think it actually works. BTF seem to have been quite keen on Handel, his music, including extracts from the 'Water Music', ant the 'Music for the Royal Fireworks', is used on several other films.

'Ocean Terminal', about the sadly now demolished ocean liner terminal in Southampton. It was built not long before the ocean liner was largely replaced by the airliner, and had quite a short life.

'There Go the Boats' about commercial cargo carrying on the canals, which largely ended a few years later.

Some of the early colour productions were actually shot in 16mm Kodachrome Commercial, which were blown up to 35mm, and Technicolor prints made. Among these was 'Holiday' shot in 1953, but not released until several years later, about the delights of a holiday in Blackpool, Lancashire, in the North of England. In the window of a shop is seen a roughly made cardboard sign; that sign was still in place when I was last in Blackpool a couple of years ago!

The music on 'Holiday' was played by a then very young Chris Barber and his jazz band. I have a Super 8 print of that film, and a few years ago Chris signed the box for me. Chris is still playing, indeed, the band are in the middle of a very large tour at the moment, and one other original member of the band, Pat Halcox on trumpet, is still with them!

These films are a great record of life in Britain fifty years ago, not long after the war. What a different world it was.

Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 07-27-2003, 06:10 AM:

The Playhouse (later Classic), Hampstead was where I showed “Terminus,” not only were BTF shorts free they were useful to fill British Film Quota laws which required cinemas to show a percentage of home product per year. We also screened many Shell Mex Petroleum films, always in Technicolor and popular.

Thanks to Stephen’s post I found another link for BTF and Railway Company Films.

www.eavb.co.uk

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-27-2003, 07:51 AM:

There was also This is York, from the early '50s, which still gets a few in when it's occasionally shown at City Screen. The NFTVA has a really nice print of it. A really frustrating film though - the opening scenes show everyday life in York itself and you think you're going to get a fascinating glimpse of what your home town was like half a century ago. But just as the camera pans along Bootham and almost gets to the building with my flat in it... the film cuts to the station and you're then subjected to 17 minutes or so of those horrid vehicles I'd like to see wiped off the face of the earth!

That film was directed by J.B. Holmes, not Schlesinger, though.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 07-27-2003, 08:59 AM:

'Midnight Cowboy' is absolutely one of the finest movies ever made. Extremely moving and poignant, it has lost none of its power since it was made. This is a great loss to the film community.

I have had the privilege to screen a 35MM print of this at Sydney's fabulous Chauvel cinema, the best arthouse in the southern hemisphere. It is the absolute thesis of an establishment that simply cannot be run by a corporation, because to run the Chauvel, you actually have to know something about movies.

Remember the Chauvel policy: 'If it's on at cinemas everywhere, it's not on here!'. www.chauvelcinema.com.au