Arthur Penn: Difference between revisions
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| name = Arthur |
| name = Arthur Penn |
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| image = Arthur Hiller Penn.jpg |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1922|09|27}} |
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| birth_place = [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] |
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'''Arthur |
'''Arthur Penn''' (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010)<ref name=nytobit> |
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{{cite news | author=Dave Kehr | title=Arthur Penn, Director of ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ Dies | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/movies/30penn.html?src=mv | work=The New York Times | date=29 September 2010 | accessdate=29 September 2010}}</ref> was an American [[film director]] and [[film producer|producer]] with a career as a theater director as well. Although probably best known as the director of ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'' (1967), Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s. |
{{cite news | author=Dave Kehr | title=Arthur Penn, Director of ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ Dies | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/movies/30penn.html?src=mv | work=The New York Times | date=29 September 2010 | accessdate=29 September 2010}}</ref> was an American [[film director]] and [[film producer|producer]] with a career as a theater director as well. Although probably best known as the director of ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'' (1967), Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s. |
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Revision as of 20:05, 2 October 2010
Arthur Penn | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 27, 1922 |
| Died | September 28, 2010 (aged 88) |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, producer |
Arthur Penn (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010)[1] was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Although probably best known as the director of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Biography
Early years
Penn was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sonia Greenberg, a nurse, and Harry Penn, a watchmaker.[2] He was the younger brother of Irving Penn, the immensely successful still and fashion photographer. During the 1920s, he moved in with his mother after she divorced Penn's father. Some time after, he came back to his father when he became very sick. Penn took on running his father's watch repair business. As Penn grew up, he slowly became interested in film, this after he saw the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane.
Career
After making a name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn made his feature debut with a western, The Left Handed Gun (1958). A retelling of the Billy the Kid legend, it was distinguished by Paul Newman's sharp portrayal of the outlaw as a psychologically troubled youth (the role was originally intended for the archetypal portrayer of troubled teens, James Dean).[citation needed]
Penn's second film was The Miracle Worker (1962), the story of Anne Sullivan's struggle to teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller how to communicate. It garnered two Academy Awards for its leads Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Penn had directed the stage production, written by William Gibson, also starring Bancroft and Duke, and he had directed Bancroft's Broadway debut in playwright Gibson's first Broadway production, Two for the Seesaw.[citation needed]
In 1965 Penn directed Mickey One. Heavily influenced by the French New Wave, it was the dreamlike story of a standup comedian (played by Warren Beatty) on the run from sinister, ambiguous forces. In 2010, Penn commented: "You know, you could not have gone through the Second World War with all that nonsense with Russia being an ally and then being the big black monster. It was an absurd time. The McCarthy period was ridiculous and humiliating, deeply humiliating. When I finally did 'Mickey One', it was in repudiation of the kind of fear that overtook free people to the point where they were telling on each other and afraid to speak out. It just astonished me, really astonished me. I mean, I was a vet, so it was nothing like what we thought we were fighting for."[3]
Penn's next film was The Chase (1966) a thriller following events in a small corrupt Southern town on the day an escaped convict, played by Robert Redford, returns. Although not a major success, The Chase nonetheless caught the mood of the turbulent times, a 'state of the nation' tale of racism, corruption and the violence endemic in American society.[citation needed]
Reuniting with Warren Beatty for the rural gangster film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn once again showed that he had his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, perfectly catching the youthful disenchantment of the late '60s. Although set 30 years earlier, during the Depression, it was very much in the spirit of the contemporaneous "counter-culture". Bonnie and Clyde went on to become a worldwide phenomenon, at the same time pushing the limits of acceptable screen violence with its bloody machine-gun climax (two years before Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch).[citation needed] The film was strongly influenced by the French New Wave and itself went on to make a huge impression on a younger generation of filmmakers. Indeed, there was a strong resurgence in the “love on the run” subgenre in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde, peaking with Badlands (1973; in which Penn received acknowledgement in the credits).
Next came Alice's Restaurant (1969), based on a satirical ballad by Arlo Guthrie. His next film after this was a return to the western genre, Little Big Man (1970), a "shaggy dog" account of the life of a white man (played by Dustin Hoffman) who gets adopted into the Cheyenne tribe.
In 1973 Penn provided a segment for a promotional film for the Olympics, Visions of Eight along with several other major directors such as John Schlesinger and Miloš Forman. His next film was a paranoid thriller set in Los Angeles, Night Moves (1975) about a private detective (played by Gene Hackman) on the trail of a runaway. Next came a comic western, The Missouri Breaks (1976), a ramshackle, eccentric story of a horse thief (Jack Nicholson) facing off with an eccentric bounty hunter (played by Marlon Brando).
Four Friends (1981) was a traumatic look back at the Sixties, returning to the old themes of Vietnam, civil rights, sexual politics, and drugs. Penn’s career subsequently lost its momentum: Target (1985) was a mainstream thriller reuniting the director with Gene Hackman. Dead of Winter (1987) was a horror/thriller in the style of Alfred Hitchcock.
Subsequently, Penn returned to work in television, including an executive producer role for the crime series Law & Order.
Throughout the years, Penn had maintained an affiliation with Yale University, occasionally teaching classes there.[4]
Personal life
In 1955, he married Peggy Maurer. They have two children, a son and a daughter.
In July 2009, Penn was hospitalized with pneumonia.[5] In July 2010, Penn reflected on his life and career, including his relationship with Alger Hiss:
...During that period [Mickey One] I met Alger Hiss, and we became very close friends. In fact, Alger got married here in my apartment. And so I became more of a student of the Hiss period than I knew what to do with, frankly.[3]
Penn died in Manhattan, on September 28, 2010, a day after his 88th birthday, of congestive heart failure.[1]
Work
Filmography
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Stage
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See also
References
- ^ a b Dave Kehr (29 September 2010). "Arthur Penn, Director of 'Bonnie and Clyde,' Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
- ^ "Arthur Penn Biography". filmreference. 2010. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
- ^ a b Gregory Zucker (August 2010). "Radical Reflection Arthur Penn, In Conversation with Gregory Zucker and Robert White". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Bernard Weinraub (24 August 2000). "Rare Vote for Experience Over Youth". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 September 2010.
- ^ Penn's battle with pneumonia
External links
- Please use a more specific IBDB template. See the documentation for available templates.
- Please use a more specific IOBDB template. See the template documentation for available templates.
- Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.
- Arthur Penn at Senses of Cinema
- Looking Back at Arthur Penn - slideshow by The New York Times