James Schamus

Last updated

James Schamus
James Schamus 2016.jpg
Schamus in 2016
Born
James Allan Schamus [1]

(1959-09-07) September 7, 1959 (age 64) [1]
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
Occupations
  • Producer
  • screenwriter
  • director
Spouse Nancy Kricorian
Children2

James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the co-founder and former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal. He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange, [2] and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.

Contents

Life and career

Schamus was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a Jewish family. [3] He is the son of Clarita (Gershowitz) Karlin and Julian John Schamus, and was raised in Los Angeles. He is married to writer Nancy Kricorian, with whom he has two children. [4]

His output includes writing or co-writing The Ice Storm , Eat, Drink, Man, Woman , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hulk (all directed by Ang Lee), and producing Brokeback Mountain and Alone in Berlin . At Focus he oversaw the production and distribution of Lost in Translation , Milk , Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , Coraline , and The Kids Are All Right . In addition to his tenure at Columbia University, he has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Berkeley. [5]

Schamus made his feature directorial debut with Indignation , an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel of the same name. Schamus also wrote the script for the film, which stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, and Tracy Letts, and is the story of a Jewish student at an Ohio college in 1951. [6] The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and was theatrically released by Roadside Attractions on July 29, 2016. [2]

He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. [7] He has also been on the jury of the New York International Children's Film Festival, [8] and has served on the editorial boards of Film Quarterly and Cinema Journal , as well as on the board of Creative Capital and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. [9]

Filmography

YearTitle Producer Writer DirectorNotes
1990 The Golden Boat YesNo Raúl Ruiz
1991 Pushing Hands YesYes Ang Lee Also additional scenes
1993 The Wedding Banquet YesYes
1994 Eat Drink Man Woman AssociateYes
1995 Sense and Sensibility YesNo
1996 She's the One YesNo Edward Burns
Walking and Talking YesNo Nicole Holofcener
1997 The Ice Storm YesYesAng Lee
1999 Ride with the Devil YesYes
2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon NoYesAlso songwriter
2003 Hulk YesYes
2005 Brokeback Mountain YesNo
2007 Lust, Caution YesYesAlso songwriter
2009 Taking Woodstock YesYes
2014That Film About Money [10] YesYesHimselfShort film
2015 Alone in Berlin YesNo Vincent Perez
2016 Indignation [11] YesYesHimself Directorial debut
2017 Casting JonBenet [12] YesNoKitty GreenDocumentary
2019 Adam YesNo Rhys Ernst
The Tomorrow Man YesNoNoble Jones
The Assistant YesNo Kitty Green
2022 The King's Daughter NoYes Sean McNamara

Executive producer

Awards and nominations

YearTitleAwards/Nominations
1997 The Ice Storm Prix du Scénario (Best Screenplay Award) [15]
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated – WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Nominated – Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Original Song
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated – WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
2005 Brokeback Mountain BAFTA Award for Best Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama [16]
Independent Spirit Award for Best Film [17]
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Picture
2007 Lust, Caution Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Career recognition and honors

Writing

Books

Essays and articles

Profiles and interviews

Related Research Articles

<i>Brokeback Mountain</i> 2005 film directed by Ang Lee

Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams and depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski</span> American screenwriting team

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are an American screenwriting duo, best known for writing postmodern biopics with larger-than-life characters. They coined the term "anti-biopic" to describe the genre they invented: Movies about people who don't deserve one.They are uninterested in the traditional "great man" story, focusing instead on obscure strivers in American pop culture.

Diana Lynn Ossana is an American writer who has collaborated on writing screenplays, teleplays, and novels with author Larry McMurtry since they first worked together in 1992, on the semi-fictionalized biography Pretty Boy Floyd. She won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a Writers' Guild of America Award, a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for her screenplay of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, along with McMurtry and adapted from the short story of the same name by Annie Proulx. She is a published author in her own right of several short stories and essays.

Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, and writer best known for her 1985 film Desert Hearts. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensationalize lesbianism" by presenting a lesbian romance story with positive and respectful themes.

Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Hope</span> American film producer

Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City. He is best known for co-founding the production/sales company Good Machine, where he produced the first films of such notable filmmakers as Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Field, Michel Gondry, Moisés Kaufman, and Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, among others. Hope later co-founded This is That with several associates from Good Machine. He later worked at the San Francisco Film Society and Amazon Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ang Lee</span> Taiwanese director, screenwriter and film producer

Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. As a filmmaker Lee's work is known for its emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, Lee was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.

Sally El-Hosaini is a Welsh-Egyptian BAFTA nominated film director and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Allen Harris</span>

Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary artist who explores family, identity, and spirituality in a participatory practice. Since 1990, Harris has remixed archives from multiple origins throughout his work, challenging hierarchy within historical narratives through the use of pioneering documentary and research methodologies that center vernacular image and collaboration. He is currently working on a new television show, Family Pictures USA, which takes a radical look at neighborhoods and cities of the United States through the lens of family photographs, collaborative performances, and personal testimony sourced from their communities..

John G. Young is an American director, producer and writer. He graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase where he now teaches and is Chair of The Film Conservatory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auraeus Solito</span>

Auraeus Solito, also known as Kanakan-Balintagos, is a Palawán-Filipino filmmaker and indigenous peoples rights advocate who comes from a lineage of shaman-kings from the Palawán tribe. He was one of the first to be born outside of his tribal land of South Palawan. He was born in the city of Manila and, after graduating from the Philippine Science High School, studied theater at the University of the Philippines, where he received a degree in Theater Arts. One of the leading independent filmmakers in the Philippines, he was chosen as part of in Take 100, The Future of Film in 2010. This book, published by Phaidon Press, New York, is a survey featuring 100 emerging film directors from around the world who have been selected by 10 internationally prominent film festival directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Wolkstein</span> American film director

Lauren Wolkstein is an American film director, writer, producer and editor. She is known for directing, writing, and editing the 2017 film The Strange Ones with Christopher Radcliff and serving on the directorial team for the third season of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, which she followed with a producing director role in the fifth season. She is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Wang Hui-ling is a Taiwanese screenwriter. In 2001 she was nominated for Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 2014, she wrote the script for The Crossing directed by John Woo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Talkington</span> American filmmaker, screenwriter, and author

Amy Virginia Talkington is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and author.

Leslie Harris is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Ahn</span> American film director

Andrew Ahn is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed the feature films Spa Night (2016), Driveways (2019), and Fire Island (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliza Hittman</span> American film director

Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.

<i>Indignation</i> (film) 2016 American film

Indignation is a 2016 American drama film written, produced, and directed by James Schamus. The film, based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Philip Roth, is set mostly in Ohio in the early 1950s, and stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, and Danny Burstein.

References

  1. 1 2 IMDB Biography Page , retrieved August 22, 2016
  2. 1 2 McNary, Dave (March 24, 2016). "Logan Lerman's 'Indignation' Gets July Release" . Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  3. Rotella, Carlo (November 26, 2010). "The Professor of Micropopularity". The New York Times . The story of America, of Western culture, is often the story of queer culture, of being Jewish" — Schamus is Jewish — "of being outsiders and refugees who find a place that is the not-place.
  4. "James Schamus". IMDb. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  5. "The Man Behind the Movies".
  6. "James Schamus Directorial Debut Indignation Acquired By Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment". Deadline.com. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  7. "Berlinale 2014: International Jury". Berlinale. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
  8. "NYICFF Jury". Gkids.com. Retrieved March 23, 2012.
  9. "James Schamus to be Honored at San Francisco International Film Festival - MovieMaker Magazine". www.moviemaker.com. February 25, 2010. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  10. "The Economy, Explored on Film". The New York Times. May 26, 2014.
  11. "Indignation". August 11, 2016 via IMDb.
  12. Fleming, Mike Jr. (April 15, 2016). "JonBenet Ramsey Murder Case Chronicled In Kitty Green-Directed 'Casting JonBenet'". Deadline. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  13. Hipes, Patrick (January 17, 2017). "'Dayveon' Clip: First Look At Sundance NEXT Opener From First-Time Director Amman Abbasi". Deadline. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  14. "James Schamus, China's Meridian board 'A Prayer Before Dawn'" . Retrieved February 27, 2017.
  15. "Festival de Cannes: The Ice Storm". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved September 21, 2009.
  16. Glaister, Dan (January 17, 2006). "'Brokeback Mountain rides high at the Globes'". The Guardian . Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  17. Germain, David (March 4, 2006). "'Brokeback' named best independent film". Associated Press (via USA Today). Retrieved April 19, 2012.
  18. "ShowEast to honor James Schamus with Bingham Ray Award | Film Journal International". www.filmjournal.com. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
  19. "James Schamus to Receive 2014 Outfest Achievement Award". Outfest. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
  20. "2001 Hugo Awards". Hugo Awards . World Science Fiction Society. September 3, 2001. Archived from the original on May 7, 2011. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  21. "Three Schools Honor Faculty, Staff and Public Figures". Columbia University. Retrieved August 20, 2014.