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James Schamus | |
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Born | James Allan Schamus [1] September 7, 1959 [1] Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA, MA, PhD) |
Occupations |
|
Spouse | Nancy Kricorian |
Children | 2 |
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.
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]
Year | Title | Producer | Writer | Director | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | The Golden Boat | Yes | No | Raúl Ruiz | |
1991 | Pushing Hands | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | Also additional scenes |
1993 | The Wedding Banquet | Yes | Yes | ||
1994 | Eat Drink Man Woman | Associate | Yes | ||
1995 | Sense and Sensibility | Co-producer | No | ||
1996 | She's the One | Yes | No | Edward Burns | |
Walking and Talking | Yes | No | Nicole Holofcener | ||
1997 | The Ice Storm | Yes | Yes | Ang Lee | |
1999 | Ride with the Devil | Yes | Yes | ||
2000 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | No | Yes | Also songwriter | |
2003 | Hulk | Yes | Yes | ||
2005 | Brokeback Mountain | Yes | No | ||
2007 | Lust, Caution | Yes | Yes | Also songwriter | |
2009 | Taking Woodstock | Yes | Yes | ||
2014 | That Film About Money [10] | Yes | Yes | Himself | Short film |
2015 | Alone in Berlin | Yes | No | Vincent Perez | |
2016 | Indignation [11] | Yes | Yes | Himself | Directorial debut |
2017 | Casting JonBenet [12] | Yes | No | Kitty Green | Documentary |
2019 | Adam | Yes | No | Rhys Ernst | |
The Tomorrow Man | Yes | No | Noble Jones | ||
Driveways | Yes | No | Andrew Ahn | ||
The Assistant | Yes | No | Kitty Green | ||
2022 | The King's Daughter | No | Yes | Sean McNamara | |
2025 | The Wedding Banquet | Yes | Yes | Andrew Ahn | Post-production |
Executive producer
Year | Title | Awards/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 |
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams. Its plot depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are an American screenwriting duo, recognized for their unique approach to biopics. They introduced the term "anti-biopic" to describe their distinctive style of storytelling, which focuses on individuals who might not traditionally be considered worthy of a biographical film. Instead of highlighting conventional "great men," their work often centers on lesser-known figures within American pop culture. Their notable films in this genre include Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon, Big Eyes, Dolemite Is My Name, and the series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
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.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
Good Machine Productions was an American independent film production, film distribution, and foreign sales company started in the early 1990 by its co-founders and producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus. David Linde joined as a partner in the late 1990s and also started the international sales company Good Machine International. They sold the company to Universal Pictures, where it was then merged with USA Films and Universal Focus to create Focus Features. Hope, along with the heads of production development and business affairs then went on to form the independent production company This Is That Productions. Schamus and Linde became co-presidents of Focus Features.
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector.
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and actor 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.
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.
Adam Brooks is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for writing and directing Definitely, Maybe (2008) and for writing screenplays for French Kiss (1995), Wimbledon (2004), and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). His first film as a writer-director Almost You won the Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1985.
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was ranked 27th in The Guardian's 40 best directors.
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.
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.
Andrew Ahn is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed the feature films Spa Night (2016), Driveways (2019), and Fire Island (2022).
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.
Indignation is a 2016 American drama film written, produced, and directed by James Schamus. The film, based on the 2008 novel by Philip Roth, is set mostly in Winesburg, Ohio in the early 1950s, and stars Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, and Danny Burstein.
Matthew Puccini is an American filmmaker. He is known for his short films that deal with LGBT-related subject matters. These include The Mess He Made (2017), Marquise (2018), Dirty (2020) and Lavender (2019). His films have played at several festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs ShortsFest, and Outfest Los Angeles. His work has also been featured on Topic and The Huffington Post.
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.