Sidney J. Furie | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter, film producer |
Years active | 1959–present |
Known for |
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Awards |
Sidney Joseph Furie (born February 28, 1933) [1] is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his extensive work in both British and American cinema between the 1960s and early 1980s. Like his contemporaries Norman Jewison and Ted Kotcheff, he was one of the earliest Canadian directors to achieve mainstream critical and financial success outside their native country at a time when its film industry was virtually nonexistent. [2] [3] He won a BAFTA Film Award and was nominated for a Palme d'Or for his work on the acclaimed spy thriller The Ipcress File (1965) starring Michael Caine.
He is considered by some an auteur director, elevating otherwise unremarkable genre films through strong, creative visuals, and atmospheric direction. [4] [5] His horror film The Entity (1982) was declared by director Martin Scorsese as one of the scariest movies of all time, [6] and his Vietnam War film The Boys in Company C (1978) was a major influence on Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). [7] He is also the co-creator of the Iron Eagle [8] action film franchise which began in 1986, and directed three of its four entries.
Furie was born as Sholom Joseph Furie [9] to a Jewish family [10] in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1933. He attended Vaughan Road Collegiate [11] and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Furie worked as a writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where, in 1957, he wrote and directed a feature-length drama, A Dangerous Age . A dark variation on the Romeo and Juliet story, it starred Ben Piazza and Anne Pearson as teenage lovers on the run from the authorities, unable to legally elope and get married. A cash-in on the trend of "juvenile delinquent" films, it was nonetheless something of a landmark in Canadian cinema, one of the first times the country had seriously marketed a film overseas. [12] Despite the support of popular producer and distributor Nat Taylor, it failed to find a following in its native country, but was critically acclaimed by British critics, who saw the young Furie as a fresh talent. [2]
A year later, Furie again tried his hand at gritty adolescent drama, writing and directing A Cool Sound from Hell . Shot on location in Toronto, the film followed a young, jazz-obsessed hipster wandering aimlessly through the city's streets and metro stations, who finds himself plunged into the world of illicit drug smuggling while pursuing a femme fatale. A direct refutation of his home town's squeaky-clean self-image, the film suffered the same fate as his previous one, failing to find a proper distributor and falling into obscurity. The film was long thought lost, until it was rediscovered decades later by Furie's biographer Daniel Kremer in the vaults of the British Film Institute, mislabelled as The Beat Generation . The restored film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016. [13]
Unable to find success or recognition in his native country, Furie relocated to England, where he had received critical acclaim, in hopes of pursuing more successful ventures. He dabbled in various genres, including horror ( Doctor Blood's Coffin ), comedy ( Three on a Spree ), and musicals ( The Young Ones ). His brief dip into the kitchen sink realism movement produced The Leather Boys , which in addition to showcasing the period's rocker subculture, is considered groundbreaking due to its latent homosexual themes. [14] It has since become recognized as a key entry in the queer cinema subgenre. [15] [16] His major breakthrough came in 1964 when he directed the spy film The Ipcress File . Intended as a direct response to the popularity of the James Bond franchise, the film showcased a darker, and more downbeat portrayal of espionage. Its lead character Harry Palmer (played by Michael Caine) has become iconic, and the film was widely acclaimed, winning a BAFTA Award for Best British Film, an Edgar Award for Best Screenplay, and was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. The film showcased Furie's unique visual style, utilizing multiple cameras, long-take master shots, and dynamic camera movement in lieu of fast cutting. Furie worked closely with director of photography Otto Heller to shoot through and around foreground objects, creating a "refracted" view of the action and an all-encompassing sense of paranoia. The film proved very successful, and spawned five sequels.
Furie relocated again, this time to Hollywood, where he began his American directing career with The Appaloosa , a Western film starring Marlon Brando and John Saxon. [17] He revisited the spy genre with a follow-up to The Ipcress File; The Naked Runner . Both films feature Furie's signature visuals and directorial style. [18] In 1972, he directed Lady Sings the Blues , a biographical drama about the life of jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, for which lead actress Diana Ross was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Furie was later attached to direct the similarly-themed remake of The Jazz Singer , but was replaced by Richard Fleischer halfway through principal photography. He was originally offered to direct The Godfather by producer Albert S. Ruddy, but he left the job early in pre-production due to budget disputes, being replaced by Francis Ford Coppola due to the producers' desire to keep the film "ethnic to the core". [19] The film would go on to become a massive critical and financial success, winning the Best Picture Oscar and spawning two sequels. Furie's 1981 horror movie The Entity was declared by Martin Scorsese to be one of the "scariest movies of all time". [20]
Furie wrote and directed the 1986 action war film Iron Eagle , adapting a screenplay by writer Kevin Alyn Elders based on the real-life 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. The film was overshadowed by the release of the similarly themed Top Gun later that year, [21] but proved successful enough on home video to warrant three sequels, two of which Furie directed. His 1987 superhero film Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was marred by last-minute budget cuts, forcing Furie to resort to cost-cutting tactics that included relocating the production from New York City to Milton Keynes; scaling-down or outright cutting planned set-pieces; and using cheaper, sub-standard visual effects. [22] [23] The film also suffered from numerous re-edits in post-production, with multiple sub-plots, characters, and a total of 45 minutes of footage being cut. [24] [22] The film was a critical and commercial failure. [25]
Since 1991, Furie has mostly directed direct-to-video action and genre films. He has also directed television series like Pensacola: Wings of Gold , Lonesome Dove: The Series , and V.I.P .
He and his early film A Cool Sound from Hell were given retrospectives at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, [26] and in 2010 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of Canada. [27]
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American filmmaker. He emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Iron Eagle is a 1986 action film directed by Sidney J. Furie who co-wrote the screenplay with Kevin Alyn Elders, and starring Jason Gedrick and Louis Gossett Jr. While it received negative reviews, being unfavorably compared to the similarly-themed Top Gun released the same year, the film earned $24,159,872 at the U.S. box office. Iron Eagle was followed by three sequels: Iron Eagle II, Aces: Iron Eagle III, and Iron Eagle on the Attack, with Gossett being the only actor to appear in all four films.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a 1987 superhero film directed by Sidney J. Furie and written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal from a story by Christopher Reeve, Konner, and Rosenthal based on the DC Comics character Superman. The film stars Reeve, Gene Hackman, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, Jon Cryer, Sam Wanamaker, Jim Broadbent, Mariel Hemingway, and Margot Kidder.
The Entity is a 1982 American supernatural horror film directed by Sidney J. Furie, and written by Frank De Felitta, who adapted his 1978 novel of the same name. The film stars Barbara Hershey as a single mother in Los Angeles who is raped and tormented by an invisible assailant.
Daniel Mannix Petrie was a Canadian film, television, and stage director who worked in Canada, Hollywood, and the United Kingdom; known for directing grounded human dramas often dealing with taboo subject matter. He was one of several Canadian-born expatriate filmmakers, including Norman Jewison and Sidney J. Furie, to find critical and commercial success overseas in the 1960s due to the limited opportunities in the Canadian film industry at the time. He was the patriarch of the Petrie filmmaking family, with four of his children all working in the film industry.
The Appaloosa is a 1966 American Western film starring Marlon Brando, Anjanette Comer, and John Saxon, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a Mexican bandit. The film was directed by Sidney J. Furie, and shot in Techniscope in California, Utah, and Arizona.
Ladybugs is a 1992 American sports-comedy film starring Rodney Dangerfield and directed by Sidney J. Furie. Dangerfield plays a Denver businessman who takes over a girls soccer team that the company he works for sponsors. The film also stars Jackée Harry as his assistant coach, Ilene Graff as his girlfriend, Jonathan Brandis as his girlfriend's son, and Vinessa Shaw as his boss' daughter.
Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor.
Don Owen was a Canadian film director, writer and producer who spent most of his career with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). His films Nobody Waved Good-bye and The Ernie Game are regarded as two of the most significant English Canadian films of the 1960s.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is an eleven-day film festival held in Santa Barbara, California in February annually, since 1986. The festival screens over 200 feature films and shorts from different countries and regions. SBIFF also includes celebrity tributes, industry panels and education programs.
Maurice Devereaux is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and film producer through his production company, Maurice Devereaux Productions.
The Ipcress File is a 1965 British spy film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Michael Caine. The screenplay, by Bill Canaway and James Doran, was based on Len Deighton's novel The IPCRESS File (1962). It received a BAFTA award for the Best British film released in 1965. In 1999, it was included at number 59 on the BFI list of the 100 best British films of the 20th century.
The Leather Boys is a 1964 British drama film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell, and Dudley Sutton. The story is set in the very early 60s Ton-Up boys' era, just before the rocker subculture in London and features a gay motorcyclist.
Irvin Shapiro was an American producer, film importer, and film distributor who was responsible for introducing a number of influential foreign films to the United States, as well as handling the early work of some noted directors.
The 18th Cannes Film Festival was held from 3 to 16 May 1965. Olivia de Havilland became the first woman president of the jury.
A Cool Sound from Hell is a 1959 Canadian film directed by Sidney J. Furie.
Purple Hearts is a 1984 war film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Ken Wahl and Cheryl Ladd. The screenplay concerns a Navy surgeon and a Navy nurse who fall in love while serving in Vietnam during the war. Their affection for one another provides a striking contrast to the violence of warfare.
Mark Alexandrovich Ivanir is a Ukrainian-born Israeli actor known for his character roles on American film and television. He is fluent in six languages, a skill often shown off in his performances.
The Dependables is a 2014 straight-to-DVD family action film directed by Sidney J. Furie.
Jonas Carpignano is an American-Italian filmmaker. He is known for the films Mediterranea, A Ciambra, and A Chiara.
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