John Boorman | |
|---|---|
 Boorman in Paris in November 2014 | |
| Born | (1933-01-18)18 January 1933 (age 92) Shepperton,Middlesex, England |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter, producer |
| Years active | 1962–present |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 7 (1 deceased), includingCharley Boorman andKatrine Boorman |
Sir John BoormanCBE (/ˈbʊərmən/; born 18 January 1933) is a British filmmaker. He is best known for directing feature films such asPoint Blank (1967),Hell in the Pacific (1968),Deliverance (1972),Zardoz (1974),Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977),Excalibur (1981),The Emerald Forest (1985),Hope and Glory (1987),The General (1998),The Tailor of Panama (2001) andQueen and Country (2014).
Boorman has directed 20 films and received fiveAcademy Award nominations, twice forBest Director (forDeliverance, andHope and Glory), twoBritish Academy Film Award nominations and threeGolden Globe Award nominations. He is also credited with creating the first Academy Awardscreeners to promoteThe Emerald Forest.[1] In 2004, Boorman received theBAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from theBritish Academy of Film and Television Arts. In the2022 New Year Honours, he received aknighthood from QueenElizabeth II for services to film.
Boorman was born inShepperton,Middlesex, England, the son of pub landlord George Boorman and his wife, Ivy (née Chapman), daughter of another pub owner in theEast End of London. George Boorman was of Dutch parentage; he served as a captain in theBritish Indian Army during World War I, and later worked for the founder ofShell Oil. Boorman's paternal grandfather, an inventor, "made and lost several fortunes during his lifetime".[2][3][4] Although not Roman Catholic, after failing theeleven-plus he was sent to be educated at theSalesian School inChertsey,Surrey.[5][6]
Boorman was conscripted for military service and became a clerical instructor in theBritish Army. He did not serve in theKorean War,[7] but once faced court-martial for "seducing a soldier from the course of his duty" by criticising the war to his trainees; this was abandoned when Boorman showed thatThe Times newspaper was the source of all his comments.[8] After army service he worked as adrycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s. He ran the newsrooms atSouthern Television in Southampton and Dover before moving into television documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming head of theBBC's Bristol-based documentary unit.[9] In 1963 he wrote and directed a documentary about professional football,Six Days to Saturday, which focused on a week in the life ofSwindon Town, a club in England's second division.[10]
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Having caught the attention of a producer, David Deutsch, Boorman was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success ofRichard Lester'sA Hard Day's Night (1964):Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about another pop group,the Dave Clark Five. While it was not as successful commercially as Lester's film was, it drew good reviews from distinguished critics such asPauline Kael andDilys Powell, and smoothed Boorman's way into the film industry.[11]
Boorman was drawn to Hollywood for the opportunity to make more ambitious films and inPoint Blank (1967), based on a novel by Richard Stark (a pen name ofDonald E. Westlake), he brought a stranger's vision to the decaying fortress ofAlcatraz and the proto-hippy world of the West Coast of the United States.Lee Marvin gave the unknown director his full support, telling studioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer that he deferred all his approvals on the project to Boorman. AfterPoint Blank, Boorman worked with Marvin andToshiro Mifune on therobinsonadeHell in the Pacific (1968), which tells a fable of two representative soldiers stranded on an island.
After returning to the United Kingdom, Boorman madeLeo the Last (1970), influenced byFederico Fellini and starring Fellini regular,Marcello Mastroianni. It won Boorman a Best Director award at theCannes Film Festival.
Boorman achieved much greater resonance withDeliverance (1972), adapted from a novel byJames Dickey. It depicted the ordeal of four urban men, played byJon Voight,Burt Reynolds,Ronny Cox andNed Beatty, who encounter danger from an unexpected quarter while whitewater-rafting through theAppalachian backwoods. The film became Boorman's first true box office success and earned him several award nominations.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Boorman planned to filmThe Lord of the Rings and corresponded about his plans with the author,J. R. R. Tolkien. Ultimately the production proved too costly, though some elements and themes can be seen inExcalibur (1981). A wide variety of films followed.Zardoz (1974), starringSean Connery, is a post-apocalyptic science fiction piece, set in the 23rd century where society is divided into two worlds. According to the director's film commentary, the "Zardoz world" is on a collision course with an "effete" eternal society.
Boorman was selected as director forExorcist II: The Heretic (1977), a move that surprised the industry given his dislike of the original film. Boorman declared, "Not only did I not want to do the original film, I told the head of Warner Brothers, John Calley, [that] I'd be happy if he didn't produce the film too".[12] The original script by a Broadway playwright, William Goodhart, was intellectual and ambitious, being concerned with the metaphysical nature of the battle between good and evil, and influenced by the writings of Catholic theologianPierre Teilhard De Chardin,[12] "I found It extremely compelling. It was based on Chardin's intoxicating idea that biological evolution was the first step In God's plan, starting with inert rock, and culminating in humankind."[13] Despite Boorman's rewriting throughout shooting, the film was rendered incomprehensible. The film, released in June 1977, was a critical disaster but a moderate box office success. Boorman was denounced byWilliam Peter Blatty, the author of the original novelThe Exorcist, and byWilliam Friedkin, director of the firstExorcist film. Boorman later admitted that his approach to the film was a mistake.The Heretic is often considered not just the worst film ofThe Exorcist series but one ofthe worst films of all time.
Excalibur, a long-held dream project of Boorman's, is a retelling of theArthurian legend, based onLe Morte D'Arthur. Boorman castNicol Williamson andHelen Mirren over their protests, as the two disliked each other intensely but Boorman felt that their mutual antagonism would enhance their presentations of the characters they were playing. The production was based in Ireland, where Boorman had settled, and employed all of Boorman's children as actors and crew, a practice he repeated in later films. The film, one of the first to be produced by Orion Films, was a moderate success.
The Emerald Forest (1985) saw Boorman cast his sonCharley Boorman as an eco-warrior in a rainforest adventure that included commercially required elements – action and near-nudity – with authentic[citation needed] anthropological detail.Rospo Pallenberg's original screenplay was adapted into a book of the same name by authorRobert Holdstock. Because the film's distributor faced business troubles that year, the film did not receive a traditional "For Your Consideration" advertising campaign for the1985 Academy Awards, despite positive critical reviews. Boorman took the initiative to promote the film himself by makingVHS copies available for no charge to Academy members at several Los Angeles-area video rental stores. Boorman's idea later became ubiquitous during Hollywood's award season, and by the 2010s, more than a million Oscarscreeners were mailed to Academy members each year.Emerald Forest received no nominations.[1]
Hope and Glory (1987) was his most autobiographical movie, a retelling of his childhood in London duringThe Blitz. Produced byGoldcrest Films, with Hollywood financing the film, it proved a box office hit in the US, receiving numerousOscar,BAFTA andGolden Globe nominations. His 1990 US-produced comedy about a dysfunctional family,Where the Heart Is, was a major flop.
When his friendDavid Lean died in 1991, Boorman was to take over direction of Lean's long-planned adaptation ofNostromo, but the production collapsed.Beyond Rangoon (1995) andThe Tailor of Panama (2000) both explore unique worlds with alien characters stranded and desperate.
Boorman won theBest Director Award at the1998 Cannes Film Festival forThe General, his biopic ofMartin Cahill.[14] The film is about a glamorous, yet mysterious, criminal in Dublin who was killed, apparently by theProvisional Irish Republican Army. Boorman had been one of Cahill's burglary victims, having the gold record awarded for the score toDeliverance stolen from his home.
Released in 2006, hisThe Tiger's Tail was a thriller set against the tableau of early 21st century capitalism in Ireland. At the same time, Boorman began work on a long-time pet project of his, a fictional account of the life of Roman Emperor Hadrian (entitledMemoirs of Hadrian), written in the form of a letter from a dying Hadrian to his successor. In the meantime, a re-make/re-interpretation of the classicThe Wonderful Wizard Of Oz with Boorman at the helm was announced in August 2009.[15]
In 2007 and 2009 he took part in a series of events and discussions as part of theArts in Marrakech Festival along with his daughterKatrine Boorman including an event with Kim Cattrall called 'Being Directed'. In November 2012 he was selected as a president of the main competition jury at the 2012International Film Festival of Marrakech.
In autumn 2013, Boorman began shootingQueen and Country, the sequel to his 1987 Oscar-nominatedHope and Glory, using locations inShepperton andRomania. The film was selected to be screened as part of theDirectors' Fortnight section of the2014 Cannes Film Festival.[16]
In 2016, his debut novel,Crime of Passion, was published byLiberties Press of Dublin, with a French-language edition published by Marest in 2017.[17]
In 2024, Boorman was revealed to be working on an animated project titledThe Honey Wars, withJamie Lee Curtis,Vanessa Kirby,Patrick Stewart,Brendan Gleeson,Richard E. Grant andJon Voight all eyed to star, and Kavaleer Productions producing the project.[18]
Boorman was a longtime resident ofIreland and lived inAnnamoe,County Wicklow, close to theGlendalough twin lakes.[19] In 2022, he put his property up for sale, intending to move to Surrey, England, where his son Charley lived.[20] According to a 2012 interview, he was recently divorced.[21] By 2020, he was married to his third wife.[22]
He has seven children: Katrine (b. 1958), Telsche (1959–1996), Charles (b. 1966), and Daisy (b. 1966) with his first wife, Christel Kruse, to whom he was married until 1990; and Lola, Lee, and Lily Mae with his second wife, Isabella Weibrecht, whom he married in 1995.[21][23]
His son,Charley Boorman, has a career as an actor but reached a wider audience when he and actorEwan McGregor madea televised motorbike trip across Europe, Central Asia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and the Midwest US during 2004. His daughterKatrine Boorman (Igrayne inExcalibur) works as an actress in France. Another daughter, Telsche, co-wrote the screenplay forWhere the Heart Is with Boorman.[24] She died of ovarian cancer in 1996 at the age of 36.[23][21] She had been married to the journalist Lionel Rotcage, the son of French singerRégine, and they had a daughter together.[25][23]
Boorman was appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the1994 Birthday Honours for services to the film industry.[26] In 2004, Boorman was also made aFellow ofBAFTA and in 2013 he received aFellowship from theBritish Film Institute, an organisation he had previously served as a Governor.[27][28][29] Boorman wasknighted in the2022 New Year Honours for services to film.[30][31][32]
Film
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Catch Us If You Can | Yes | No | No |
| 1967 | Point Blank | Yes | No | No |
| 1968 | Hell in the Pacific | Yes | No | No |
| 1970 | Leo the Last | Yes | No | Yes |
| 1972 | Deliverance | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1974 | Zardoz | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1977 | Exorcist II: The Heretic | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1981 | Excalibur | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1985 | The Emerald Forest | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1987 | Hope and Glory | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1990 | Where the Heart Is | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1995 | Beyond Rangoon | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1998 | Lee Marvin: A Personal Portrait by John Boorman | Yes | No | No |
| The General | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2001 | The Tailor of Panama | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2004 | In My Country[33] | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2006 | The Tiger's Tail | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2014 | Queen and Country | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TBA | The Honey Wars[18] | No | Yes | Yes |
Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | I Dreamt I Woke Up | Yes | Yes | Yes | Commissioned by the BBC for anthology series "The Director's Place" |
| 1995 | Two Nudes Bathing | Yes | Yes | No | Episode ofPicture Windows |
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)"The Emerald Forest" didn't get any Oscar nominations – but Boorman's gambit made an impact: He effectively invented the movie screener, now an integral part of Hollywood's awards season apparatus.
National Heroes is serious, superbly written and insightful, and I will return to it after disposing of the other book I am required to consider, British Film Now, a collection of essays and sermons by no less than eleven authors, none of whom are identified as to their competence or authority. What they mostly have in common is a turgid prose style that, as a Governor of the BFI, I have come to recognise with sinking heart as the murky lingua franca of that otherwise noble body.
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