John Frankenheimer
Throughout John Frankenheimer's extraordinary career, he has directed many films which express his views on important social and philosophical topics. "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "The Fixer" explore the indomitability of the human spirit. "Seven Days In May" details the anatomy of a United States military coup. "The Manchurian Candidate" is an indictment of the McCarthy era. The Train questions whether a work of art is more valuable than a human life. "Black Sunday" and "Year of the Gun" confront one of the modern world's most distressing dilemmas, international terrorism. To make his films, Frankenheimer has taken cameras from the slums of New York to the plains of Afghanistan. He has directed exceptional performances of actors as varied as Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Ingrid Bergman, Gene Hackman, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Warren Beatty, Sharon Stone and Robert Deniro.
Frankenheimer's films reflect the care and integrity with which he creates his projects. Whether working on location or in Hollywood, his actors soon discover that he believes "the very process of crafting a show is a comment by the director." No role is too insignificant to deserve less than his total attention in casting. In fact, meticulous attention to detail is at the core of the director's work. To express his vision he utilizes the Steadicam, and the dolly to achieve his signature shot: wide angle compositions with the actors filling foreground and background with tremendous depth of focus.
Frankenheimer is equally adept with intimate, psychological films, such as "Birdman of Alcatraz," "All Fall Down" and "The Iceman Cometh" as well as action-oriented pictures, including "The Train," "Grand Prix," "Gypsy Moths," "The Horseman," "Black Sunday," "Against the Wall" and "Andersonville."
Like David Lean, the Frankenheimer style includes elaborate pre-production. He carefully plots most of his camera work in advance as well as his sets, locations, costumes, props and effects. His cameras have ridden into scenes on grand prix racing cars, trains, motorcycles and parachutes. Cameras have been knocked around in riots and languorously slowed down in love scenes. Frankenheimer tirelessly rehearses his actors weeks before production commences, and with his writers he meticulously examines every scene and every line of the script.
Frankenheimer was born in New York, and grew up in the borough of Queens. He attended La Salle Military Academy during his high school years, and there began two lifelong interests: tennis, which he once thought of playing professionally, and the movies.
At Williams College, Frankenheimer was active in the theater as both an actor and director. His first experience making movies came in the Air Force, when he directed documentaries while stationed in Burbank, California.
The experience convinced him he had a future as a film director. In 1953, Frankenheimer walked into the CBS office in New York and talked the network into hiring him as an assistant director. Starting with the weather and news shows, he moved up quickly as his talents sharpened on such shows as "Person to Person," "See It Now," "Danger" and "You Are There."
Producer Martin Manulis spotted Frankenheimer's gift and helped the young director climb the ladder at CBS. Within a year and a half of his discharge from the Air Force, Frankenheimer was one of the two directors of the weekly Climax! dramatic series, and soon after that directed 42 episodes of the now famous Playhouse 90 anthology series.
Between Playhouse 90 and two other anthology showcases, Frankenheimer directed 152 live television dramas between 1954 and 1960, averaging one every two weeks. His work during this period includes: "The Last Tycoon," (Jack Palance), "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach), "The Comedian" (Mickey Rooney, Kim Hunter, and Mel Torme), the original "Days of Wine and Roses" (Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie), "Old Man" (Geraldine Page and Sterling Hayden) "The Turn of the Screw" (Ingrid Bergman), "Face of a Hero" (Jack Lemmon) and Sir John Gielgud's first television appearance in "The Browning Version."
The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nominated Frankenheimer for the Best Director Emmy® six consecutive years during this period, and twice won the television critics award as best director. His shows won 27 Emmy®, the Golden Globe and the Alcoa award three times. Television historians have noted that Frankenheimer was one of the prime contributors to the Golden Age of Television.
He turned to the big screen in 1956, with the theatrical version of one of his television dramas "The Young Stranger" starring the youthful James MacArthur. In his next film, "The Young Savages," Frankenheimer displayed his passion for realism by recruiting actual teen gang members to play in his story about life in East Harlem.
"Birdman of Alcatraz," like "The Young Savages," starred Burt Lancaster, a collaboration which spanned five pictures. For "Birdman," Lancaster and his co-stars Thelma Ritter and Telly Savalas were nominated for Academy Awards and the picture firmly established Frankenheimer as a world-class film maker.
His next motion picture, A"ll Fall Down," was one of only three U.S. entries at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962. That same year "The Manchurian Candidate," was released which remains a terrifying, nightmarish tale of psychological intrigue; movie reviewers polled by Film Daily voted it Best Motion Picture of 1962, and it boasts fine screen performances by Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. "Manchurian" became the prototype for an entire genre of psychological spy thrillers, and is studied today by filmmakers. It was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Registry in 1994. Frankenheimer's next film, "Seven Days in May," a large-scale tale of political suspense, has become a modern-day classic. It was scripted by Rod Serling, a close associate from Playhouse 90 days.
These were followed by such action-adventure films as "French Connection II," "Black Sunday" and the thriller "52 Pick Up."
In 1993, Frankenheimer triumphantly returned to television and won an Emmy® award for directing HBO's, "Against The Wall". In 1994 he produced and directed "The Burning Season" which garnered three Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture for Television: Best Actor, Raul Julia; Best Supporting Actor, Edward James Olmos. The film also received 6 Emmy® nominations. Frankenheimer won his second Emmy® for directing Julia won for best acting. They each won CableACE awards for the same categories respectively.
He won his third consecutive Emmy® for "Andersonville," the mini-series on Turner Network Television. It's premiere was the finale to the first joint retrospective the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Television and Radio mounted in January and February of 1996 to honor John Frankenheimer's career in both film and television.
The American Cinema Editors, Inc. honored the director with the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, which was presented to him in March 1996 by Oliver Stone at the 46th Annual ACE Eddie Awards dinner.
The distinguished film critic, Charles Champlin has written a history of Frankenheimer that was published in 1995. The book entitled John Frankenheimer, A Conversation with Charles Champlin, was commissioned by the Director's Guild of America and published by Riverwood Press. Gerald Pratley, the Canadian critic and film historian, has written a new addition on the films of John Frankenheimer, published in 1998.
In 1997, his telefilm George Wallace won the Cable Ace Award for Best Director and for Best Film. In 1998 Wallace also won the Golden Globe for Best Film for Television, the George Foster Peabody Award and the director's fourth Emmy® for Best Direction.
In 1999, Frankenheimer spent 6 months in Vancouver, where he filmed "Reindeer Games," a suspense thriller for Miramax/Dimension starring Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron.
This year he directed "Ambush," the first short in a series of films called THE HIRE for BMWfilms.com. The short film is rich with live-action inspired by Frankenheimer's film "Ronin." Ambush stars Clive Owen and Thomas Milian and premiered on the Internet on April 26, 2001.
Frankenheimer is also a gourmet cook, having studied two years in Paris at both the Cordon Bleau and with distinguished chef, Michel Guérard. Well before Grand Prix, Frankenheimer was in love with performance cars, and his passion for tennis continues daily. He and his wife reside in Beverly Hills, California.
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CAST:
Michael Gambon
Alec Baldwin
Donald Sutherland
DIRECTOR/EXECUTIVE:
John Frankenheimer
WRITER:
Daniel Giat
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