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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
| Sir Ridley Scott | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Born | November 30 1937 South Shields, England, U.K. | ||||||||||
| Other name(s) | Rid R-Scott | ||||||||||
| Occupation | film director and producer | ||||||||||
| Years active | 1965 - present | ||||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Felicity Heywood (1964-1975) Sandy Watson (1979-1989) | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne & Wear) is an Academy Award-nominated British film director and producer. His films include Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Black Rain, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven, and American Gangster.
Contents |
Scott grew up in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life his father — an officer in the Royal Engineers — was absent. Ridley\'s older brother, Frank, joined the Merchant Navy when he was still young and the pair had little contact. During this time the family moved around, living in (amongst other areas) Cumbria, Wales and Germany. After the Second World War the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner). He enjoyed watching films. Among Scott\'s favourites were (and remain) Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai.BBC Movies: Calling the Shots Scott studied in Teeside from 1954 to 1958, at the West Hartlepool College of Art, graduating with a Diploma in Design. He progressed to an M.A. in graphic design at London\'s Royal College of Art from 1960 to 1962.
At the RCA, he contributed to the college magazine, ARK, and helped to establish its film department. For his final show he made a black and white short film, Boy and Bicycle, starring his younger brother, Tony Scott, and his father. The film\'s main visual elements would become features of Scott\'s later work; it was issued on the \'Extras\' section of The Duellists DVD. After graduation in 1963 he secured a job as a trainee set designer with the BBC, leading to work on the popular television police series Z-Cars and the science fiction series Out of the Unknown. Scott was an admirer of Stanley Kubrick early in his development as a director. For his entry for the BBC traineeship Scott remade Paths of Glory as a short film.
He was assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, which would have entailed realising the famous alien creatures. However, shortly before he was due to start work a schedule conflict meant that he was replaced on the serial by Raymond Cusick.Howe, David J.; Mark Stammers, Stephen James Walker (1994). The Handbook: The First Doctor - The William Hartnell Years 1963-1966. Virgin Books, p. 61. ISBN 0-426-20430-1. At the BBC, Scott was placed into a director training programme and, before he left the corporation, had directed episodes of Z-Cars, its spin-off, Softly, Softly, and adventure series Adam Adamant Lives!.
Five members of the Scott family are directors, all working for RSA. Brother Tony has been a successful film director for more than two decades; sons, Jake (40) and Luke (37), are both acclaimed commercials directors as is his daughter, Jordan (27). Jake and Jordan both work from Los Angeles and Luke is based in London.
Scott left the BBC in 1968 and established a production company, Ridley Scott Associates, working with Sir Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Hugh Johnson and employing his younger brother, Tony. Having cut his teeth on UK television commercials in the 1970s — most notably the 1974 Hovis advert, "Bike Round" (New World Symphony), which was filmed in Shaftesbury, Dorset — he graduated to Hollywood, where he produced and directed a number of top box office films.
The Duellists of 1977 was Ridley Scott\'s first feature film. It was produced in Europe and won a Best Debut Film medal at the Cannes Film Festival but made limited commercial impact in the US. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, it featured two French Hussar officers, D\'Hubert and Feraud (played by Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel). Their quarrel over an initially minor incident turns into a bitter, long-drawn out feud over the following fifteen years, interwoven with the larger conflict that provides its backdrop. The film is lauded for its historically authentic portrayal of Napoleonic uniforms and military conduct, as well as its accurate early-nineteenth-century fencing techniques recreated by fight choreographer William Hobbs.
Scott\'s box office disappointment with The Duellists was compounded by the success being enjoyed by Alan Parker with American-backed films — Scott admitted he was "ill for a week" with envy. Scott had originally planned to next adapt an opera, Tristan und Isolde, but after seeing Star Wars, he became convinced of the potential of large scale, effects-driven films. He therefore accepted the job of directing Alien, the ground-breaking 1979 horror/science-fiction film that would give him international recognition. Whilst mostly filmed in 1978, Scott\'s talent for high-quality production design and atmospheric visuals have ensured that Alien has an almost ageless quality and appeal to it.
While Scott would not direct the three Alien sequels, the female action hero Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) introduced in the first film, would become a cinematic icon. Scott was involved in the 2003 restoration and re-release of the film including media interviews for its promotion. At this time Scott indicated that he had been in discussions to make the fifth and final film in the Alien franchise. However, in a 2006 interview, the director remarked that he had been unhappy about Alien: The Director\'s Cut, feeling that the original was "pretty flawless" and that the additions were merely a marketing tool.BBC News: A good year ahead for Ridley
After a year working on the film adaptation of Dune, Scott signed to direct the film version of Philip K. Dick\'s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, (which would be retitled Blade Runner), following the sudden death of his brother Frank. Starring Harrison Ford and featuring an acclaimed soundtrack by Vangelis, Blade Runner was a flop when released in theatres in 1982, and was pulled shortly thereafter. However, it would eventually achieve cult status through re-issue on television and through home video. Scott\'s notes were used by Warner Brothers to create a rushed director\'s cut in 1991 which removed the voiceovers and modified the ending. Today Blade Runner is often ranked by critics as one of the most important science fiction films of the 20th centuryThe Guardian: Top 10 sci-fi films and is usually discussed along with William Gibson\'s novel Neuromancer as initiating the cyberpunk genre. Scott personally supervised a digitally restored Blade Runner and approved the Final Cut, which was released theatrically in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto on 5 October 2007, and as an elaborate DVD release on 18 December 2007, following the resolution of a number of rights issues between Warner Bros and the film\'s guarantors."Blade Runner Final Cut Due," SciFi Wire, May 26, 2006 Scott regards Blade Runner as his "most complete and personal film". Barber, Lynn (2002-01-02). "Scott\'s Corner". The Observer. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
In 1984, Apple Computer launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single broadcast of the now famous $1.5 million commercial, based on George Orwell\'s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and directed by Scott (as a result of his work on Blade Runner). The commercial was broadcast during the 1984 Super Bowl XVIII. Steve Jobs\' intention with the ad was to equate Big Brother with the IBM PC and a nameless female action hero, portrayed by Anya Major, with the Macintosh.
The commercial is frequently voted top in surveys of influential marketing campaigns. For example, Advertising Age named it the 1980s "Commercial of the Decade", and in 1999 the US TV Guide selected it as number one in their list of "50 Greatest Commercials of All Time".
The film resurfaced in the late 1990s when Apple made a QuickTime version of the commercial available for download from the Internet. It appeared numerous times on television commercial compilation specials, as well as on Nick-at-Nite during its "Retromercial" breaks. The making and presentation of this famous commercial formed the visual bookends for the docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley.
In 1985, Scott directed Legend, a fantasy film produced by Arnon Milchan. Having not tackled the fairy tale genre, Scott decided to create a "once upon a time" film set in a world of fairies, princesses, and goblins. Scott cast Tom Cruise as the film\'s hero, Jack, Mia Sara as Princess Lily, and Tim Curry as the Satan-like Lord of Darkness. But a series of problems with both principal photography and post-production (including heavy editing and substitution of Jerry Goldsmith\'s original score) hampered the film\'s release and as a result Legend received scathing reviews. It has since become a cult classic thanks to a DVD release that restores Scott\'s original, intended vision.
Hungry for a real box office hit and also for respect from the press which considered him a commercial filmmaker devoted only to fantastic visuals without much substance, Scott decided to postpone further incursions into the science fiction and fantasy genre, in order to avoid being typecast, by focusing more in down to earth mature suspense thrillers.
Among them came Someone to Watch Over Me, a romantic police drama starring Tom Berenger, Lorraine Bracco and Mimi Rogers in 1987, and Black Rain, a 1989 cop drama starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, shot partially in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Both met with mild success at the box office.
Again, Scott was praised for his lavish visuals, but was still being criticised for making films that were little more than extended versions of his glossy TV commercials, which he kept directing due to the lucrative nature of the advertising business.
Thelma & Louise was released in 1991 and starred Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women find easier and easier to commit. The movie proved to be a success and revived Scott\'s reputation as a film maker, earning his first Oscar nomination. Scott\'s next project was the independent movie 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a visually striking take on the story of Christopher Columbus, yet usually considered to be his most slowly paced movie. It would be four years before Scott released another film.
In 1995 Scott, together with his brother Tony, formed the film and television production company Scott Free Productions in Los Angeles. All of his subsequent feature films, starting with White Squall and G.I. Jane, a female tabloid version of Full Metal Jacket starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen, have been produced under the Scott Free banner. Also in 1995, the two brothers purchased a controlling interest in Shepperton Studios that was later merged with Pinewood Studios. Scott and his brother are currently producing (since 2005) the CBS series Numb3rs — a crime drama focused on a mathematician who helps the FBI solve crimes using his genius in mathematics.
The huge success of Scott\'s film Gladiator (2000) has been credited with the revival of the nearly defunct genre of the "sword and sandal" historical epic.[citation needed] Scott then turned to Hannibal, the sequel to Jonathan Demme\'s The Silence of the Lambs. 2001 also saw the release of Scott\'s war film Black Hawk Down (2001), which further established Scott\'s position as both a critically and financially successful film maker and went on to earn two Oscars.
In 2003, Scott directed Matchstick Men, adapted from the novel by Eric Garcia, and starring Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell and Alison Lohman. It received mostly positive reviews and performed moderately at the box office.
In 2005, the director made the internationally successful Kingdom of Heaven, a movie about the Crusades that consciously sought to connect history to current events. While on location in Morocco during filming, Scott reportedly received threats from extremists. The Moroccan government also sent the Moroccan cavalry as extras in the epic battle scenes.
Unhappy with the theatrical version of the film (which he blamed on paying too much attention to the opinions of preview audiences), Scott supervised a director\'s cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which was released on DVD in 2006.Kingdom of Heaven: Director\'s Cut DVD official website In an interview to promote the latter, when asked if he was against previewing in general, Scott had this to say on the subject:
"It depends who\'s in the driving seat. If you\'ve got a lunatic doing my job, then you need to preview. But a good director should be experienced enough to judge what he thinks is the correct version to go out into the cinema."Total Film magazine, July 2006: \'Three hours, eight minutes. It\'s beautiful.\' (Interview to promote Kingdom of Heaven: The Director\'s Cut)
Scott teamed up again with actor Russell Crowe, directing the movie A Good Year, which is based on the best-selling book. The film was released on 10 November 2006, with a score by Marc Stretenfield. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp and Subsidiary studio 20th Century Fox (who backed the film) dismissed A Good Year as "a flop" at a shareholders\' meeting only a few days after the film was released."A Good Year is a \'flop\', Murdoch admits", Guardian Unlimited, 2006-11-16. Retrieved on 2007-02-24.
Scott\'s next directorial work was on American Gangster, working for the first time with Denzel Washington and again with Russell Crowe. He is the third director to attempt the project after Antoine Fuqua\'s attempt (under the working title Tru Blu) was shut down by the studio due to an escalating budget. Washington had been cast in that incarnation of the project (reuniting him with Fuqua who had directed him in his Best Actor Oscar-winning performance in Training Day) as well as Benicio del Toro, who were both paid salaries of $20m and $15m respectively without doing any production on the film. The project was then handed to the director of Hotel Rwanda, Terry George, who was rumoured to be working on a less harsh version of the script with Don Cheadle in the starring role. Eventually George and Cheadle dropped out and Scott took over the project in early 2006.
Scott is to direct an adaptation of Robin Hood called Nottingham in which Russell Crowe will portray the Sheriff of Nottingham."Ridley Scott to Direct Nottingham", Cinema Fusion, 2007-4-30. Retrieved on 2007-4-30.
Rumoured future projects include Shadow Divers (though currently unattached) and The Invisible World (production notes unknown). He also has a historical epic called Tripoli planned, with Russell Crowe and Ben Kingsley attached, and a western in development, Blood Meridian, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. In 2000, he was attached to do an adaptation of Ben Elton\'s novel Popcorn. He and brother Tony are also looking at remaking the 1979 film The Warriors, with Tony set to direct as his next film after Déjà Vu.
Recently it was announced that his next project will be Body of Lies, the adaptation of the non-fiction bestseller of the same name, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe once more attached to star. Previously the project had been named Penetration. On 19 June 2007 it was announced that Scott would direct a film version of the game Monopoly.WorstPreviews.com: Ridley Scott\'s "Monopoly" film confirmed
Scott will also direct Child 44 an adaption of the novel by Tom Rob Smith, a period thriller set during the Stalinist-era about a Russian secret police officer who is framed by a colleague for treason. He will be producer of the horror movie Tell-Tale, which Michael Cuesta is set to direct and Josh Lucas to star in as a man whose heart-transplant leads him to find the killer of his heart\'s previous owner before its past catches up to him. And Factor X about a young counter-terrorism expert from Washington who works with Wichita police detective Ken Landwehr(Eric Bana) to solve the infamous case of the BTK serial killer active in Kansas from 1974-91, but who was finally captured in 2005.
Scott is currently making a film about Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The film could be wrapped by the end of the year and released in early 2009. The film will take place in 1987.
Scott is often receptive of ideas from the cast during the shooting of movies. Examples include Susan Sarandon\'s suggestions of Louise packing shoes in plastic bags in one scene, and where her character exchanges jewellery for a hat and other items in Thelma & Louise, as well as Tim Robbins\' collaboration with Scott and Susan Sarandon to rework the final scene with a more upbeat ending.
On the other hand, he can be a demanding and difficult director to work for. He was nicknamed "Guvnor" in the Blade Runner production. Several crew members wore protest t-shirts with slogans such as "Yes Guvnor, my ass" and "Will Rogers never met Ridley Scott" in reference to Will Rogers\' most famous quotation, "I never met a man I didn\'t like".Answers.com: I never met a man I didn\'t like This was mainly in response to the way that Scott directed his first American crew, which was considered too harsh by their standards.
His striking visual style, incorporating a detailed approach to production design and innovative, atmospheric lighting, has been influential on a subsequent generation of filmmakers — many of whom have simply imitated his style. Scott commonly uses slow pacing until the action sequences, which are characterised by frequent, rapid edits. Examples include Alien and Blade Runner; the LA Times critic Sheila Benson, for example, would call the latter "Blade Crawler" "because it\'s so damn slow". Another commonly employed technique is his use of sound or music to build tension, as seen in Alien with hissing steam, beeping computers and the noise of the machinery in the space ship.
Although Scott is often known for his painterly directorial style, other stylistic techniques and elements particular to Scott include:
Although some of his films have been highly praised, others have been less successful with audiences and critics. White Squall, G.I. Jane and Hannibal are the three major works most often attacked by critics, while 1492: Conquest of Paradise was a major commercial failure. Legend (1985) was, like Blade Runner three years before, an initial box-office disaster, but it too has since found cult status.
Actors who have worked with Scott often consider that he puts more emphasis on the sets or lining up shots than on them. Such criticisms have come from Harrison Ford, who complained that his relationship with Scott left a lot to be desired. Paul M. Sammon, in his book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, commented about this in an interview with Brmovie.com, stating that Scott\'s relationship with his actors has improved considerably over the years.BRmovie.com: Paul M. Sammon interview
Scott is known for his enthusiasm for the DVD format, providing audio commentaries and interviews for all his films wherever possible. In the July 2006 issue of Total Film magazine, he stated:
After all the work we go through, to have it run in the cinema and then disappear forever is a great pity. To give the film added life is really cool for both those who missed it and those who really loved it.
The special edition DVDs of Scott\'s films are often regarded for their high quality picture and sound, as well as comprehensive documentaries and commentaries, produced by his longtime DVD producer, Charles de Lauzirika. His enthusiasm for the highest quality in picture and sound has also made him a fan of the Blu-ray high-definition format, and he described the Blu-ray version of Kingdom of Heaven as the closest he had seen to the film.
Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing: for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.IMDb: Ridley Scott — awards He was knighted in the 2003 New Year honours.BBC News: Bates and Scott lead showbiz honours
His partner in life is the actress Giannina Facio, whom he has cast in all his movies since White Squall.
| Year | Film | No. of Oscar nominations | No. of Oscar wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Boy and Bicycle | ||
| 1977 | The Duellists | ||
| 1979 | Alien | 2 | 1 |
| 1982 | Blade Runner | 2 | |
| 1985 | Legend | 1 | |
| 1987 | Someone to Watch Over Me | ||
| 1989 | Black Rain | 2 | |
| 1991 | Thelma & Louise | 6 | 1 |
| 1992 | 1492: Conquest of Paradise | ||
| 1996 | White Squall | ||
| 1997 | G.I. Jane | ||
| 2000 | Gladiator | 12 | 5 |
| 2001 | Hannibal | ||
| Black Hawk Down | 4 | 2 | |
| 2003 | Matchstick Men | ||
| 2005 | Kingdom of Heaven | ||
| 2006 | All the Invisible Children | ||
| A Good Year | |||
| 2007 | American Gangster | 2 | |
| 2008 | Body of Lies | ||
| 2009 | Nottingham | ||
| Blood Meridian |
| Films directed by Ridley Scott |
|---|
| Boy and Bicycle · The Duellists · Alien · Blade Runner · Legend · Someone to Watch Over Me · Black Rain · Thelma & Louise · 1492: Conquest of Paradise · White Squall · G.I. Jane · Gladiator · Hannibal · Black Hawk Down · Matchstick Men · Kingdom of Heaven · All the Invisible Children · A Good Year · American Gangster · Body of Lies |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Scott, Ridley |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Scott, Sir Ridley |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | English film director, and producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1937 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | South Shields, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
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