On June 22, local time, the famous American director Joel T. Schumacher died of cancer in New York at the age of 80. Schumacher directed more than twenty films in his lifetime, and although he never won a Golden Globe award or an Oscar, there are many popular blockbusters in these genres, and he is worthy of being one of the most important commercial film directors in Hollywood in the past few decades.
The famous American director Joe Schumacher IC diagram
Joe Schumacher was born in New York City on August 29, 1939, the only son of a family. At the age of four, his father died of illness, leaving mother and son to live with each other. In order to make a living, his mother was busy day and night, and the little Schumacher lived an independent life from an early age. "Before I was seven years old, I was already a street jerk." In an interview with the American media a few years ago, Schumacher recalled, "In addition to not killing anyone, all other bad things can be done." ”
Jo Schumacher in his youth
However, he was talented and talented, and as a teenager, he successfully won a scholarship to enter the top and world-renowned Parsons School of Design in the United States to study interior design. During college, Schumacher had already shown a talent for color and styling, and was hired to design window displays in famous New York department stores and work-study. "At that time, the social atmosphere was very enlightened, and when we designed the window, we could do whatever we wanted, such as letting the model pose as a suicide, it didn't matter." "I also designed a window with a smashed glass and threw all the models in the corner to look terrified," he recalls. In this way, pedestrians looking at it from the outside, it feels like the mall has been smashed, which is very interesting. Later, he read a diploma in fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and before he could officially graduate, he received a letter of appointment from Revlon with an annual salary of $75,000.
Not long after this job, he hated being tied by the company, so he voluntarily paid a huge liquidated damages, resigned by Revlon, and restored his freedom. After that, he took over according to his own interests and gradually became a well-known designer in the New York fashion circle. In his early thirties, Schumacher was invited by a friend to go to Los Angeles to design costumes for a crew, but unexpectedly, this completely changed the trajectory of his life. Realizing that making movies was what he really loved, he resolutely left everything in New York and moved to Hollywood, where he became a costumer with a weekly salary of only $20.
In 1973, Schumacher designed the costume for Woody Allen for Sleeper, and it was this New York compatriot who was four years older than him who was the first to encourage him to bravely pursue his dream of directing. "I did have a dream of directing, but in the circumstances, it was really unrealistic, too far away... In this case, there was a person like him who had achieved this kind of career, gave me this encouragement, and told me, 'You can do it, you have this strength, you will definitely be a director.'" That's a great encouragement for me. ”
While designing costumes for "Fools In Science City," director Woody Allen encouraged Joe Schumacher to become the director himself
In this way, after a year, Joe Schumacher, who was completely self-taught on his own, finally got the opportunity to direct the first directing tube, and wrote and directed the NBC TV movie "Virginia Hill". After that, he went through several years of grinding, and finally completed his screen debut "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" in 1981. At this time, Schumacher was 42 years old.
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, Schumacher directed three blockbuster films in a row, St. Schumacher. Elmo's Fire (1985), The Lost Boys (1987) and Flatliners (1990) quickly became hollywood's hottest new directors. In these films, he boldly used a group of young actors, including Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts, and his unique vision of people is a must in Hollywood.
Seven Graduates
In the mid-1990s, Schumacher made a series of thrillers based on the novels of American best-selling author John Grisham, "The Client" and "A Time to Kill", and in 1994 accepted an invitation from Warner Bros. to succeed Tim Burton as director of the Batman series.
Killing Hour
In June 1995, "Batman Forever", starring Fang Kimmer, was released in the United States, quickly breaking the previous box office record held by "Jurassic Park", and finally successfully achieved more than $300 million in the global box office. Two years later, Schumacher continued to direct Batman and Robin, but the original lead actor, Fang Kimmer, temporarily quit the project in order to work with his idol marlon Brando on "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and the role of Batman was replaced by George Clooney. As a result, the film had a dismal reputation and was bombarded by critics to the point of exhaustion, which also made Warner pause his plan to find him to direct the next "Batman".
Looking back at these two "Batman" movies in the future, especially the latter "Batman and Robin", director Schumacher himself admitted that he should not have completely listened to the opinions of Warner's executives, positioned its main audience at low age groups, and made the film exaggerated and vulgar in order to pursue the original style of the comic. "But all the responsibility for failure lies with me." He said.
The fiasco of Batman and Robin led Joe Schumacher to bid farewell to the series once and for all
Also in the 1990s, Schumacher's two small-budget films, Falling Down (1993) and EightMm (1999), were invited to compete for the Cannes Palme d'Or and the Berlin Golden Bear, and were recognized by European film critics. Compared with his old film critics in the United States, but in France on the other side of the ocean, Schumacher has become the heir to the "author film" of a new generation of Hollywood directors and has won a lot of good reputations.
《8MM》
Entering the new millennium, Schumacher's "Tigerland" and "Phone Booth" (2002) also became popular with Irish newcomer Colin Farrell. In 2004, he directed the film version of "The Phantom of the Opera," which grossed $150 million worldwide, plus multiple Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, marking the final stage of his directorial career.
In his later years, Joe Schumacher single-handedly became popular with Colin Farrell
Since then, Schumacher's works have become increasingly rare. In 2011, Trespass, starring Nicole Kidman, was his last film. In 2013, he was invited by his friend David Finch to direct two episodes of the American drama "House of Cards". After that, he completely said goodbye to the film industry.
Two episodes in the first season of House of Cards were joe Schumacher's last work
Joe Schumacher is a famous gay director in Hollywood, and as early as many hollywood colleagues were still silent and hidden about it, he never hid his past black history of promiscuity and drug addiction. In an interview with the media last year, Schumacher boasted that in his lifetime, tens of thousands of men had slept in the same bed: "More than ten thousand, but at most twenty thousand." He said that all of it was out of your affection, and he really did not have any scandals in or outside the industry. Joe Schumacher's life was a dashing and open life.