| Philip Kaufman | |
| Birth Date: | October 23, 1936 |
| Birth Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Children: | 1 |
| Yearsactive: | 1964–2012 |
| Website: | PhilipKaufman.com |
Philip Kaufman (born October 23, 1936) is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning nearly five decades. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award along with nominations for an Academy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence, often directing eclectic and controversial films. He is considered an "auteur" whose films have always expressed his personal vision. Kaufman's works have included genres such as realism, horror, fantasy, erotica, western, and crime.
Kaufman earned his breakthrough for the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) which earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is noted for directing such films as The Wanderers (1979), Rising Sun (1993), the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Henry & June (1990), and Quills (2000). He gained prominence for The Right Stuff (1983), which received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. He is also known for directing the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special nomination.
Kaufman was born in Chicago in 1936, the only son of Elizabeth (née Brandau), a housewife, and Nathan Kaufman, a produce businessman. He was the grandson of German Jewish immigrants.[1] One of his grammar and high school friends was William Friedkin, who also became a director.[1] He developed an early love of movies and during his youth he would often go to double features.[2]
He attended the University of Chicago where he received a degree in history, and then enrolled at Harvard Law School where he spent a year. He returned to Chicago for a postgraduate degree, hoping to become a professor of history.[3]
Before graduating Kaufman became involved in the counterculture movement and in 1960 moved to San Francisco. He took various jobs there, including postal worker, and befriended a number of influential people, such as writer Henry Miller.[3] He and his wife then decided to travel and live in Europe for a while where he would teach.[4] After spending time working on a kibbutz in Israel, he taught English and math for two years in Greece and Italy.[4] During his travels he also met author Anaïs Nin, whose relationship with her lover, Henry Miller, later became the inspiration and subject for Kaufman's film Henry & June (1990).[3]
He met Saugus, Massachusetts-born Rose Fisher in 1957, when he was 21 and she was 18, and both were undergraduates at the University of Chicago. A year later, in 1958, they married. They had one son, Peter.[5] Rose Kaufman was also a screenwriter and had bit roles in two of her husband's films.[6] [5] After backpacking in Europe with his wife and their young son, they returned to the United States. His time in Europe heavily influenced Kaufman's decision to become a filmmaker, when he and his wife would wander into small movie theaters showcasing the works of experimental new filmmakers such as John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, among others.[3] He recalls the effect of being exposed to those filmmakers as the "start of something new" which would later inspire the European flavor of many of his films: "I could feel the cry of America, the sense of jazz ... So I came back to Chicago in 1962 and set about trying to learn as much as I could, seeing every foreign movie I could."[2]
The film won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique (New Critics Prize) at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival,[1] with French director Jean Renoir calling it the best American film he had seen in 20 years.[1] François Truffaut, another leading French director, was visiting Chicago when the film premiered and he came to the opening. Kaufman recalled that Truffaut "leaped to his feet" in the middle of the screening and began applauding.[2]
Kaufman hired William Goldman to write the screenplay, but after a number of disputes about the focus of the story, Goldman quit and Kaufman wrote the screenplay himself. Goldman wanted the story to portray patriotism and center mostly on the astronauts, whereas Kaufman wanted much of the story to focus on Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard), whom Goldman's script left out completely. Goldman writes in his memoirs, "Phil's heart was with Yeager."[16] And Shepard's biographer, Don Shewey, explains that "though its chief subject is the astronauts, Yeager is the apple of Kaufman's heroic eye."[17] Critic David Thomson agrees:
Historian Michael Barson considers it one of the more ambitious pictures of the 1980s.[18] Roger Ebert said the film was "impressive," noting that the way Kaufman had organized the material into one of the "best recent American movies, is astonishing."[19] The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and won four, yet failed at the box office.[18] Kaufman earned the Writers Guild and Directors Guild nomination for his satiric adaptation of the astronaut program.[4] "It may be the last movie of the heroic 1970s," writes Thomson.[20]
In 1995, Kaufman narrated China: The Wild East a documentary directed by his son, Peter Kaufman.
Kaufman lives in San Francisco, where he also runs his production company, Walrus and Associates. Kaufman's wife Rose, who made appearances in bit roles in Henry & June and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, died in 2009, aged 70, from cancer.[5] She co-wrote the screenplays of The Wanderers and Henry & June. Their son Peter Kaufman was the producer of Henry & June, Rising Sun, Quills, Twisted, and Hemingway & Gellhorn. Peter is married to Christine Pelosi, daughter of Paul and Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and they have a daughter, Isabella, born in 2009.[22] [23] [24]
| Year | Film | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | Goldstein | Co-writer and director Benjamin Manaster | ||||
| 1967 | Fearless Frank | |||||
| 1972 | The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid | |||||
| 1974 | The White Dawn | |||||
| 1976 | The Outlaw Josey Wales | Based on the novel | ||||
| 1978 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Remake of the 1956 film | ||||
| 1979 | The Wanderers | Based on the 1974 novel, adapted with Rose Kaufman | ||||
| 1981 | Raiders of the Lost Ark | With George Lucas | ||||
| 1983 | The Right Stuff | Based on the 1979 novel | ||||
| 1988 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Based on the 1984 novel, adapted with Jean-Claude Carrière | ||||
| 1990 | Henry & June | Written with Rose Kaufman | ||||
| 1993 | Rising Sun | Based on the 1992 novel, adapted with Michael Backes and Michael Crichton | ||||
| 1994 | China: The Wild East | Documentary film | ||||
| 2000 | Quills | Based on the play of the same name | ||||
| 2004 | Twisted |
Appearances
| Year | Film | Role | Notes | class=unsortable | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | City Official on Phone | Voice cameo | ||
| 1988 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Man walking on street outside Sabina's flat | Cameo | ||
| 2004 | Lumps of Joy | Himself | Short film | ||
| 2017 | Adventures in Moviegoing | Host | Episode: "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar" | ||
| Year | Association | Category | Project | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid | |||
| 1981 | Raiders of the Lost Ark | |||
| 1983 | The Right Stuff | |||
| 1983 | Outstanding Direction of a Motion Picture | |||
| 1988 | Best Adapted Screenplay | Unbearable Lightness of Being | ||
| 2012 | Hemingway and Gellhorn | |||
| Outstanding Direction of a Miniseries or Movie | ||||
According to film historian Annette Insdorf, "no other living American director has so consistently and successfully made movies for adults, tackling sensuality, artistic creation, and manipulation by authorities."[2] Other critics note that Kaufman's films are "strong on mood and atmosphere," with powerful cinematography and a "lyrical, poetic style" to portray different historic periods.[3] His later films have a somewhat European style, but the stories always "stress individualism and integrity, and are clearly American."[4]