1.
Martin Scorsese
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Martin Charles Scorsese is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and film historian, whose career spans more than 50 years. Scorseses body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, faith, machismo, modern crime, many of his films are also known for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity. Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, he is regarded as one of the most significant. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, an organization dedicated to film preservation. Their third film together, The Departed, won Scorsese the Academy Award for Best Director in addition to the winning the award for Best Picture. Their collaborations have resulted in numerous Academy Award nominations for both as well as winning several other prestigious awards. His work in television includes the episode of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the crime drama The Departed, with eight Best Director nominations, he is the most nominated living director and is tied with Billy Wilder for the second most nominations overall. Scorsese was born in Queens, New York and his family moved to Little Italy, Manhattan before he started school. His father, Charles Scorsese, and mother, Catherine Scorsese and his father was a clothes presser and an actor, and his mother was a seamstress and an actress. His fathers parents emigrated from Polizzi Generosa, in the province of Palermo, Sicily, Scorsese was raised in a devoutly Catholic environment. As a teenager in the Bronx, Scorsese frequently rented Powell, Scorsese was one of only two people who regularly rented that reel. The other was future Night Of The Living Dead director George A. Romero, Scorsese has cited Sabu and Victor Mature as his favorite actors during his youth. He has also spoken of the influence of the 1947 Powell and Pressburger film Black Narcissus, whose innovative techniques later impacted his filmmaking. Enamored of historical epics in his adolescence, at least two films of the genre, Land of the Pharaohs and El Cid, appear to have had a deep, Scorsese also developed an admiration for neorealist cinema at this time. He acknowledges owing a debt to the French New Wave and has stated that the French New Wave has influenced all filmmakers who have worked since. He has also cited filmmakers including Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni and he went on to earn his M. F. A. from NYUs School of the Arts in 1966, a year after the school was founded. Scorsese attended New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts making the short films Whats a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This. and Its Not Just You, Murray
2.
David Lynch
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David Keith Lynch is an American director, screenwriter, producer, painter, musician, and photographer. He has been described by The Guardian as the most important director of this era, allMovie called him the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking, while the success of his films has led to him being labelled the first popular Surrealist. He moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, meanwhile, Lynch embraced the Internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animated DumbLand and the surreal sitcom Rabbits. Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director and a nomination for best screenplay. He has won Frances César Award for Best Foreign Film twice, as well as the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival, the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, the countrys top civilian honor, as a Chevalier in 2002 and then an Officier in 2007. Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive are widely considered by critics to be among the greatest films of their respective decades, Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20,1946. His father, Donald Walton Lynch, was a research scientist working for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Lynchs maternal great-grandparents were Finnish, and had immigrated to the United States from Finland in the 19th century. The Lynch family often moved around according to where the USDA assigned Donald and it was here that Lynchs sister Martha was born. The family then moved to Durham, North Carolina, then Boise, Idaho, Lynch found this transitory early life relatively easy to adjust to, noting that he found it fairly easy to meet new friends whenever he started attending a new school. Commenting on much of his life, Lynch has remarked, Alongside his schooling, Lynch joined the Boy Scouts, although he would later note that he only became so I could quit. He rose to the highest rank of Eagle Scout and it was through being an Eagle Scout that he was present with other Boy Scouts outside of the White House at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on Lynchs birthday in 1961. They had some hopes that in Europe they could train with the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka at his school. Upon reaching Salzburg, however, they found that he was not available and, Back in the United States, Lynch returned to Virginia, but since his parents had moved to Walnut Creek, California, he stayed with his friend Toby Keeler for a while. He decided to move to the city of Philadelphia and enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, after advice from Jack Fisk and it was here that he began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, and they were married in 1967. The following year, Peggy gave birth to their daughter Jennifer, later describing this situation, Peggy stated that definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married, later describing living there, Lynch stated that We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street and we were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into three days after we moved in
3.
Paul Thomas Anderson
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Paul Thomas Anderson also known as P. T. Interested in film-making since a young age, Anderson was encouraged by his father to become a filmmaker, in 1993, he wrote and directed a short film titled Cigarettes & Coffee on a budget of $20,000. After he attended the Sundance Institute, Anderson had a deal with Rysher Entertainment to direct his first feature film, Anderson received critical and commercial success for his film Boogie Nights, set during the Golden Age of Porn in the 1970s and 1980s. His third feature, Magnolia, takes place over a day in the San Fernando Valley, following the interconnected lives of several characters in search of happiness. It received strongly positive reviews despite struggling at the box office, in 2002, the romantic comedy-drama Punch-Drunk Love, Andersons fourth feature, was released to generally favorable reviews. The epic drama There Will Be Blood, set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, released after a five-year absence, it garnered wide acclaim from critics. Andersons sixth film, the drama The Master, was released to critical acclaim and his seventh film, the crime comedy-drama Inherent Vice, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon, was released in 2014, to general acclaim. His eighth film, Junun, is a documentary about the making of an album of the same name, Anderson has been nominated for six Academy Awards over the course of his career, while his works have earned a further fourteen Academy Award nominations for cast and crew. There Will Be Blood has been named by critics as the best film of the 2000s. It later ranked, along with The Master and Inherent Vice, Anderson was born June 26,1970, in Studio City, California, to Edwina and Ernie Anderson. Ernie was an actor who was the voice of ABC and a Cleveland television late-night horror movie host known as Ghoulardi, Anderson grew up in the San Fernando Valley. He is third youngest of nine children, and had a relationship with his mother but was close with his father. Anderson attended a number of schools, including Buckley in Sherman Oaks, John Thomas Dye School, Campbell Hall School, Cushing Academy, Anderson was involved in filmmaking at a young age and never really had an alternative plan to directing films. He made his first movie when he was eight years old and he later started using 8 mm film but realized that video was easier. He began writing in adolescence, and at 17 years old he began experimenting with a Bolex sixteen millimeter camera. After years of experimenting with standard fare, he wrote and filmed his first real production as a senior in school at Montclair Prep using money he earned cleaning cages at a pet store. Feeling that the material shown to him at film school turned the experience into homework or a chore, the film was screened at the 1993 Sundance Festival Shorts Program. He decided to expand the film into a film and was subsequently invited to the 1994 Sundance Feature Film Program
4.
Clint Eastwood
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Clinton Clint Eastwood Jr. is an American actor, filmmaker, musician, and political figure. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring icon of masculinity. For his work in the Western film Unforgiven and the sports drama Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor. Eastwoods greatest commercial successes have been the adventure comedy Every Which Way But Loose and its sequel, the war drama biopic American Sniper set box office records for the largest January release ever and was also the largest opening ever for an Eastwood film. Eastwood received considerable praise in France for several films, including some that were not well received in the United States. Eastwood has been awarded two of Frances highest honors, in 1994 he became a recipient of the Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in 2000, Eastwood was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Since 1967, Eastwood has run his own company, Malpaso. Starting in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, a non-partisan office, Eastwood was born Clinton Eastwood Jr. May 31,1930, in San Francisco, California, the son of Clinton Eastwood Sr. and he has one younger sister, Jeanne Bernhardt. Eastwood is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry and he is descended from Mayflower passenger William Bradford, and through this line is the 12th generation of his family born in North America and the 13th generation to live in North America. His family moved often as his father worked at jobs along the West Coast, settled in Piedmont, California, the Eastwoods lived in a very wealthy part of town, had a swimming pool, belonged to the country club, and each parent drove their own car. Clint attended Piedmont Junior High School, shortly before he was to enter Piedmont High School, he rode his bike on the schools sports field and tore up the wet turf, this resulted in his being asked not to enroll. Clint graduated from the airplane shop, I think that was his major, joked classmate Don Kincaid. Another high school friend, Don Loomis, echoed I dont think he was spending much time at school because he was having a pretty good time elsewhere. I think what happened is he just went off and started having a good time, I just dont think he finished high school, explained Fritz Manes, a boyhood friend two years younger than Eastwood, who remained associated with him until their falling out in the mid-1980s. Biographer Patrick McGilligan notes that high school records are a matter of strict legal confidentiality. Eastwood worked at a number of jobs, including lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, Eastwood has said that he tried to enroll at Seattle University but was then drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War. He always dropped the Korean War reference, hoping everyone would conclude that he was in combat, actually, hed been a lifeguard at Fort Ord in northern California for his entire stint in the military, commented Eastwoods former longtime companion, Sondra Locke
5.
Christopher Nolan
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Christopher Edward Nolan is an English-American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor. He is one of the directors in history, and among the most successful. The acclaim garnered by his independent films gave Nolan the opportunity to make the thriller film Insomnia. His nine films have grossed over US$4.2 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 26 Oscar nominations, Nolan has co-written several of his films with his younger brother, Jonathan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife, Emma Thomas. Nolans films are rooted in philosophical, sociological and ethical concepts, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and his English father, Brendan James Nolan, was an advertising executive, and his American mother, Christina, worked as a flight attendant and an English teacher. His childhood was split between London and Evanston, Illinois, and he has both British and American citizenship and he has an older brother, Matthew Francis Nolan, a convicted criminal, and a younger brother, Jonathan. He began making films at age seven, borrowing his fathers Super 8 camera, growing up, Nolan was particularly influenced by Star Wars, and around the age of eight he made a stop motion animation homage called Space Wars. His uncle who worked at NASA, building systems for the Apollo rockets. I re-filmed them off the screen and cut them in, thinking no-one would notice, from the age of 11, he aspired to be a professional filmmaker. When Nolans family relocated to Chicago during his years, he started making films with Adrien. He has continued his collaboration with the brothers, receiving a credit for his assistance on their Oscar-nominated documentary Genghis Blues. Nolan also worked alongside Roko on documenting a safari across four African countries, Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, and later read English literature at University College London. He chose UCL specifically for its facilities, which comprised a Steenbeck editing suite and 16 mm film cameras. Nolan was president of the Unions Film Society, and with Emma Thomas he screened 35 mm feature films during the school year, during his college years, Nolan made two short films. The first was the surreal 8 mm Tarantella, which was shown on Image Union, the second was Larceny, filmed over a weekend in black and white with a limited cast, crew, and equipment. Funded by Nolan and shot with the equipment, it appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCLs best shorts. After graduation, Nolan worked as a reader, camera operator. He also made a short, Doodlebug, about a man chasing an insect around a flat with a shoe
6.
Coen brothers
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Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively referred to as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody and their best-reviewed works include Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, True Grit, and Inside Llewyn Davis. The brothers write, direct, and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers, Joel received sole credit for directing and they often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes. The duo also won the Palme dOr for Barton Fink, and were nominated for Fargo, the Coen brothers have written a number of films that neither of the two directed. Ethan is also a writer of stories, theater. Their films No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen were born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena, was an art historian at St. Cloud State University, when they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with a kid, Mark Zimering. Their first attempt was a romp entitled Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go, cornel Wildes The Naked Prey became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. Joel Coen has said, in regards to whether our background influences our film making, theres no doubt that our Jewish heritage affects how we see things. Joel and Ethan graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976 and they both also graduated from Bard College at Simons Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the film program at New York University. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned a degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, Two Views of Wittgensteins Later Philosophy, Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay, named Pedro McDormand Coen and she also did a voice-over in Barton Fink. Ethan married film editor Tricia Cooke in 1990 and they have two children, daughter Dusty and son Buster Jacob, who goes to Vassar College. Both couples live in New York, after graduating from New York University, Joel worked as a production assistant on a variety of industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met Sam Raimi while assisting Enda Ruth Paul in editing Raimis first feature film, in 1984, the brothers wrote and directed Blood Simple, their first commercial film together
7.
Michael Bay
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The films he has produced and directed, which include Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the Transformers film series, have grossed over US$7.8 billion worldwide. He is co-founder of commercial production house The Institute, a. k. a, the Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. He co-owns Platinum Dunes, a house which has remade horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th. Despite his considerable success at the box office, Bays work is generally held in low esteem by film critics. While The Rock and Transformers received moderately positive reviews, his other films, Michael Bay was born in Los Angeles. He was raised by his adoptive parents Harriet, a bookstore owner/child psychiatrist, and Jim and his cousin, Susan Bay, is the widow of Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy. He attended the exclusive Crossroads School, in Santa Monica, California, Bay often traces his interest in action films back to an incident during his childhood. As a boy, he attached some firecrackers to a toy train, the fire department was called and he was grounded. Bay got his start in the film industry interning with George Lucas when he was fifteen, filing the storyboards for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he thought was going to be terrible. His opinion changed after seeing it in the theater and he was so impressed by the experience that he decided to become a film director and he graduated from Wesleyan University in 1986, majoring in both English and Film. He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and a student of film historian Jeanine Basinger. For his graduate work, he attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he studied film. Michael Bay began working at Propaganda Films, directing commercials and music videos and his 90-second World War II-inspired Coca-Cola advertisement was picked up by Capitol Records. His first national commercial for the Red Cross, which won a Clio Award in 1992 and he directed Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Got Milk. Advertisement campaign for the California Milk Processors Board in 1993, Bays success in music videos gained the attention of producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who selected him to direct his first feature-length film, Bad Boys. The film was shot in Miami in 1994 and starred Will Smith, the action film proved to be a break-out role for Smith, who was segueing from television to films at that time. Shooting in Miami was an experience for Bay who would later own a home in the city. The film was completed for $19 million and grossed a remarkable $141 million at the box office in the summer of 1995, Bays success led to a strong partnership and friendship with Jerry Bruckheimer
8.
People (magazine)
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People is an American weekly magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories, published by Time Inc. With a readership of 46.6 million adults, People has the largest audience of any American magazine, People had $997 million in advertising revenue in 2011, the highest advertising revenue of any American magazine. In 2006, it had a circulation of 3.75 million and it was named Magazine of the Year by Advertising Age in October 2005, for excellence in editorial, circulation and advertising. People ranked #6 on Advertising Ages annual A-list and #3 on Adweeks Brand Blazers list in October 2006, the magazine runs a roughly 50/50 mix of celebrity and human-interest articles. Peoples website, People. com, focuses on celebrity news, in February 2015, the website broke a new record,72 million unique visitors. People is perhaps best known for its special issues naming the Worlds Most Beautiful, Best & Worst Dressed. The magazines headquarters are in New York and it maintains editorial bureaus in Los Angeles, for economic reasons it closed bureaus in Austin, Miami, and Chicago in 2006. In December 2016, LaTavia Roberson engaged in a feud with People after alleging they misquoted and misrepresented her interview online. The concept for People has been attributed to Andrew Heiskell, Time Inc. s chief executive officer at the time, the founding managing editor of People was Richard B. Stolley, an assistant managing editor at Life and the journalist who acquired the Zapruder tapes of the John F. Kennedy assassination for Time Inc. in 1963. Peoples first publisher was Richard J. Durrell, another Time Inc. veteran, Stolley characterized the magazine as getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues, stolleys almost religious determination to keep the magazine people-focused contributed significantly to its rapid early success. It is said that although Time Inc. pumped an estimated $40 million into the venture, initially, the magazine was sold primarily on newsstands and in supermarkets. To get the magazine out each week, founding staff members regularly slept on the floor of their offices two or three nights each week and severely limited all non-essential outside engagements. The premier edition for the week ending March 4,1974 featured actress Mia Farrow, then starring in the movie The Great Gatsby and that issue also featured stories on Gloria Vanderbilt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the wives of U. S. Vietnam veterans who were Missing In Action, the magazine was, apart from its cover, printed in black-and-white. The initial cover price was 35 cents, the core of the small founding editorial team included other editors, writers, photographers and photo editors from Life magazine, which had ceased publication just 13 months earlier. This group included managing editor Stolley, senior editors Hal Wingo, Sam Angeloff and Robert Emmett Ginna, writers James Watters and Ronald B
9.
Blurb
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A blurb is a short promotional piece accompanying a creative work. It may be written by the author or publisher or quote praise from others, Blurbs were originally printed on the back or rear dust-jacket of a book, and are now found on DVD and video cases, web portals, and news websites. A blurb may introduce a newspaper or magazine feature story, in the US, the history of the blurb is said to begin with Walt Whitmans collection, Leaves of Grass. The word blurb was coined in 1907 by American humorist Gelett Burgess and his short 1906 book Are You a Bromide. was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. In this case the jacket proclaimed YES, this is a BLURB. the name and term stuck for any publishers contents on a books back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the text remained. In Germany, the blurb is regarded to have been invented by Karl Robert Langewiesche around 1902, in German bibliographic usage, it is usually located on the second page of the book underneath the half title, or on the dust cover. In the 1980s, Spy ran a feature called Logrolling in Our Time which exposed writers who wrote blurbs for one anothers books. Prominent writers can receive large volumes of requests from aspiring authors. This has led writers to turn down such requests as a matter of policy. For example, Gary Shteyngart announced in The New Yorker that he would no longer write blurbs, except for certain writers with whom he had a professional or personal connection. Neil Gaiman reports that now and again I stop writing blurbs. The hiatus lasts for a year or two, and then I feel guilty or someone asks me at the right time, and I relent. Jacob M. Appel reports that he received fifteen to twenty blurb requests per week, many humorous books and films parody blurbs that deliver exaggerated praise by unlikely people and insults disguised as praise. One of the blurbs stated One of the two or three books, movie blurbs are part of the promotional campaign for films, and usually consist of positive, colorful extracts from published reviews. Movie blurbs have often been faulted for taking out of context. Luckily for consumers, there is a cavalry, blurb watchdog sites have sprung up, helping to keep studios in line these days are watchdog sites like eFilmCritic. com and The Blurbs, a Web column for Gelf magazine written by Carl Bialik of The Wall Street Journal. Slate wrote in an Explainer column, How much latitude do movie studios have in writing blurbs, theres no official check on running a misleading movie blurb, aside from the usual laws against false advertising. Studios do have to submit advertising materials like newspaper ads and trailers to the Motion Picture Association of America for approval, but the MPAA reviews the ads for their tone and content, not for the accuracy of their citations. As a courtesy, studios will often run the new, condensed quote by the critic before sending it to print, essay by Bill Morris, Feb.152011 A Brief History of the Blurb, by Alan Levinovitz, Feb.12012 Riveting
10.
Rolling Stone
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Rolling Stone is an American biweekly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still the publisher. It was first known for its coverage and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors. In recent years, it has resumed its traditional mix of content, Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim. The first issue carried a date of November 9,1967. Some authors have attributed the name solely to Dylans hit single, At Gleasons suggestion, Rolling Stone initially identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. In the very first edition, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone is not just about the music, in the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark with its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazines political section. Thompson first published his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine also helped launch the careers of prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Patti Smith. It was at point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories. One interviewer, speaking for a number of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus. In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City, editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become a cultural backwater. During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift towards being an entertainment magazine. Music was still a dominant topic, but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television, films, the magazine also initiated its annual Hot Issue during this time. Rolling Stone was initially known for its coverage and for Thompsons political reporting. In the 1990s, the changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors
11.
Ang Lee
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Ang Lee OBS is a Taiwanese-born film director, screenwriter and producer. Lees earlier films, such as The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands, Lee also deals with repressed, hidden emotions in many of his films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Hulk, and Brokeback Mountain. Lees work is known for its charge, which critics believe is responsible for his success in offsetting cultural barriers. Ang Lee was born in a Waishengren family, in a Military dependents village of the Republic of China Armed Forces located at Chaochou, Pingtung, both of Lees parents moved from Mainland China to Taiwan following the Chinese civil war in 1949. He grew up in a household that put emphasis on education. Lee studied in the Provincial Tainan First Senior High School where his father was the principal and he was expected to pass the annual Joint College/University Entrance Examination, the only route to a university education in Taiwan. But after failing the exam twice, to the disappointment of his father, he entered a college, the National Arts School. His father had wanted him to become a professor, but he had interested in drama. This early frustration set his career on the path of performance art, seeing Ingmar Bergmans film The Virgin Spring was a formative experience for him. Originally, Lee was interested in acting, but his challenges with speaking English made it difficult, at UIUC, Lee met his future wife Jane Lin, also a Taiwanese student, who pursued her Ph. D. degree. Thereupon, he enrolled at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University and he was a classmate of Spike Lee and worked on the crew of his thesis film, Joes Bed-Stuy Barbershop, We Cut Heads. During graduate school, Lee finished a 16mm short film, Shades of the Lake and his own thesis work, a 43-minute drama, Fine Line, won NYUs Wasserman Award for Outstanding Direction and was later selected for the Public Broadcasting Service. Lees NYU thesis drew attention from the William Morris Agency, the famous talent, at first, though, WMA found Lee few opportunities, and Lee remained unemployed for six years. During this time, he was a full-time house-husband, while his wife Jane Lin and this arrangement put enormous pressure on the couple, but with Lins support and understanding, Lee did not abandon his career in film but continued to generate new ideas from movies and performances. He also wrote several screenplays during this time, in 1990, Lee submitted two screenplays, Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, to a competition sponsored by Taiwans Government Information Office, and they came in first and second, respectively. The winning screenplays brought Lee to the attention of Li-Kong Hsu, Hsu, a first-time producer, invited Lee to direct Pushing Hands, a full-length feature that debuted in 1991. The Father Knows Best trilogy Pushing Hands was a success in Taiwan both among critics and at the box office and it received eight nominations in the Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwans premier film festival. In all, this film collected eleven Taiwanese and international awards and these first two movies were based on stories of Chinese Americans, and both were filmed in the US
12.
P. L. Travers
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Pamela Lyndon Travers, OBE was an Australian-born British novelist, actress and journalist. She is known best for the Mary Poppins series of books featuring the magical English nanny Mary Poppins. Upon emigrating to England in 1924, Goff began to write under the pen name P. L. Travers, in 1933, she began writing the novel Mary Poppins, first of the Poppins books. Travers travelled to New York City during World War II while working for the British Ministry of Information. At that time, Walt Disney contacted her about selling to Disney Studios the rights for an adaptation of Mary Poppins. After years of contact, Walt Disney did obtain the rights, in 2004, a new British musical theatre adaptation of the books and the film opened in the West End, it premiered on Broadway in 2006. For services to literature, Travers was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, Helen Lyndon Goff, known within her family as Lyndon, was born on 9 August 1899 in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia. Her mother, Margaret Agnes Goff, was Australian and the sister of Boyd Dunlop Morehead and her father, Travers Robert Goff, was of Irish descent and born in Deptford, south-east London, England. He was unsuccessful as a manager due to his chronic alcoholism. The family lived in a home with servants in Maryborough until Lyndon was five years old. Two years later, Travers Goff died at home at the age of 43, following her fathers death, Goff, along with her mother and sisters, moved to Bowral, New South Wales, in 1907, living there until 1917. She boarded at Normanhurst Girls School in Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney, Helen Goff began publishing her poems while still a teenager. She wrote for The Bulletin and Triad and during that time gaining a reputation as an actress under the stage name Pamela Lyndon Travers. She toured Australia and New Zealand with Allan Wilkies Shakespearean Company, there she dedicated herself to writing under the pen name P. L. Travers. In 1931, she and her friend Madge Burnand moved from their flat in London to a thatched cottage in Sussex. It was here, in the winter of 1933, that she began to write Mary Poppins, Travers greatly admired and emulated J. M. Barrie, author of the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy. Her first publisher was Barries ward Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the five Llewelyn Davies boys who were the inspiration for Peter Pan. While in Ireland in 1925, Travers met the poet George William Russell who, as editor of the Irish Statesman, through Russell, whose kindness towards younger writers was legendary, Travers met W. B
