4 Movies / February 23
“I love Alan Parker,” actor Matthew Modine once said of his director in the film Birdy (1984), “because he’s like an inventor – they’re ready to close the patent office and he comes along with something new and they have to open it again.”
Parker, an English filmmaker noted for his creative approach to movies, is the subject of this TCM tribute in which we are screening four of his most noteworthy pictures.
Parker (February 14, 1944 – July 31,2020) was born in London and had a background in advertising before he began writing and directing films. His breakthrough works were Bugsy Malone (1976) and Midnight Express (1978). He won a Best Director Oscar nomination for the latter movie.
Fame (1980), directed by Parker and written by Christopher Gore, is a musical about the lives and ambitions of students at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. It scored six Oscar nominations and won in the categories of Original Score (Michael Gore) and Song (“Fame,” by Gore and Dean Pitchford). Roger Ebert described the film as “a genuine treasure, moving and entertaining.”
Shoot the Moon (1982), with a script by Bo Goldman and direction by Parker, is a study of a dysfunctional married couple (Albert Finney and Diane Keaton) and the devastating effect of their stormy relationship upon their four children. Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described the movie as “a domestic comedy of sometimes terrifying implications, not about dolts but intelligent, thinking beings.”
Birdy (1984) is based on the novel by William Wharton about a mentally unstable young Vietnam veteran (Matthew Modine) who fantasizes about becoming a bird. Nicolas Cage costars under Parker’s direction. The film won critical praise including Janet Maslin’s description of it in The New York Times as “enchanting.” Modine said at the time of Parker’s death that “Being cast in Birdy transformed my life. Alan was a great artist whose films will live forever.”
Mississippi Burning (1988), written by Chris Gerolmo and directed by Parker, is a fictionalized account of a 1964 investigation of the murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan. The film won an Oscar for Best Cinematography (Peter Biziou) and scored six other nominations including those for Best Picture, Parker as Best Director and Gene Hackman as Best Actor. Writing in The Guardian, Philip French described the movie as “arguably the finest of Alan Parker’s 17 feature films…a vivid, passionate political thriller.”
