Philip Kaufman
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
Kaufman met Anais Nin while she was promoting the films of Hugh Guiler, her husband, then known as Ian Hugo. After hearing Kaufman's idea for a screenplay he was considering, she encouraged him to follow through with his filmmaking.
The film, "Fearless Frank," was shot in 1964, reviewed by Variety in 1964 because of its presence in the Cannes Film Festival of that year, but was not released in the USA until 1969.
Biography
A Chicago-born maverick director who has tackled a wide range of projects with consistent intelligence and style, Philip Kaufman shared the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes for his first feature "Goldstein" (1964). Based on Kaufman's unfinished novel and co-written and co-directed with Benjamin Manaster, "Goldstein" was loosely based on a Hassidic tale about a old man who mysteriously emerges from Lake Michigan and alters the lives of three Chicagoans and introduced the recurrent theme of hero-worship found in many of the director's subsequent efforts. Despite receiving critical acclaim at Cannes, the film was virtually overlooked when it debuted in the USA.
Kaufman's second feature "Fearless Frank" (1967), was a comic skewering of American movie genres. Featuring a then-unknown Jon Voight and several members of the Second City comedy troupe (Severn Darden, Joan Darling, David Steinberg), this independent film spoofed superheroes, gangsters and evil scientists. While it premiered to good notices at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival under the title "Frank's Greatest Adventure," it was unreleased until 1969 when Voight had become a star thanks to "Midnight Cowboy." Upon its release, Jennings Lang at Universal was impressed enough to offer Kaufman a contract. His first effort for the studio was the meticulously-researched off-beat Western, "The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid" (1972), about the unsuccessful 1876 bank robbery attempt by the Younger-James gang. Toplining Robert Duvall and Cliff Robertson, the movie was a revisionist look at America's past, casting Jesse James as a psychopath and Cole Younger as a cunning but sensitive killer. The studio attempted to market the film as another "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," but Kaufman's approach was darker in tone and when the film failed to find an audience was abandoned by the studio.
Kaufman only directed "The White Dawn" (1974) but he brought a strong visual sense to the tale of three whalers who survive an 1896 Arctic shipwreck and their culture clash with the Eskimos who rescue them. Despite a predictable ending, the film offered strong performances from leads Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr and Warren Oates. Nevertheless, the subject matter was not a popular one and the film was not a financial success. Kaufman had been hired to write and direct "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1975) with Clint Eastwood starring as a pacifist Southern farmer turned vigilante when his family is killed by Union soldiers. After two weeks of filming, however, Eastwood assumed the directorial reins with Kaufman retaining his screenplay credit (shared with Sonia Chernus).
Kaufman enjoyed his first box-office hit with the 1978 remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," switching the setting to San Francisco and including a number of in-jokes (like casting Don Siegel, the director of the 1956 original, in a bit part). He followed with another financial success, "The Wanderers" (1979), co-written with his wife Rose, about street gangs in 1963 New York. He collaborated with George Lucas on the script for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) while simultaneously developing what many feel is his magnum opus, "The Right Stuff" (1983). Adapted from Tom Wolfe's best-seller, "The Right Stuff" was a three-hour examination of the creation of the American space program, tracing its origins from Chuck Yaeger's 1947 breaking of the sound barrier to the launches of the Gemini capsules. Some felt that except for the pilots, the characters are presented as cartoonish, yet despite its length, the film does not feel padded and is not boring. Despite its eight Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, although oddly none for Kaufman's direction or script) and four wins, "The Right Stuff" also proved to be less than successful at the box office.
Kaufman scored another succes d'estime with his adaptation of Milan Kundera's non-linear novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988). More Continental in feel than his previous work, Kaufman distilled the novel to a romantic triangle set against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He elicited strong performances from his leads Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin and Daniel Day-Lewis (although some critics felt the actor was too young for the role). The film also crossed over from art-houses partly because of the tastefully done but explicit love scenes and seemed a warm-up for his next effort. "Henry & June" (1990), adapted from Anais Nin's erotic diaries of her relationships with Henry Miller and his wife, was a major factor in prompting the MPAA to create a new NC-17 rating for explicit--but not pornographic--material. Although employing the stylings of a European art film, Kaufman stumbled somewhat in his approach to the material although stars Fred Ward and Uma Thurman delivered fine portrayals of the title characters.
Three years later, the director tackled more mainstream material adapting Michael Crichton's novel "Rising Sun" (1993). Although streamlined, the adaptation resulted in a confusing denouement that inspired incredulity. Despite his obvious gifts, Kaufman spent the remainder of the decade in development hell, attempting to find financing for several intriguing projects including a film based on Caleb Carr's novel "The Alienist" and a biopic of former CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. He finally returned to the director's chair for "Quills" (2000), an adaptation of Doug Wright's stage play about the Marquis de Sade's incarceration at the asylum of Charenton. Working with the playwright, Kaufman helped to shape the material and make it more cinematic. The resulting film addressed issues of sexuality and freedom in a blackly comic manner and featured strong performances from stars Geoffrey Rush (as the lascivious de Sade), Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Producer (Special)
Life Events
1960
Moved family to California; supported them with odd jobs while trying to complete a novel
1961
Relocated family to Europe; tried to finish the novel and taught English in Greece and math in Florence
1962
Met Anais Nin at the University of Chicago
1962
Returned to Chicago
1964
Co-wrote and co-directed with Benjamin Manaster, his first feature based on his yet unfinished novel, "Goldstein"
1964
Directed Jon Voight in his screen debut in "Fearless Frank"; also produced and scripted
1969
Moved to Hollywood; put under contract to Universal Studios
1972
First film for Universal, "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid", about the James and Younger brothers
1974
Directed "The White Dawn", a whaling adventure set in the 19th Century, greatly helped by the expert cinematography of Michael Chapman
1975
Was fired from "The Outlaw Josey Wales" by star Clint Eastwood, who took over the directorial reins; retained screenwriter credit
1977
Moved to San Francisco
1979
First feature co-written with wife, Rose Fisher Kaufman, "The Wanderers", adapted from Richard Price's novel
1980
Made what is considered his best film, "The Right Stuff", based on Tom Wolfe's book about the US space program; although a box-office disappointment, film earned eight Oscar nominations, including one as Best Picture
1988
Received Academy Award nomination for co-writing (with Jean-Claude Carriere) the screenplay adaptation of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"; also directed
1990
His "Henry & June" became the first film to receive the new MPAA classification NC-17 over its sexual content; film, which was a box-office failure, traced the relationship of authors Henry Miller and Anais Nin
1993
Helmed the film adaptation of Michael Crichton's controversial novel "Rising Sun"; also co-scripted with Crichton
1995
Executive produced and narrated "China: The Wild East", a documentary directed by his son Peter
2000
Returned to the director's chair to helm "Quills", a film based on Doug Wright's stage play about the Marquis de Sade
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Kaufman met Anais Nin while she was promoting the films of Hugh Guiler, her husband, then known as Ian Hugo. After hearing Kaufman's idea for a screenplay he was considering, she encouraged him to follow through with his filmmaking.
The film, "Fearless Frank," was shot in 1964, reviewed by Variety in 1964 because of its presence in the Cannes Film Festival of that year, but was not released in the USA until 1969.
"I find people the people who are most interesting are the people you talk to and spend time with. And the best films carry on dialogues with the viewer. Even the shorter Hollywood movies of the '40s used to have that because they were for grownups ... I want to live in a world that I find habitable and which stimulates me, and I think films should reflect that." --Kaufman quoted in Variety, July 20-26, 1998.
"There are a lot of nice people in Hollywood and on occasion they make great movies. If I have any problems, it comes from speaking my piece. I'll say what I want to say, and I'll defend it. I'm a relatively easy-going person; though once I get involved with a project I get pretty obsessed. You can think of nothing but what you're working on. For me a film is a great educational process; for me it's a university unto itself." --Philip Kaufman to James Mottram at BBC Online (www.bbc.uk.co/films), January 16, 2001.
On working with stars, Kaufman told The Observer (January 14, 2001): "There is a certain spoilt quality about them. They get used to living like millionaires and acting like millionaires, and there is often a lot of bad behaviour associated with money."
"I felt betrayed with "Henry and June," because I really felt, within the code as it was, it should have been the same rating as "Unbearable Lightness of Being." We were ready to go to Washington to protest it, and that week the ratings system was changed, the head of Universal was backing it totally. Tom Pollock said, 'let's be the first NC-17 film out.' Well, it turned out that the film did great business when it first came out. It set records in some places, but very quickly theaters would not book it, because they thought it was the new X rating. We thought there would be a rating beyond this one, that suddenly we had liberated films for adults--things that European films deal with in a more open way throughout my lifetime--but the result was that the X was shrunk down to NC-17. So, in a way, it was the new X." --Kaufman on the ratings controversy to Andrea Meyer at indieWIRE (www.indiwire.com), November 28, 2000.
