Joe Wright

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Joe Wright
The director at the UK premiere of Atonement
Born	1972 London, England
Occupation	Director
Awards won BAFTA Awards Best Drama Serial 2003 Charles II: The Power and The Passion Best Newcomer 2005 Pride and Prejudice Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture - Drama 2008 Atonement

Joe Wright (born 1972) is a two time BAFTA-winning, Golden Globe-nominated English film director best known for 2005's Pride and Prejudice and 2007's Atonement.

[edit] Early life and career

Wright was born in London, where his parents founded the Little Angel Theatre, a puppet theatre in Islington.

Wright always had an interest in the arts, especially painting. He would also make films on his Super 8 camera as well as spend time in the evenings acting in a drama club. Being dyslexic, he left school without any GCSEs.

He began his career working at his parents theatre. He also took classes at the Anna Scher Theatre School and acted professioanlly on stage and camera. He spent an art foundation year at Camberwell College of Arts, before taking a degree in fine art and film at Central St Martins[1]. In his last year of studies he received a scholarship to make a short film for the BBC that won some awards. On the success of the short, he was offered the script for the serial Nature Boy with Callum Keith Rennie. He followed this up with the serials Bodily Harm with Timothy Spall, and the highly acclaimed Charles II: The Power and the Passion with Rufus Sewell which won the BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial.

During the 90s he was part of a company called Vegetable Vision where he created visuals for pop acts.

Wright was engaged to actress Rosamund Pike, whom he met when she played Jane Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, however, their engagment was called off days before the wedding.^[1]

[edit] Feature films

[edit] Pride and Prejudice

In 2005 he made the transition to feature films with the critically acclaimed Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. The film received numerous accolades including 4 Academy Award nominations (including best actress), 6 BAFTA nominations (Wright won the BAFTA for most promising newcomer) and a host of other nominations and wins.

Joe Wright looks down from the balcony of the Odeon at the premiere of Atonement in Leicester Square, London

[edit] Atonement

Wright's latest feature is an adaptation of Ian McEwan's Booker Prize shortlisted novel Atonement which was released in 2007, reuniting Wright with Keira Knightley and also stars James McAvoy. On December 13, 2007, the film was nominated for 7 Golden Globe Awards, more than any other film that year. Wright himself was nominated for Best Director. The film also received 7 Academy Award nominations, winning only for Best Original Score. At the BAFTA Awards it received 14 nominations and went on to win for Best Production Design and Best Film.

[edit] The Soloist

He will start working on a film called The Soloist in January with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. It is about " true story of musical prodigy Nathaniel Ayers, who developed schizophrenia in his second year at Juilliard and ended up homeless on the streets of downtown L.A. where he performs the violin and cello."[2]

[edit] Directorial trademarks

After only two full-length features, Joe Wright has distinguished himself as a very talented director, winning a BAFTA award for best newcomer for Pride and Prejudice and becoming the youngest director ever to have a film open the Venice Film Festival with Atonement. According to the director's commentary on Pride and Prejudice, Joe Wright is very influenced by the work of the famous British film director David Lean, has a certain knowledge of art history and tries sometimes to compose his shots after classical paintings. Already we see some directorial trademarks that distinguish Wright's movies:

[edit] Long tracking shots

Charles II, Pride and Prejudice and Atonement all have long tracking shots in them. Atonement has a continuous 4.5 minute shot of the Dunkirk evacuation. "Basically, I just like showing off" Joe Wright told the audience at the Hay Festival.[3]

[edit] Warm colour palette

The cinematography for Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, by Roman Osin on the first and Seamus McGarvey on the latter, have included a striking warm colour palette.

[edit] Filmography

Director

[edit] External links

• Joe Wright at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] Notes

1. ^ BAMIGBOYE, Baz (31 August 2007) Rosamund Pike gets a ring from Mr Wright, Daily Mail