Noah Baumbach
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| Noah Baumbach | |||||||
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 Noah Baumbach |
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| Born | September 3, 1969  Brooklyn, New York, US |
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| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Jason Leigh (2005-present) | ||||||
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Noah Baumbach (born September 3, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York) is an Academy Award-nominated American writer, director and independent filmmaker.
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[edit] Background and education
Baumbach is the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987, received his B.A. from Vassar College in 1991.
[edit] Career
Baumbach made his writing and directing debut at the age of 26 with Kicking and Screaming (1995), a comedy about four young men who graduate from college and refuse to move on with their lives, each in his own peculiar way. The film, which starred Josh Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott, and featured Eric Stoltz, Olivia d'Abo and Parker Posey, premiered in 1995 at the prestigious New York Film Festival to critical acclaim. Baumbach was chosen as one of Newsweek's "Ten New Faces of 1996". The film appeared in several "Top Ten" lists. It later became a tradition at Vassar for graduating seniors to watch Kicking and Screaming.
Next he wrote and directed Mr. Jealousy (1997), about a young writer so jealous over his girlfriend that he sneaks into the group therapy sessions of her ex-boyfriend to discover what kind of relationship they had. He then co-wrote (under the name Jesse Carter) and directed (under the name Ernie Fusco) the New York-set comedy of manners Highball (1997). Although many of Baumbach's fans liked Highball, he disowns it. This trio of dark, talky, witty comedies about young people have been compared to Whit Stillman's mid-90s trio of dark talky movies about the frivolous lives of wealthy and witty young people, Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco.
His film, The Squid and the Whale (2005), is a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama about his childhood in Brooklyn and the effect of his parents' divorce on the family in the mid 1980s. The film stars Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney in the parent roles. The Squid and the Whale became something of an unexpected sleeper hit and a critical success, earning Baumbach two awards at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It also received six Independent Spirit Award nominations, three Golden Globe nominations, while the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review all voted it the year’s best screenplay.
Baumbach's most recent film is a comedy drama titled Margot at the Wedding, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh with Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and John Turturro. In the film, Kidman plays a woman named Margot who spends a weekend visiting her sister Pauline (Leigh) on the eve of her wedding to Black's character. It was shot in April/May 2006 in Hampton Bays and City Island, Bronx. The film was released in the United States by Paramount Classics on November 16, 2007.
Baumbach is a contributor to The New Yorker magazine's Shouts & Murmurs department—these short pieces are called casuals—and is one of the commentators on the Criterion Collection version of Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels. He co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) with Wes Anderson.
[edit] Upcoming projects
Baumbach is slated to co-write a script of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox with Wes Anderson, who will direct it using stop-motion technology.
Baumbach has "shown an affinity for writing about the East Coast elite". Ron Howard is slated to direct Baumbach's script of Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children. Baumbach has also written an adaptation of Curtis Sittenfeld's novel Prep.[1]
[edit] Personal
Baumbach and his girlfriend of four years, actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, were married on September 3, 2005. They live in New York City and Los Angeles.
[edit] References
[edit] Filmography
- Kicking and Screaming (1995)
- Highball (1997)
- Mr. Jealousy (1997)
- The Squid and the Whale (2005)
- Margot at the Wedding (2007)
[edit] External links
- Noah Baumbach at the Internet Movie Database
- "To Wed and To Fail" - Review of Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, in n+1 magazine, by Christian Lorentzen.
- "Young Intellectuals Making Movies", essay on Noah Baumbach and Andrew Bujalski in Dissent (magazine), Summer 2006.
- "Reasons for Kicking and Screaming - Critical Essay of Kicking and Screaming by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Baumbach, Noah |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1969-9-3 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brooklyn, New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
