Tony Kaye (director)

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Tony Kaye (born 1952, London, UK) is a director of films, music videos, advertisements and documentaries.

Kaye is a prolific director of music videos, including the video for "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum, which won a Grammy Award; "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers; "What God Wants" by Roger Waters; and "Help Me" and "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash.

His only feature film to date is American History X (1998), a drama about racism. Kaye was not happy with the film as released, claiming that co-star Edward Norton re-edited the film to give himself more screen time.^[1] He attempted to remove his name from the credits and use the traditional pseudonym Alan Smithee. After the producers, New Line Cinema, told him to pick a different name, he chose Humpty Dumpty.^[2] The Directors Guild of America ultimately denied Kaye the right to remove his name from the production, on the grounds that he had placed ads in Variety magazine attacking the film, thus violating Guild rules regarding the right to invoke the Smithee pseudonym. Kaye proceeded to sue the Directors Guild and New Line Cinema, claiming they had violated his First Amendment rights. Despite Kaye's disowning of the film, it proved commercially and critically successful.

In 2005 and 2006, Kaye was attached to a feature film called Reaper, but left the project after several months due to creative differences.^{[citation needed]} He is currently completing his second feature film, Black Water Transit.

Kaye has also made documentaries, including a self-financed documentary on anti-abortion campaigns in the United States, Lake of Fire, which opened in Toronto to widely positive reviews in September 2006.