| Joe Wright | |
|---|---|
Wright at the UK premiere of Atonement, 2007 |
|
| Born | 1972 (age 39–40) London, England |
| Occupation | Director |
Joe Wright (born 1972) is an English film director best known for Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and Hanna.
Contents |
Wright was born August 25, 1972 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.[1] He would also make films on his Super 8 camera as well as spend time in the evenings acting in a drama club. Wright is dyslexic. He also 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 professionally 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.[2] 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.[3] 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 worked at Oil Factory, a world class music video production company based in Caledonian Road, Kings Cross. He worked on a variety of productions in numerous roles, including casting director. Here he was able to get the opportunity to direct some music videos. Alongside this, particularly on the strength of his short film work, he was also developing The End, his second short film. During this decade Wright also worked with a friend under the name Vegetable Vision to create visuals for various electronic music bands, such as Chemical Brothers, Darren Emerson, Underworld and Andrew Weatherall. He attributes some of the aesthetic and emotion of the UK rave scene as an influence on his work.[4]
Joe Wright is married to Sitarist Anoushka Shankar, Pandit Ravi Shankar's daughter, and have a son named Zubin.[5]
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.
Wright's next feature was 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. Though Wright himself was not nominated for Director, the film received six 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.
His next film was The Soloist which stars Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. It is about the "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."[6] It was to be released on November 21, 2008; however the release date was pushed back to April 24, 2009.
Wright reunited with Atonement star Saoirse Ronan for the action thriller Hanna. The title character is a 17 year old girl trained since birth to be an assassin by her father (Eric Bana), a rogue CIA asset. The movie received mostly positive reviews with Roger Ebert calling it a "first rate thriller" in his review[7] The film received an aggregate score of 65 from Metacritic, meaning it received generally positive reviews.[8]
Wright is directing a screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel ‘Anna Karenina’. Current cast includes Keira Knightley as Anna, Jude Law as her husband, Aaron Johnson as her young love, and Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson as Konstantin Levin, as well as Saoirse Ronan, Kelly Macdonald, Olivia Williams, Matthew Macfadyen, Andrea Riseborough, and Michelle Dockery.[9][10][11] As of July 2011, Keira Knightley has begun rehearsing,[12] in preparation for principle filming expected to begin later in 2011.[13] The film also has Indian actress Tannishtha Chatterjee play a part in it. [14]
After only three full-length features, Wright has distinguished himself as a 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.[15] According to the director's commentary on Pride and Prejudice, Wright is influenced by the work of British film director David Lean, and possessing a certain knowledge of art history, tries sometimes to compose his shots after classical paintings. In 2011, he directed the Chanel advert for the new 'Mademoiselle' perfume, and admitted in an interview with Tatler magazine that his opening shot of Keira Knightley's behind was directly influenced by 'Michael Bay and early Hollyoaks episodes' and went on to assert that 'women are objects, honest-to-goodness objects, and that's what I was trying to show in this film (it's not a film)'.
Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and Hanna all have long tracking shots in them. Atonement has a continuous 5 minute and 5 second shot of the Dunkirk evacuation. "Basically, I just like showing off," Wright told the audience at the Hay Festival.[16]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Crocodile Snap | |
| 1998 | The End | |
| 2000 | Nature Boy | TV |
| 2001 | Bob & Rose | TV |
| 2002 | Bodily Harm | TV |
| 2003 | Charles II: The Power and The Passion | TV Nominated — Emmy Award for Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special |
| 2005 | Pride & Prejudice | Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Academy Award for Best Art Direction Nominated — Academy Award for Best Costume Design Nominated — Academy Award for Best Original Score |
| 2007 | Atonement | Academy Award for Best Original Score Nominated — Academy Award for Best Picture Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Academy Award for Best Costume Design Nominated — Academy Award for Best Art Direction Nominated — Academy Award for Best Cinematography Nominated — Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay |
| 2009 | The Soloist | |
| 2011 | Hanna | |
| 2012 | Anna Karenina | Pre-production |
| Actor | Pride & Prejudice (2005) | Atonement (2007) | The Soloist (2009) | Hanna (2011) | Anna Karenina (2012) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keira Knightley | |||||
| Anna Romano | |||||
| Olivia Williams | |||||
| Michelle Dockery | |||||
| Tom Hollander | |||||
| Brenda Blethyn | |||||
| Matthew Macfadyen | |||||
| Jena Malone | |||||
| Dario Marianelli | |||||
| Saoirse Ronan |
|
|||||