| René Balcer | |
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Rene Balcer, New York |
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| Born | February 9, 1954 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
René Balcer (born February 9, 1954) is a Canadian television writer, director and producer.
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He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and attended Lower Canada College in Montreal. He earned his B.A. Magna Cum Laude in Communication Studies from Concordia University in 1978. He began his career as a journalist, covering the Yom Kippur War as a cameraman. He later worked as a reporter and editor for various Canadian publications, and made documentary films for the National Film Board of Canada. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles, where he collaborated with the cult film director Monte Hellman on a number of film projects. He later worked for a variety of notable film producers including Francis Coppola, Steve Tisch and Mace Neufeld. In 1990, he wrote his first television project for Steve Tisch, the MOW "Out On The Edge".
He is most noted for his writing and production work for the television series Law & Order, and for creating its spin-off series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He also wrote for the series Star Trek: The Next Generation,[1] and has penned three made-for-television movies, one of which "Out On The Edge" (1990) won the American Psychological Association Award for best television program.
Balcer won an Emmy in 1997 as Executive Producer of Law & Order.[2] He has also won a Peabody Award, a Writers Guild of America Award,[3] four Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America (three for his writing for Law & Order, and a fourth for Law & Order: Criminal Intent), two Silver Gavel Awards from the American Bar Association, a Career Award from the Reims International Television Festival, and a Career Angie Award from the International Mystery Writers Festival. In 2004, he was awarded the Alumnus of the Year from Concordia University. On November 17, 2008, he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws (LLD) from Concordia at their fall convocation and delivered the Commencement Address.[1] His work has been recognized outside the entertainment community: in 2004, he received a Maggie Award from Planned Parenthood for his Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "The Third Horseman"; in 2010 he received the Champion of Justice award from the Washington, DC-based Alliance for Justice, for his work on the Law & Order episode "Memo from the Dark Side".
Balcer has received more unusual recognitions: in 2008, he was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear; In the Season Five episode of The Sopranos, "In Camelot", Chris's writing friend JT (played by Tim Daly) tells Chris that he has a meeting with Rene Balcer, explaining that Balcer is "Dick Wolf's right-hand man!"
In October 2009, Balcer came under attack by right-wing bloggers, notably by Andrew Breitbart's "Big Hollywood" blog, for his episode "Memo From the Dark Side" which took the Bush Administration to task over its "torture memos".[4] Breitbart even enlisted former Law & Order actor Michael Moriarty who accused Balcer of being a Marxist agent provocateur.[5] Three weeks later, those same blogs had to reverse course, when NBC aired "Dignity", a Balcer episode on abortion that conservatives conceded was even-handed.[6] Though Balcer continues to be a favorite whipping boy of right-wing blogs and pundits,[7] he is unfazed by the attacks, saying "What many of these critics fail to realize is that Law & Order has always been an equal-opportunity offender, and if a Democratic administration had implemented this despicable (torture) policy, our show would have taken them to task for it."[8]
Balcer was showrunner for Law & Order: Criminal Intent through the fifth season. In March 2007, Balcer returned to Law & Order at the end of its 17th season as executive producer and head writer. He continued on as showrunner through the show's 20th and final season, writing and directing the show's series finale "Rubber Room", which the New York Times called the "best finale of all" that season's TV series.[9] In June 2010, he was hired as showrunner of the newest Law & Order spinoff, Law & Order: Los Angeles.[10]
Balcer is currently writing a four-hour miniseries about Los Angeles in the 1960s in conjunction with George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions and the A&E Network, and adapting Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy for Sony TV.
In 2006, Balcer donated a collection of works by the Japanese woodblock artist Kawase Hasui to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Rene and Carolyn Balcer Collection comprises some 800 works and includes woodblocks prints, watercolors, screens, sketches and other works and writings by Hasui.[11]
In 2010, through his Mattawin Company, Balcer sponsored the publication of a 13-volume catalogue of the works of the Wuming (No Name) Group, a cooperative of underground Chinese artists during the Cultural Revolution.[12] In 2011, Mattawin sponsored the publication of a book of photographs by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, "Ai Weiwei New York 1983-1993".[13] In the fall of 2011, Balcer and his wife Carolyn organized and sponsored the exhibition "Blooming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974-1985" at New York's China Institute, featuring works from the Wuming, Stars and Grass groups of experimental artists.[14]
In the summer of 2011, Balcer collaborated with Chinese artist Xu Bing on an artwork that was part of Xu Bing's exhibition "Tobacco Project Virginia" at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in September of that year.[15] Balcer's contribution—a poem entitled "Backbone" meant as a tribute to the black women who picked tobacco—was integrated by Xu Bing into an installation. Balcer later turned the poem into a blues song, "Backbone" featuring the blues artists Captain Luke on vocals and Big Ron Hunter on guitar and produced by Michael Sackler-Berner.[16] Balcer produced a film documenting Xu Bing's "Tobacco Project: Virginia" (2011).[17]
Balcer has lectured widely about writing, art, and the duties of artists in free societies, notably at Columbia, NYU, Harvard, UCLA and Loyola Marymount; in Moscow (Internews), Paris (Sorbonne), Beijing (Central Academy of Fine Arts), Toronto (Canadian Film Centre), Banff World Media Festival, Tokyo (the International Ukiyo-e Society), and Brisbane (SPAA Conference).
On Los Angeles: "In L.A., the only thing within walking distance of anything is your car."[18]
On Jerry Orbach: "I always think about the show as before Jerry and after Jerry. You saw the weariness of 25 years of crime-fighting in New York written on his face."[19]
On Law & Order's longevity: "The secret to the show’s success? Every week, Dick (Wolf) and I send a small specimen of our blood to an individual who shall remain nameless but who resides in a very very warm place."
On Justice: "The law against murder applies to all. It can tolerate no exception. There is one law. And when that law is broken it is the duty of every officer of any court to rise in defense of that law, and bring their full power and diligence to bear against the law breaker. Because Man has only those rights he can defend. Only those rights." Spoken by District Attorney Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode "Vaya Con Dios"[20]
On torture: "Torture injures everyone who comes into contact with it and corrodes the country that abides it."[21]
On the Iraq War: "I’m sympathetic to the decent and hapless footsoldier into whose lap falls the unenviable duty of carrying out fubar policies."[22]
On American politics: "We by nature mistrust authority no matter who wields it—and I think that’s healthy. Though I disagreed with him on the facts, I fully support Rep. Joe Wilson’s right to call out President Obama—I just wish Democrats had had the balls to call out President Bush when he was peddling his lies to Congress."[23]
On the duties of artists: "It is true that one of the first acts of tyrants is to erase history, to wipe out the recorded memory of a people. With that in mind, it's important to remember that the work that we do as writers, artists and performers will form an essential part of the collective memory that future generations will draw upon. And so we owe it to those future generations to defend that memory and be honest witnesses to our times." In a speech delivered to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, 12/8/09.[24]
Various:
"If you're going to play stickball in Canarsie you better learn Brooklyn rules." ADA Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode "Blue Bamboo".
"I'm playing legal tiddlywinks with these punks. What I'd really like to do is take 'em up to Battery Park and hang 'em by the scrotum." ADA Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode "Thrill".
"Just how far up your ass is your head?!" DA Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode "Rubber Room".
"Nobody's reasonable when they're in love. That's the whole point of it." Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
"Beauty, brains, and a complete psycho. My dream girl." Det. Mike Logan in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
"Your client's not insane... he's in love. Maybe it's hard for you to tell the two apart, but the law can." ADA Ron Carver in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Crazy".
"The search for truth...It's not for the faint-hearted." Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
"The more I know, the less I sleep." Det. Alexandra Eames in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
"Bad guys do what good guys dream." Det. Robert Goren in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "One".
"Oh, the Patriot Act. Yeah, well, I read that in its original title, 1984." Det. Mike Logan in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Stress Position".
"It's not enough to do good. You have to be seen doing good." DA Arthur Branch in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "The Wee Small Hours"
"See, that's what happens when you keep people from doing what they do best: It makes them insane." Det. Robert Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
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