Biography of Arthur Penn:- After World War II he joined a theater company as an actor and attended drama classes at Actor’s Studio; In 1951 entered the network of television NBC like regidor of programs. In 1958 he made his first film, El zurdo.
The cold reception he had at his premiere meant a temporary stint in his film career, but thrived as a theater director on Broadway. In 1962 he returned to the cinema with The Miracle of Anne Sullivan, a film for which Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke won an Oscar.
Biography of Arthur Penn
- Born:- 27 September 1922, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
- Died:- 28 September 2010, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
- Spouse:- Peggy Maurer (m. 1955–2010)
- Books:- Arthur Penn: Interviews, Arthur Penn, Bonnie and Clyde
- children:- Matthew Penn, Molly Penn
In 1964 he suffered a further setback with Acosado (1965), while The Human Pack (1966), with Marlon Brando, and was received with division of opinions. His next film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), was a resounding success, finally achieving his talent.
See Also: Biography of Paul Newman
Like Bonnie and Clyde , some of his other films deal with the past in terms applicable to the present, and many view his films of the 1960s as the most relevant American works on the screen of that era.
He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director three times and held a privileged position in the Hollywood pantheon in the 60s and 70s.
His later works were uneven, which contributed to diminish his prestige. Some of his films deal with the past in terms applicable to the present, and many consider his films of the 60s as the most relevant American works of the screen of that time.
He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director three times and held a privileged position in the Hollywood pantheon in the 60s and 70s.
His later works were uneven, which contributed to waning his prestige. Some of his films deal with the past in terms applicable to the present, and many consider his films of the 60s as the most relevant American works of the screen of that time.
He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director three times and held a privileged position in the Hollywood pantheon in the 60s and 70s. His later works were uneven, which contributed to waning his prestige.
World War II . He later joined the theatrical company of Joshua Logan and completed his studies in Italy, at Actor’s Studio, under the direction of Michael Chekhov.
After these beginnings like actor, happened to the television; For NBC he worked as regidor on Colgate Comedy Hour, and before two years had already begun writing and directing dramas for Philco Playhouse , a television space that adapted novels, plays, original stories and even Broadway musicals. Other directors such as Delbert Mann or Robert Mulligan also started their careers there.
American Legends, or more accurately, the legendary characters, have seen a privileged treatment in Penn’s cinema: the way the outlaws become heroes in the eyes of the public is what earned him his commercial successes, but also Was the cause of a controversy ignited by the practitioners of the double moral.
The left-hander (1958) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967) are separated by more than ten years, but both bear the same stamp.
The first, which was the film’s directorial debut, skips the rules of traditional western to develop a psychological study of the character of the novel by Gore Vidal, which Paul Newman gave a provocative attitude with its mere presence.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) was not intended for Arthur Penn, but for François Truffaut, chosen by the two scriptwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman, who wanted to see the European-style story.
But Truffaut was directing Farenheit 451, and the project passed to Jean-Luc Godard, who did not match up with the screenwriters.
It was the actor Warren Beatty, who fell in love with the character, who decided to produce the film and hire Penn, with whom he had already worked on Acosado (1965), to direct it.
The plot of the film is based on real facts and characters. Bonnie Parker, a young waitress, meets Clyde Barrow on a Dallas street when he tries to steal a car. Clyde has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for armed robbery, and Bonnie, tired of the monotony, decides to leave with him.
Their meeting will be the starting point of a dazzling criminal career against the background of the Depression.
They will soon be joined by Clarence W. Moss, a young gas station employee who drives automobiles with surprising dexterity; And, later, Clyde’s brother and his wife.
All together, machine gun in hand, they are dedicated to assault banks, always with some mortal victim, until they are reduced and eliminated by the police
Perhaps the most striking sequence is precisely the final, which includes the death of the couple: it took three thousand bullets, and three days of filming were invested with four cameras at different speeds, then give the slow-motion effect in The assembly room.
Bonnie and Clyde was an unexpected blockbuster, and the jump to fame for Faye Dunaway. Arthur Penn was documented profusely before filming began, interviewing people who knew the criminal couple and consulting the press of the time.
But what should especially be noted is that Penn portrays the pair of outlaws not only through their criminal actions, but also behind the scenes, allowing him to connect with his more personal problems,
This treatment of the heroes, though of another kind, had already taken place in La jauría humana (1966), which paradoxically stands as one of the choral films with the most individualistic characters that the film has given.
The human pack is perhaps the example of history that grows in the face of difficulties (many bosses and a suffocating producer: Sam Spiegel), and whose stormy filming gives rise to a perfect gearing, in spite of the supposedly difficult coexistence of such a star In a cast that included Marlon Brando and Robert Redford , among other figures.
Not always experimentation or atypical narrative gave Penn good results. Harassed (1965) created bonds between Beatty and the director, but the public did not identify with them.
The surrealistic incursions that Penn makes in a paranoid person because of the persecution of which he feels object was one of the lower moments of the director. Perhaps because of his excessive involvement in history, he left the spectator aside.
The key could be in the words of the character: “I am guilty of not being innocent.” But even the excellent jazz soundtrack did not help.
Alicia’s restaurant (1969) also ran the risk of failure, but enjoyed a different fate, giving Penn an Oscar nomination for best director.
The fact that it was a musical comedy was a double-edged sword in Hollywood, although Penn, like Arlo Guthrie’s title song, connected with the spirit of the sixties, something he would do again with Georgia (1981), through a group of university students.
One year after Alice’s restaurant, Penn took another risk: filming Little Big Man (1970), which was one of the first films to portray the Indians as more than eternal and bloodthirsty enemies.
The efforts of Dustin Hoffman (who is said to have shouted for more than an hour to get the voice of a man over a hundred years old) also contributed to the success.
Yet it was another actor, Chief Dan George, who took Oscar nominations and the Golden Globes as best supporting actor. It was the Academy’s way of saying that it also respected the Indian people.
Arthur Penn not only demonstrated his dominion of the trade in the mixture of genres, but in classic formats. In western Missouri (1976) he again directed Brando, the indomitable sheriff of The Human Pack.
In The Miracle of Anna Sullivan (1962) she adapted a drama by William Gibson, surpassing the previous version, Deliverance (1919), and laying the groundwork for a later television version in 1979.
Penn chose the black and white to stay alone with his Two female characters and have both Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke win two Oscars.
And still would take place in his filmography a comedy: Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989), another of his commercial failures that also did raise the eyebrows of the critics.
But it was the thriller the genre that appealed more freely. In 1975 he directed The Night Moves, with Gene Hackman, a pessimistic story that evaluates America after the Watergate scandal.
Ten years later she repeated genre and actor with Double Agent in Berlin (1985), commercial film and without pretensions in which nevertheless shows its dominion of the action, acquired through the years.
With Death in the Winter (1987) again tried the resource of the remake, this time of My Name is Julia Ross, that in 1945 had directed Joseph H. Lewis and carried out Nina Foch.
Death in the winter features Mary Steen burgen to play an actress who is apparently hired to star in a movie, But that in fact has to supply a woman kidnapped and murdered.
Penn is used in this occasion of the setting to endow a disturbing background to the story; With an expressionist intention, the architecture of the house, with its mirrors and its stairs, becomes the best support of a claustrophobic history.
In his later works, Penn resorted again to literary works. The Portrait (1993), a television work based on Tina Howe’s play, nostalgically regained Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, taking the risk not only of resurrecting old glories, but of dipping into a deep story, far from Commercial canons, which returned him to one of his favorite activities: the study of characters.
His last work, Inside (1996), was a remarkable effort to adapt to the times and become politically involved: Penn placed his camera in front of the experiences that Bima Stagg collects in his novel about the history of an officer who, in the framework of Apartheid , Torture a South African political prisoner, to be seen, ten years later, in the prisoner’s place.
