So, 2020 continues its relentless campaign of awfulness with the death of Sir Alan Parker. The double Oscar-nominated director passed away on July 31st, at the age of 76.
Born in Islington, London, Parker began his career as a copywriter for an advertising agency- Collet Dickinson Pearce (CDP), before going on to write and direct commercials. He was responsible for an iconic series of adverts for Cinzano vermouth, starring Joan Collins and Leonard Rossiter. Encouraged by his colleagues David Puttnam and Charles Saatchi- who were planning on going into films- Parker wrote his first screenplay, a romantic comedy-drama called Melody (1971) which was directed by Waris Hussein and starred Mark Lester, Tracy Hyde, and Jack Wild. He directed a small second-unit sequence for the film, which is included in the final version. Whilst the film wasn't a huge hit in the UK, it found a market in Japan.
After directing a couple of shorts and a TV movie (The Evacuees) for which he won a BAFTA TV Award, Parker made his feature film debut with the rambunctious, genre-blending musical-comedy-mob-movie Bugsy Malone (1976). Based on stories he would tell his children on long car journeys, Parker also wrote the screenplay and took his son's suggestion that the heroes should all be children. Starring Scott Baio in the lead role, with support by John Cassisi as mob boss Fat Sam, and Jodie Foster as seductive gangster's moll Tallulah, it's an unbridled joy, with the violence replaced by "splurge guns" and custard pies and a couple of musical numbers that have now become standards.
How do you follow a glitzy musical with a cast of children? Well, if you're Parker, your second feature film is the gritty biographical crime drama Midnight Express (1978). Based on a memoir by Billy Hayes- an American college student caught and sentenced to four years in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling- it's a world away from the splurge gun shenanigans of Bugsy Malone. Dark, violent, and uncompromising, the film stars Brad Davis as Hayes, with support by Randy Quaid, Paul Smith, and John Hurt (who would receive his first Oscar nomination for his performance as Max). On its initial release, it would often be shown in a double-bill with Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, the film would go on to be nominated for six BAFTAS (winning three, including Best Director), eight Golden Globes (winning six), and six Oscars- including the first Best Director nod for Parker. Ultimately, the film won two Academy Awards- Best Adapted Screenplay for Oliver Stone's script, and Best Original Score for Giorgio Moroder's totally synthesised score.
Parker returned to the musical for his next film, Fame (1980). The story of eight students at the New York City High School For The Performing Arts, it's become known for its titular song (belted by Irene Cara), a lot of legwarmers, and has also been adapted for a stage musical. Following this, he directed Shoot The Moon (1982), a drama starring Albert Finney and Diane Keaton as a husband and wife whose marriage dissolves when the husband leaves for a younger woman. In 1982, he directed Pink Floyd: The Wall (based on the band's 1979 concept album of the same name). Parker originally intended to only produce the film but stepped in to direct the live-action segments when original director Michael Seresin and animation director Gerald Scarfe couldn't come up with a cohesive vision for the film. A fractious working relationship with Roger Waters soured the experience, with Parker later calling the film "the most expensive student film ever made."
In 1983, Parker was instrumental in setting up the Directors Guild Of Great Britain (which sadly closed in 2015). In 1984, he directed Birdy, a drama about two friends returning from the Vietnam War, which starred Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine. Nominated for the Palme d'Or, it also won the Grand Prix Special du Jury at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. This was followed up by the psychological horror thriller Angel Heart (1987), in which a New York private detective (Mickey Rourke) takes a missing persons case from a mysterious benefactor (Robert De Niro) which turns his life into a living hell... A gothic pot-boiler which telegraphs its twist from the very beginning- Louis Cyphre? Really?- it's nonetheless an interesting entry into what was already an eclectic career.
Parker's next film was Mississippi Burning (1988). Based on a real-life case where three civil rights activists were murdered in 1964, this weighty crime thriller stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as the two FBI Agents sent to investigate their disappearance. With a sterling supporting cast, including Brad Dourif, R. Lee Ermey, Michael Rooker, Kevin Dunn, and Frances McDormand, the film is gripping and (sadly) still relevant. At the 1989 Oscars, the film was nominated for seven awards- including Best Actor for Hackman, Best Supporting Actress for McDormand, and Best Director for Parker (his second nod)- and won one, for Peter Biziou's cinematography.
Parker began the 1990s by directing Come See The Paradise, a war drama which focused on the internment of Asian-Americans in prison camps after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita, it has been described as "the most deliberate example of Oscar-bait" in a study by sociologists from UCLA. Despite making no impact on the Academy, it was still nominated for the Palme d'Or (his fifth and final nomination).
His next film- The Commitments (1991)- was much better received by audiences and critics alike. The raucous tale of the rise and fall of a Dublin soul band (based on a novel by Roddy Doyle), it stars Colm Meaney, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Bronagh Gallagher, and Andrew Strong, and its amazing music - including "Try A Little Tenderness", "Take Me To The River", and "Mustang Sally"- ranks amongst the very best movie soundtracks. Following The Commitments was The Road To Wellville (1994)- another literary adaptation (this one based on a novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle)- about the health facility run by the eccentric Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (played superbly by Anthony Hopkins; yes, it is the same Kellogg as the cornflakes).
In 1996, Parker went from a sanitarium in Michigan to the streets of Buenos Aires when he directed the big-screen adaptation of Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical about the life of Argentinian First Lady Eva Perón. An adaptation of the musical had been mooted since 1977 with various names attached or considered at various points for the main roles of Eva, her husband Juan, and Che (the narrator) including Michelle Pfeiffer, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Raul Julia, John Travolta, and Patrick Swayze. The roles were taken by Madonna, Jonathan Pryce, and Antonio Banderas respectively. In all honesty, Madonna's previous filmography was what might be generously called a little patchy; here, she absolutely excels as Eva and (rightly) won the Best Actress Golden Globe for her turn. Pryce gives a wonderfully solid turn as Perón, whilst Banderas gives fire and passion to Che. Filming took place in Argentina: the production was even given permission from then-President Carlos Menem to use the balcony of the Casa Rosada for the iconic "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" sequence. Paying tribute to Parker, Lloyd Webber described him as "one of the few directors to truly understand musicals on screen” and Evita is a shining example of that.
In 1998, Parker was made Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institue (BFI) and was announced as the first Chairman of the UK Film Council- a body formed to distributed lottery money to the newly resurgent British film industry- in 1999 (the UK Film Council would be abolished in 2010 in what Parker described as "a petulant, political act"). He closed the 1990s with another literary adaptation- Angela's Ashes (1999), based on Frank McCourt's memoir, and starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle as Frank's parents.
As the new millennium dawned, Parker stood down as Chairman of the BFI but continued his work with the UK Film Council, and received a knighthood for services to the film industry in the 2002 New Years Honours. His final film as director came in 2003 with The Life Of David Gale. Starring Kevin Spacey as an anti-death-penalty activist condemned to death for the murder of a fellow activist, Laura Linney as his ill-fated colleague, and Kate Winslet as the investigative journalist who attends Gale during his final days, it's a well-meaning but utterly stodgy and unsubtle meditation on capital punishment which hinges on a very morally suspect act, and failed to set the box-office or the critics alight- Roger Ebert famously gave it zero stars, stating "The last shot made me want to throw something at the screen".
When awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 (essentially the British Academy's lifetime achievement award), he discussed directing, saying that "as I get older, the attraction of being up to my knees in Mississippi mud is growing less and less. Film-making is a physically hard job... That isn’t the kind of life I want any more.Having said that, I truly miss the cameraderie of the film set. A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is. I do miss that." At the time, he didn't see the BAFTA Fellowship as a metaphorical carriage clock (essentially a "thank-you-for-all-your-hard-work-and-goodbye") stating that " Scorsese got it last year, but I don’t think he’s out of work”.
Two years later, Parker announced his retirement from directing. During a masterclass at the 2015 Bari International Film Festival, he said: “Directors do not improve with age: they repeat themselves, and while there are exceptions, their work generally does not get any better. This is the reason why I have decided not to make any more films.” However, in a 2017 interview with The Observer, Parker was more direct, claiming an argument with a friend over funding was the catalyst: "Fighting for the films and punch-ups with money men had become my default mechanism and I didn’t like that. I pulled the plug on the project and on my career.” In 2015, he donated his personal archive- some 70 boxes of documents covering nearly half a century of film-making, to the BFI's archive in Berkhamstead.
After giving up directing, Parker focused on painting, holding his first major exhibition in 2017.
In terms of unmade films, Parker said he had one regret, which was not getting a film version of Willy Russell's musical Blood Brothers made; negotiations with money men went nowhere, apparently. During his masterclass at the Bari International Film Festival, he said that he'd been offered the chance to direct a Harry Potter film but turned it down, saying. “I didn’t like it, I didn’t understand it and I wasn’t interested in it”. Had he assayed the fantasy world of Hogwarts, I have no doubt he would have produced something remarkable and very different.
Parker has been described as "a chameleon" who "never made the same film twice". It is difficult to think of another filmmaker who has had such a varied and eclectic filmography, tackling different genres and styles with a seeming grace and ease.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.
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