British screenwriter and playwright Charles Wood, known for such productions as “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Tumbledown” and “Iris,” has died at the age of 87.
His death, on Saturday, was confirmed to Variety by his agent Sue Rodgers at Independent Talent.
Born into a theater family, he began working in his local theater when he was a teen. After studying theatrical design at art college, he spent several years in the British army. After an assortment of jobs, he began to write professionally from 1959, with the completion of his play “Prisoner and Escort,” drawing on his army experience.
His first screenplay was 1965 comedy “The Knack … and How to Get It,” based on Anne Jellicoe’s play. Directed by Richard Lester, and starring Rita Tushingham and Michael Crawford, it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Wood was nominated for the BAFTA for British screenplay.
Among many films with Lester,...
His death, on Saturday, was confirmed to Variety by his agent Sue Rodgers at Independent Talent.
Born into a theater family, he began working in his local theater when he was a teen. After studying theatrical design at art college, he spent several years in the British army. After an assortment of jobs, he began to write professionally from 1959, with the completion of his play “Prisoner and Escort,” drawing on his army experience.
His first screenplay was 1965 comedy “The Knack … and How to Get It,” based on Anne Jellicoe’s play. Directed by Richard Lester, and starring Rita Tushingham and Michael Crawford, it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Wood was nominated for the BAFTA for British screenplay.
Among many films with Lester,...
- 2/5/2020
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
In the past two years he has produced the best work of his life, including his latest turn in A Very English Scandal
Back in the mid-90s, shortly after I saw Four Weddings And A Funeral – when I, along with half the females in this country, developed a profound soft spot for Hugh Grant – I went to see the adaption of Beryl Bainbridge’s novel An Awfully Big Adventure, purely because he starred in it. The rest of the cinema audience had clearly come for the same reason, and we all made a collective excitable giggle when he appeared on screen. But those giggles died down pretty fast, because this was no Four Weddings. Grant plays a predatory, charismatic gay theatre director named Meredith who callously toys with the minds of women and the bodies of men. “What he wants is hearts,” someone explains to one of Meredith’s devastated victims.
Back in the mid-90s, shortly after I saw Four Weddings And A Funeral – when I, along with half the females in this country, developed a profound soft spot for Hugh Grant – I went to see the adaption of Beryl Bainbridge’s novel An Awfully Big Adventure, purely because he starred in it. The rest of the cinema audience had clearly come for the same reason, and we all made a collective excitable giggle when he appeared on screen. But those giggles died down pretty fast, because this was no Four Weddings. Grant plays a predatory, charismatic gay theatre director named Meredith who callously toys with the minds of women and the bodies of men. “What he wants is hearts,” someone explains to one of Meredith’s devastated victims.
- 5/26/2018
- by Hadley Freeman
- The Guardian - Film News
Swashbuckling screenwriter behind Rob Roy, Ulzana's Raid and Night Moves
Alan Sharp, who has died of brain cancer aged 79, once claimed that as a screenwriter he was most interested in "moral ambiguity, mixed motives and irony", all of which are applicable to two of his best movies, the western Ulzana's Raid (1972), directed by Robert Aldrich, and the thriller Night Moves (1975), directed by Arthur Penn. Most of his screenplays were written in the 1970s and reflect the era in which America was suffering the effects of the Vietnam war and post-Watergate paranoia. This goes some way to explaining the bleakness and cynical sense of destiny in Sharp's films, which he called "existential melodramas".
He was born in Alyth, near Dundee. Although the majority of his scripts were set in the Us, where he lived for many years, Scotland remained pre-eminent in his character and culture. His script for Rob Roy (1995), a...
Alan Sharp, who has died of brain cancer aged 79, once claimed that as a screenwriter he was most interested in "moral ambiguity, mixed motives and irony", all of which are applicable to two of his best movies, the western Ulzana's Raid (1972), directed by Robert Aldrich, and the thriller Night Moves (1975), directed by Arthur Penn. Most of his screenplays were written in the 1970s and reflect the era in which America was suffering the effects of the Vietnam war and post-Watergate paranoia. This goes some way to explaining the bleakness and cynical sense of destiny in Sharp's films, which he called "existential melodramas".
He was born in Alyth, near Dundee. Although the majority of his scripts were set in the Us, where he lived for many years, Scotland remained pre-eminent in his character and culture. His script for Rob Roy (1995), a...
- 2/14/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
The Guardian's season of British cult classics continues with a moving family drama set in Liverpool and an offbeat tale of twin zoologists obsessed with death
Sick of Twilight? Can't bear the thought of Skyfall? In what can only be described as an inspired bit of counter-programming, the Guardian brings you the second in our series of British cult classics double bills, in conjuction with the BFI. The absolute acme of 1980s British auteurist cinema, Distant Voices, Still Lives and A Zed & Two Noughts couldn't be more different to the current breed of blockbuster: both intensely personal, inward-looking, and defiantly unconventional.
That's not to say these two films run on similar tracks; they themselves are practically polar opposites. Distant Voices was the 1988 feature debut of Terence Davies, the intensely neurotic Liverpudlian who would go on to make The House of Mirth and The Deep Blue Sea. Davies had already acquired...
Sick of Twilight? Can't bear the thought of Skyfall? In what can only be described as an inspired bit of counter-programming, the Guardian brings you the second in our series of British cult classics double bills, in conjuction with the BFI. The absolute acme of 1980s British auteurist cinema, Distant Voices, Still Lives and A Zed & Two Noughts couldn't be more different to the current breed of blockbuster: both intensely personal, inward-looking, and defiantly unconventional.
That's not to say these two films run on similar tracks; they themselves are practically polar opposites. Distant Voices was the 1988 feature debut of Terence Davies, the intensely neurotic Liverpudlian who would go on to make The House of Mirth and The Deep Blue Sea. Davies had already acquired...
- 11/16/2012
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
The golden envelope is opened. It's your name. And then what? Four award winners talk to Shahesta Shaitly about life after the applause
It's the awards season, the time of nominations, shortlists and statuettes. And if you happen to be up for one, whether it be employee of the month or the gong for best vegetable patch, you'll be in the spotlight. But imagine how much more intense it would be if, as with the Oscars, you knew that more than a billion people across the planet were settling down to watch your reactions and judge your acceptance speech.
Natalie Portman, winner of the best actress Oscar for Black Swan, cautions winners to remain grounded, saying: "When you start valuing yourself based on other people's accolades, it is a little dangerous, because then you have to start valuing yourself based on other people's insults, too."
Julian Barnes, once described the...
It's the awards season, the time of nominations, shortlists and statuettes. And if you happen to be up for one, whether it be employee of the month or the gong for best vegetable patch, you'll be in the spotlight. But imagine how much more intense it would be if, as with the Oscars, you knew that more than a billion people across the planet were settling down to watch your reactions and judge your acceptance speech.
Natalie Portman, winner of the best actress Oscar for Black Swan, cautions winners to remain grounded, saying: "When you start valuing yourself based on other people's accolades, it is a little dangerous, because then you have to start valuing yourself based on other people's insults, too."
Julian Barnes, once described the...
- 12/18/2011
- by Shahesta Shaitly
- The Guardian - Film News
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