Alexandre Rockwell
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Alexandre Rockwell | |
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.jpg) Rockwell at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018 | |
| Born | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, producer, film director, professor |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | 2 |
Charles Alexandre Rockwell is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and professor.
Life and career
Alexandre Rockwell is best known for his independent films made in NYC with a small group of actors he met on the lower east side in the late 80s. His first films helped launch the careers of well known actors like Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell, Peter Dinklage, Stanley Tucci, as well as many other notable indie stars of the time. His filming style is best described as purely independent in spirit and poetic in style. He mixes a seemly effortless blend of comedy and drama to create an eclectic and human portrait of outsiders. His influences are wide ranging, he has been quoted as saying his style is "as much the Three Stooges as it is Tarkovsky".
Rockwell was born into a family of artists and is the grandson of the Russian animator Alexandre Alexeieff, who invented the pinscreen, and of Alexandra Grinevsky, also an artist and illustrator of rare books. His father Paul Rockwell met his mother Svetlana Ludmillia Alexeieff as an American GI in Paris and they married and relocated to Boston, Massachusetts. Rockwell grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts he struggled in school and often played hooky spending his days playing pin ball and sleeping in art house movie theaters. He avoided college and instead moved to Paris where he snuck into the French Cinematheque to watch three films a day when he was not assisting his grandfather in his studio. He then relocated to " New York City in his early 20s where he drove a taxi and delivered seltzer water. It was when he hocked his saxophone and bought a 16mm Bolex camera that he began making his own films.
In 1986 he met and within two weeks married actress Jennifer Beals. Beals introduced Sam Rockwell to Alexandre, who has subsequently cast Sam in four of his films.[1] They are not related to each other.
Rockwell has made a number of iconic NY indie films, most notably In the Soup, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1992, a seminal year that presented the first films of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. Together the four directors made Four Rooms, which opened to mixed reviews and audience response. Rockwell followed up with Somebody to Love, starring Rosie Perez, Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel. Rockwell struggled in Los Angeles for a while to find his place while making Louis and Frank and Pete Smalls Is Dead. Both films were met with mixed reviews and he did not make a film for a period of six years. He quit the west coast and rediscovered his voice back in New York City where he began teaching at NYU and met his present wife Karyn Parsons-Rockwell.
Most recently Rockwell has turned to smaller more independent micro-budget films made with his family, students and friends to much critical and festival success. His latest effort, Sweet Thing (2020) starring his daughter Lana Rockwell and son Nico Rockwell, won the Crystal Bear at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival, and has been widely released enjoying both audience and critical acclaim.
Since February 8, 2003, Rockwell has been married to actress Karyn Parsons (of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame), with whom he has two children.
Rockwell currently is head of the directing program at NYU's graduate film school [2] and resides in Brooklyn NY. His wife, Karyn, has her own production company, Sweet Blackberry.[3]
Filmography
- Lenz (1982)
- Hero (1983)
- Sons (1990)
- In the Soup (1992)
- Somebody to Love (1994)
- Four Rooms (1995)
- Louis & Frank (1998)
- 13 Moons (2002)
- Pete Smalls Is Dead (2010)
- In The Same Garden (Omnibus) (2015)
- Little Feet (2017)
- Sweet Thing (2020)
References
External links
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