Aram Avakian

Aram A. Avakian (born in New York City on April 23, 1926; died January 17, 1987) was an American film editor and director. Directed ground-breaking indie film End of the Road

Life and work

Aram "Al" Avakian was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1926, of Armenian parents from Iran and Soviet Georgia. He graduated Horace Mann School and Yale University before serving as a Naval officer on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. On the GI Bill after the war he went to France where he attended the Sorbonne. There he was part of a tight group of young friends who defined the American literary movement of 1950's Paris, including Terry Southern, William Styron, John P. Marquand Jr., and George Plimpton. In 1953, Avakian returned to the United States and apprenticed under Gjon Mili who got him started in documentary editing. In his spare time Avakian took still photographs of the legendary jazz sessions his brother the jazz producer George Avakian recorded. . From 1955 to 1958, Avakian was the editor of Edward R. Murrow's program See It Now.

He soon became a feature film editor and director. In 1958, he edited and co-directed Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival and credited with being "the first feature-film documentary of a music festival." He also edited the 1960 feature film Girl of the Night, "acknowledged for its early use of the freeze frame and the jump cut." His credits as an editor also included Robert Frank's Sin of Jesus (1960), The Miracle Worker (1962), Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965), in which Avakian also plays the disembodied voice of Warren Beatty's tormentor, and Honeysuckle Rose (1979). Avakian was an innovator.

Avakian directed 1970 movie End of the Road, which received an "X" rating for its graphic depiction of an abortion. For End of the Road Avakian received the Golden Leopard Award of the Locarno International Film Festival LIFE Magazine (November 7, 1969) covered the film in a spectacular 9-page article, and in-depth interviews ran in Esquire and Playboy. In a review of the film in The New York Times, Roger Greenspun wrote of End of the Road: "The precise truth of, say, 5 in a summer afternoon on the lawn of an assistant professor in a small country college has perhaps never been caught in a commercial movie before -- but that is the kind of precise truth this movie captures again and again." The film stars James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, Dorothy Tristan, and Harris Yulin. In the film Avakian also plays The Landlord, The Pigman, and the voice of the psychiatrist on the phone. George Avakian, the great jazz producer and brother of Aram oversaw the music. Avakian's old friend the distinguished novelist Terry Southern co-produced the film, and co-wrote the screenplay with Avakian and Dennis McGuire.

End of the Road is an early indie picture which bucked Hollywood conventions and was before its time. Many of the cast and crew went on to distinguished careers. The film gained a cult following at art movie houses across the U.S., where audiences would speak aloud the lines while they watched the midnight screenings. End of the Road, has been resurrected by the great director Steven Soderbergh, and Warner Bros. Mr. Soderbergh has directed a documentary on the making of the film, for inclusion on the BluRay, scheduled for release in 2012 by Warner Brothers, as part of a series of great rediscovered movies.

Avakian directed Cops and Robbers (1973) and 11 Harrowhouse (1974). and a lost film made in Paris, in French, in the early 1970s.

From 1983 to 1986, Avakian was chairman of the film department at State University of New York at Purchase.

For fifteen years, Avakian was married to actress and writer Dorothy Tristan until 1972, but during the last two years of his life his companion was former ballerina Allegra Kent. His brother is the famed music producer George Avakian. His children with Dorothy Tristan are photojournalist/author Alexandra Avakian and guitarist Tristan Avakian.

Selected filmography

As Editor

• Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960)
• Girl of the Night (1960)
• The Miracle Worker (1962)
• Lilith (1964)
• You're a Big Boy Now (1966)
• The Comedians (1967)
• The Next Man (1976)
• Honeysuckle Rose (1980)

(Partial list)

As Director

• Jazz on a Summer's Day (with Bert Stern) (1959)
• Lad, A Dog (with Leslie H. Martinson) (1962)
• The End of the Road (1970)
• Cops and Robbers (1973)
• 11 Harrowhouse (1974)

(Partial list)