Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott
File:Scott ridley.svg on the set of Blade Runner (1981-2)
Spouse(s)	Felicity Heywood (1964-1975) Sandy Watson (1979-1989)

Sir Ridley Scott (born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, South Tyneside) is a British film director and producer. His films include Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise and Gladiator.

Career

Background

Scott grew up in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life his father — an officer in the Royal Engineers — was absent. Ridley's older brother, Frank, joined the Merchant Navy when he was still young and the pair had little contact. During this time the family moved around, living in (amongst other areas) Cumbria, Wales and Germany. After the Second World War the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner). Scott studied there, from 1954 to 1958, at the West Hartlepool College of Art, graduating with a Diploma in Design. He was to progress to an M.A. in graphic design at London's Royal College of Art from 1960 to 1962. There, he was to contribute to the college magazine, ARK, and help to establish its film department. For his final show he made a black and white short film, Boy and Bicycle, starring his younger brother, Tony Scott, and his father. The film's main visual elements would become features of Scott's later work. After graduation in 1963 he secured a traineeship as a set designer with the BBC, leading him to work on the popular television police series Z-Cars and the science fiction series Out of the Unknown. He was also assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, which would have entailed realising the famous alien creatures. However, shortly before he was due to start work a schedule conflict meant that he was replaced on the serial by Raymond Cusick. At the BBC, Scott was placed into a directing training programme and, before he left the corporation, had directed episodes of Z-Cars, its spin-off, Softly, Softly, and adventure series Adam Adamant Lives!.

Early work

Scott quit the BBC in 1968 and established a production company, Ridley Scott Associates, working with Sir Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Hugh Johnson and employing his younger brother, Tony. Having cut his teeth on UK television commercials in the 1970s — most notably the 1974 Hovis advert, "Bike Round" (New World Symphony), which was filmed in Shaftesbury, Dorset — he graduated to Hollywood, where he produced and directed a number of top box office films. His first feature, The Duellists, was produced in Europe and won a jury medal at the Cannes Film Festival but made limited impact in the US.

Alien

Main article: Alien (film)

Scott's disappointment with The Duellists was compounded by the success being enjoyed by Alan Parker with American-backed films — Scott admitted he was "ill for a week" with envy. Scott had originally planned to next adapt an opera, Tristan und Isolde, but after seeing Star Wars, he became convinced of the potential of large scale, effects-driven films. He therefore accepted the job of directing Alien, the ground-breaking 1979 horror/science fiction film that would give him international recognition. While Ridley Scott would not direct the three Alien sequels, the female action hero Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), introduced in the first film, would become a cinematic icon. Scott was involved in the 2003 restoration and re-release of the film including media interviews for its promotion. At this time Scott indicated that he had been in discussions to make the fifth and final film in the Alien franchise. However, in a 2006 interview, the director remarked that he'd been unhappy about Alien: The Director's Cut, feeling that the original was "pretty flawless" and that the additions were merely a marketing tool.

Blade Runner

Main article: Blade Runner

After a year working on the film adaptation of Dune, Scott signed to direct the film version of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, (which would be retitled as Blade Runner), following the sudden death of his brother Frank. Starring Harrison Ford and featuring an acclaimed soundtrack by Vangelis, Blade Runner was a flop when released to theatres in 1982, and was pulled shortly thereafter. However, it would eventually achieve cult status through re-issue on television and through home video. Scott's notes were used by Warner Brothers to create a rushed director's cut in 1991 which removed the voiceovers and modified the ending. Today Blade Runner is considered one of the most important science fiction films of the 20th century and is usually discussed along with William Gibson's novel Neuromancer as initiating the cyberpunk genre. Scott personally supervised a digitally restored Blade Runner and approved the Final Cut, which is to be finally released theatrically in Los Angeles and New York on October 5, 2007, and as an elaborate DVD release on December 18, 2007, following the resolution of a number of rights issues between Warner Bros and the film's guarantors. Scott regards Blade Runner as his "most complete and personal film."

"1984" Apple Macintosh commercial

Main article: 1984 (television commercial)

In 1984, Apple Computer launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single broadcast of the now famous $1.5 million commercial, based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and directed by Ridley Scott (due to his work on Blade Runner). The commercial was broadcast during the 1984 Super Bowl XVIII. Steve Jobs' intention with the ad was to equate Big Brother with the IBM PC and a nameless female action hero, portrayed by Anya Major, with the Macintosh.

The commercial is frequently voted top in surveys of influential marketing campaigns. For example, Advertising Age named it the 1980s "Commercial of the Decade", and in 1999 the US TV Guide selected it as number one in their list of "50 Greatest Commercials of All Time".

The film resurfaced in the late 1990s when Apple made a QuickTime version of the commercial available for download from the Internet. It appeared numerous times on television commercial compilation specials, as well as on Nick-at-Nite during its "Retromercial" breaks. The making and presentation of this famous commercial formed the visual bookends for the docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Legend

Main article: Legend (film)

In 1985, Scott directed Legend, a fantasy film produced by Arnon Milchan. Having not tackled the fairy tale genre, Scott decided to create a "once upon a time" film set in a world of fairies, princesses, and goblins. Scott cast Tom Cruise as the film's hero, Jack, Mia Sara as Princess Lily, and Tim Curry as the Satan-like Lord of Darkness. But a series of problems with both principal photography and post-production (including heavy editing and substitution of Jerry Goldsmith's original score) hampered the film's release and as a result Legend received scathing reviews. It has since become a cult classic thanks to a DVD release that restores Scott's original, intended vision.

Someone to Watch Over Me and Black Rain

Hungry for a real box office hit and also for respect from the press who considered him as a commercial filmmaker devoted only to fantastic visuals without much substance, Scott decided to postpone further incursions into the science fiction and fantasy genre, in order to avoid being typecast, by focusing more in down to earth mature suspense thrillers.

Among them came Someone to Watch Over Me, a romantic police drama starring Tom Berenger, Lorraine Bracco and Mimi Rogers in 1987, and Black Rain, a 1989 cop drama starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, shot partially in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Both met with mild success at the box office.

Again, Scott was praised for their lavish visuals, but was still being criticised that his films were nothing more than an extended version of his glossy TV commercials, which he kept directing until that period, due to the more lucrative advertising business.

Thelma & Louise

Thelma & Louise was released in 1991 and stars Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women find easier and easier to commit. The movie proved to be a success and revived Scott's reputation as a film maker, earning his first Oscar nomination. Scott's next project was the independent movie 1492: Conquest of Paradise, a visually striking take on the story of Christopher Columbus, yet usually considered to be his most slowly paced movie.

Production company

In 1995 Scott, together with his brother Tony, formed the film and television production company Scott Free Productions in Los Angeles. All of his subsequent feature films, starting with White Squall and G.I. Jane, a female tabloid version of Full Metal Jacket starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen, have been produced under the Scott Free banner. Also in 1995, the two brothers purchased a controlling interest in Shepperton Studios that was later merged with Pinewood Studios. Scott and his brother are currently producing (since 2005) the CBS series Numb3rs. It is a crime drama focused on a mathematician who helps the FBI solve crimes using his genius ability in mathematics.

Gladiator and beyond

The huge success of Scott's film Gladiator (2000) has been credited with the revival of the nearly defunct genre of the "sword and sandal" historical epic. Scott then turned to "Hannibal", the sequel to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. 2001 also saw the release of Scott's war film Black Hawk Down (2001), which further established Scott's position as both a critically and financially successful film maker and went on to earn two Oscars.

In 2005, the director made the internationally successful Kingdom of Heaven, a movie about the Crusades that consciously sought to connect history to current events. While on location in Morocco during filming, Scott reportedly received threats from extremists. The Moroccan government also sent the Moroccan cavalry as extras in the epic battle scenes.

Unhappy with the theatrical version of the film (which he blamed on paying too much attention to the opinions of preview audiences), Scott supervised a director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which was released on DVD in 2006. In an interview to promote the latter, when asked if he was against previewing in general, Scott had this to say on the subject:

"It depends who's in the driving seat. If you've got a lunatic doing my job, then you need to preview. But a good director should be experienced enough to judge what he thinks is the correct version to go out into the cinema."

A Good Year, American Gangster and other future projects

Scott teamed up again with actor Russell Crowe, directing the movie A Good Year, which is based on the best-selling book. The film was released on 10 November 2006, with a score by Marc Stretenfield. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp and Subsidiary studio 20th Century Fox (who backed the film) dismissed A Good Year as "a flop" at a shareholders' meeting only a few days after the film was released.

Scott is currently in post-production on American Gangster, working for the first time with Denzel Washington and again with Russell Crowe. He is the third director to attempt the project after Antoine Fuqua's attempt (under the working title Tru Blu) was shut down by the studio due to an escalating budget. Washington had been cast in that incarnation of the project (reuniting him with Fuqua who had directed him in his Best Actor Oscar-winning performance in Training Day) as well as Benicio del Toro, who were both paid salaries of $20m and $15m respectively without doing any production on the film. The project was then handed to the director of Hotel Rwanda, Terry George, who was rumoured to be working on a less harsh version of the script with Don Cheadle attached to Washington's role. Eventually George and Cheadle dropped out and Scott took over the project in early 2006.

Scott is to direct an adaptation of Robin Hood called Nottingham. Russell Crowe will portray the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Rumoured future projects include Shadow Divers (though currently unattached) and The Invisible World (production notes unknown). He also has a historical epic called Tripoli planned, with Russell Crowe and Ben Kingsley attached, and a western in development, Blood Meridian, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. In 2000, he was attached to do an adaptation of Ben Elton's novel Popcorn. He and brother Tony are also looking at remaking the 1979 film The Warriors, with Tony set to direct as his next film after Déjà Vu.

Recently it has been announced that his next project will be Body of Lies, the adaptation of the non-fiction bestseller of the same name, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe once more attached to star. Previously the project was named Penetration. On 19 June 2007 it was announced that Ridley Scott would helm a film version of the game Monopoly.

Currently five members of the Scott family are directors, all working for RSA. Brother Tony has been a successful film director for more than two decades; sons, Jake (40) and Luke (37), are both acclaimed commercials directors as is his daughter, Jordan (27). Jake and Jordan both work from Los Angeles and Luke is based in London.

Style

Main article: Blade Runner

His striking visual style, incorporating a detailed approach to production design and innovative, atmospheric lighting, has been tremendously influential on an entire subsequent generation of filmmakers — many of whom have simply imitated him outright. Scott commonly uses very slow pacing until an action sequence, which is characterised by many rapid edits. Prime examples of this technique are Alien and Blade Runner. The critic Sheila Benson went so far as to call the latter "Blade Crawler" in the LA Times, "because it's so damn slow." Another trademark is his use of sound or music to build tension, as seen in Alien with hissing steam, beeping computers and the noise of the machinery in the space ship.

Awards

Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing: for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. He was knighted in the 2003 New Year honours.

Criticism

Although some of his films have been highly praised, others have been less successful with audiences and critics. White Squall and Hannibal are the two major works most often attacked by critics, while 1492: Conquest of Paradise was a major commercial failure. Legend (1985) was, like Blade Runner three years before, an initial box-office disaster, but it too has since found cult status thanks to Jerry Goldsmith's critically acclaimed (but rarely heard) score, featured on a 2002 director's cut that is closer to Scott's original vision.

Actors who have worked with Scott often consider that he puts more emphasis on the sets or lining up shots than on them. Such criticisms have come from Harrison Ford, who complained that his relationship with Scott left a lot to be desired. Paul M. Sammon, in his book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, commented about this in an interview with Brmovie.com, stating that Scott's relationship with his actors has improved considerably over the years.

Trademarks

Although Scott is often known for his painterly directorial style, other trademarks include:

• Strong female characters.
• Military and officer classes as characters reflecting his father's career, such as in G.I. Jane and Black Hawk Down.
• Extensive use of the two camera "V" set-up, allowing actors to perform more fluidly.
• Casts Giannina Facio, his partner in life, in all his movies since White Squall.
• Gets involved personally in the casting and prefers a more streamlined approach (just him and the casting director).
• Likes to work with actors who have a strong theatre background and/or drama school graduates.
• An admirer of Stanley Kubrick from early in his development. For his entry for the BBC traineeship Scott remade Paths of Glory as a short film.
• Like Stanley Kubrick, Scott is known for repeating the takes by the double digits. This was more evident on Blade Runner: the crew nicknamed the movie "Blood Runner" because of this.
• Often makes notable use of classical music (the Hovis advertisements, Someone to Watch Over Me). Worked intermittently on the project of a film adaptation of the opera Tristan und Isolde beginning in 1976.
• Extensive use of fans and fanlike objects (in Blade Runner and Black Rain). Fans are also used in Hannibal, but for the purposes of symbolism.
• Extensive use of smoke (in Alien, Blade Runner and Black Rain), for visual aesthetic purposes: Scott sometimes takes hours to set up one scene.
• Consistency in his choice of composers, using Jerry Goldsmith (Alien and Legend), Vangelis (Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise) or Hans Zimmer (Black Rain, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Hannibal, Black Hawk Down and Matchstick Men). Scott has also twice used songs by Sting during the film credits ("Valparaiso" for White Squall and "Someone to Watch Over Me" for the movie of the same title).
• He is usually considered the "father" of the director's cut. Scott was one of the first to use the description for the 1992 re-release of Blade Runner (other such films existed, but were either small fan-oriented versions that carried the name "Special Edition" or were forcefully edited by the studio). The positive result of the Blade Runner DC has encouraged Scott to re-cut several of his movies that were flops at the time of their release (such as Legend and Kingdom of Heaven) with the same positive results. Today the practice is commonplace within the movie industry.
• In some of his movies there is a strong conflict between father and son that usually ends with the latter killing the former intentionally (Blade Runner, Gladiator) or accidentally (Black Hawk Down), or witnessing the event (Kingdom of Heaven).

DVD

Scott is known for his enthusiasm for the DVD format, providing audio commentaries and interviews for all his films wherever possible. In the July 2006 issue of Total Film magazine, he stated:

"After all the work we go through, to have it run in the cinema and then disappear forever is a great pity. To give the film added life is really cool for both those who missed it and those who really loved it."

The special edition DVDs of Scott's films are often regarded for their high quality picture and sound, as well as comprehensive documentaries and commentaries, produced by his longtime DVD producer, Charles de Lauzirika.

Trivia

• Among Scott's favourite films are Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai.
• Russell Crowe nicknamed Scott "The Admiral of the Fleet" during production of Gladiator. He still sometimes refers to the director as "The Admiral".
• In contrast, he was nicknamed "Guvnor" in the famous t-shirt fight of the Blade Runner production. Several crew members started to wear protest t-shirts with slogans such as "Yes Guvnor, my ass" and "Will Rogers never met Ridley Scott" (in reference to Will Rogers' most famous quotation, "I never met a man I didn't like"). This was mainly in response to the way that Scott directed his first American crew, which was considered too harsh by their standards.
• Scott is often very receptive of ideas from the cast during the shooting of movies. Examples of this including Susan Sarandon's suggestions of Louise packing shoes in plastic bags in one scene, also where her character exchanges jewellery for a hat, etc. in Thelma & Louise, as well as Tim Robbins' collaboration with Scott and Susan Sarandon to rework the final scene with a more upbeat ending.
• Belgian builder of competition bicycles Ridley took their company name since the founder was a big fan and Scott already existed as a bicycle brand.
• The recurring Metroid enemy Ridley may be named as a homage to Scott. Both the Metroid video game series and the movie Alien involve a strong female protagonist and an escape from a self-destructing ship near the end of both the film and most games in the Metroid series.
• He co-directed the video to the Roxy Music single "Avalon".

Filmography

Upcoming films

• Nottingham (TBA)
• Blood Meridian (2009)
• Body of Lies (2008)
• American Gangster (2007)

Released films

• Boy and Bicycle (1965)
• The Duellists (1977)
• Alien (1979)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• Legend (1985)
• Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
• Black Rain (1989)
• Thelma & Louise (1991)
• 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
• White Squall (1996)
• G.I. Jane (1997)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Hannibal (2001)
• Black Hawk Down (2001)
• Matchstick Men (2003)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
• All the Invisible Children, a.k.a. Take 7 (short Jonathan, with Jordan Scott) (2006)
• A Good Year (2006)
• American Gangster (2007)

Music video

• Avalon, Roxy Music (1982) (co-directed with Howard Gard)

Commercials

• Bike Round for Hovis (1973)
• Chanel... Share the fantasy. for Chanel (1979)
• 1984 for Apple Computers (1984)
• The Choice of a New Generation for Pepsi (1986) (Starred Don Johnson and Glenn Frey)

TV shows

Both Scott brothers are producers for the CBS series NUMB3RS marked by its luscious cinematography, a Scott trademark.

External links

• They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• Ridley Scott at IMDb
• Video interview with STV's Grant Lauchlan, discussing Kingdom of Heaven and Blade Runner
• Times Interview with Ridley Scott October 5 2006
• Total Film: Interview with Ridley Scott, 15 July 2007

References

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