Todd Field: Difference between revisions
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[[File:ITB Tom Wilkinson & Sissy Spacek Photograph by Todd Field.jpg|thumb|right| [[Tom Wilkinson]] & [[Sissy Spacek]] in '''Field's''' '''''In the Bedroom'''''. (2001)]]Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of ''[[In the Bedroom]]'', a film based on the short story ''[[Killings]]'' by author [[Andre Dubus]]. ( |
[[File:ITB Tom Wilkinson & Sissy Spacek Photograph by Todd Field.jpg|thumb|right| [[Tom Wilkinson]] & [[Sissy Spacek]] in '''Field's''' '''''In the Bedroom'''''. (2001)]]Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of ''[[In the Bedroom]]'', a film based on the short story ''[[Killings]]'' by author [[Andre Dubus]]. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of ''In the Bedroom''.) ''In the Bedroom'' was nominated for five [[Academy Award]]s including [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]], [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]] ([[Tom Wilkinson]], his first nomination), [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Best Actress]] ([[Sissy Spacek]], her sixth nomination), [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress|Supporting Actress]] ([[Marisa Tomei]], her second nomination), and [[Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay|Best Screenplay (Adapted)]]. The film was shot in [[Rockland, Maine]], a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.<ref name="Biography - Field, Todd (1964-): An article from: Contemporary Authors ">{{cite news|author= Gale, Thomas|title= Todd Field Biography|work= ''[[Contemporary Authors]]''|date= December 16, 2007}}</ref> |
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Rathbun and [[Sissy Spacek]] did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: [[David Ansen]] of ''[[Newsweek]]'' wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker."<ref name="Newsweek1">{{cite news|author= Ansen, David|title= Their House Torn Asunder|work= ''[[Newsweek]]''|date= December 3, 2001}}</ref><ref name="Newsweek2">{{cite news|author= Ansen, David.|title= Break On Through To The Oscar Side.|work= ''[[Newsweek]]''|date= January 21, 2002}}</ref> Anthony Quinn of ''[[The Independent]]'' also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."<ref>{{cite news|author= Quinn, Anthony|title= The Big Picture: In the Bedroom|publisher= ''[[The Independent]]''|date= 25 January 2002}}</ref> |
Rathbun and [[Sissy Spacek]] did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: [[David Ansen]] of ''[[Newsweek]]'' wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker."<ref name="Newsweek1">{{cite news|author= Ansen, David|title= Their House Torn Asunder|work= ''[[Newsweek]]''|date= December 3, 2001}}</ref><ref name="Newsweek2">{{cite news|author= Ansen, David.|title= Break On Through To The Oscar Side.|work= ''[[Newsweek]]''|date= January 21, 2002}}</ref> Anthony Quinn of ''[[The Independent]]'' also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."<ref>{{cite news|author= Quinn, Anthony|title= The Big Picture: In the Bedroom|publisher= ''[[The Independent]]''|date= 25 January 2002}}</ref> |
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Revision as of 05:55, 20 February 2011
Todd Field | |
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| File:25 Feb 2007 Oscars.JPG Todd Field at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007. | |
| Born | William Todd Field February 24, 1964  Pomona, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Film director Producer Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1985 – present |
| Spouse | Serena Rathbun (1986 – ) |
| Awards | NBR Award for Best Director |
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.
Biography
Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, California, where his family ran a poultry farm.[1] When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music.[2] A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton and Mel Tormé when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University) in Ashland on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.[3]
Field received his Master of Fine Arts from the AFI Conservatory.[4]
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter,[5] Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody Allen in Radio Days. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick, Victor Nuñez, and Carl Franklin. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray Award from the British Film Institute, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art. To date, unadjusted box office receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.[6]
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the Bedroom, a film based on the short story Killings by author Andre Dubus. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Tom Wilkinson, his first nomination), Best Actress (Sissy Spacek, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted). The film was shot in Rockland, Maine, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.[7]
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker."[8][9] Anthony Quinn of The Independent also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."[10]
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little Children, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet (her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley (his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about."[11] Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."[12]
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.[13] During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.[14]
Filmography
Writer/Director/Producer
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 | In the Bedroom | ||||||
| 2006 | Little Children | ||||||
Short films
| Year | Film | Duties | Notes and Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | The Dog | Co-Director with Alex Vlacos | Short experimental film |
| Too Romantic | Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1993 | When I Was a Boy | Co-Director with Alex Vlacos & Matthew Modine | Premiered at Sundance Film Festival in front of Victor Nuñez's Grand Jury Prize winning Ruby in Paradise in which Field also starred. Exhibited at MoMA as part of the New Directors/New Films Series |
| The Tree | Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| Delivering | Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1995 | Nonnie & Alex | Director | AFI Second Year Thesis Project
Winner Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award, Winner College Emmy Best Film Award, Winner Aspen Short Fest Grand Prize |
Actor
"Field has a deceptive facade of all-American clean-cut looks that allows him to suggest a wide range of emotions and thoughts behind such a regular-guy appearance; in "Ruby in Paradise" he expressed such uncommon decency and intelligence you had to wonder how Ashley Judd's hardscrabble Ruby could ever have considered letting him get away. In "Eyes Wide Shut" he's the likable med school dropout turned saloon piano player, and here he's an increasingly raging sociopath. In all these roles Field has the precious gift of being able to surprise you and to command your attention on screen."[15]
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times review of Broken Vessels.
| Year | Film | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Radio Days | Crooner | Woody Allen |
| The Allnighter | Bellhop | Tamar Hoffs | |
| Student Exchange | Neil Barton/Adriano Fabrizzi | Molly Miller | |
| 1988 | Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy | Private Anthony Glenn | Carl Franklin |
| Back to Back | Todd Brand | John Kincaide | |
| The End of Innocence | Richard | Dyan Cannon | |
| 1989 | Fat Man and Little Boy | Robert Rathbun Wilson | Roland Joffe |
| Gross Anatomy | David Schreiner | Thom Eberhardt | |
| 1990 | Full Fathom Five | Johnson | Carl Franklin |
| 1991 | Queens Logic | Cecil | Steve Rash |
| 1993 | Ruby in Paradise | Mike McCaslin | Victor Nuñez |
| 1994 | Sleep With Me | Duane | Rory Kelly |
| 1996 | Twister | Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis | Jan de Bont |
| Walking and Talking | Frank | Nicole Holofcener | |
| 1999 | Broken Vessels | Jimmy Wazniack | Scott Ziehl |
| Eyes Wide Shut | Nick Nightingale | Stanley Kubrick | |
| The Haunting | Todd Hackett | Jan de Bont | |
| 2002, 2003 | Aqua Teen Hunger Force | Ol' Drippy | Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis |
Awards and other distinctions
References
- ^ "Todd Field Biography -Movies@Piczo".
- ^ "Todd Field Biography - Yahoo! Movies".
- ^ Levy, Shawn. You couldn't write a better script. The Oregonian, March 23, 2002.
- ^ "Todd Field - Biography". Roberta Bresci. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
- ^ "Todd Field Biography". The New York Times. December 3, 2009.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=(help) - ^ . Box Office Mojo. March 6, 2009.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Missing or empty|title=(help) - ^ Gale, Thomas (December 16, 2007). "Todd Field Biography". Contemporary Authors.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=(help) - ^ Ansen, David (December 3, 2001). "Their House Torn Asunder". Newsweek.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=(help) - ^ Ansen, David. (January 21, 2002). "Break On Through To The Oscar Side". Newsweek.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=(help) - ^ Quinn, Anthony (25 January 2002). "The Big Picture: In the Bedroom". The Independent.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Scott, A.O. "Playground Rules: No Hitting, No Sex." The New York Times, September 29, 2006.
- ^ Scott, A.O. "Best of 2006: Here's to the Ambitious and the Altmans." The New York Times, December 24, 2006.
- ^ Medina, Jeremy (August 28, 2008). "Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian film changes directors". Los Angeles Times.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Todd Field still working hard on Blood Meridian". TalkingFilms. January 14, 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ Thomas, Kevin (July 30, 1999). "Movie Review: Broken Vessels". Los Angeles Times.
External links
Web
- Todd Field at IMDb
- Todd Field at the TCM Movie Database
- Todd Field at AllMovie
- [1] Todd Field NYTimes Biography
- Template:Tvtome person
Publications
- Delicately Dissecting the Quiet Life – 18 November 2001, The New York Times
- 'In the Bedroom' Without Frills – 9 August 2002, The New York Times
- The Best DVD's of 2002 – 3 January 2003, The New York Times
- Acting all grown up in a land of `Children’ – 21 January 2007, Los Angeles Times
- Field on Bergman – 1 August 2007, Los Angeles Times
Academic Papers
Audio
- Chicago Public Radio's Film Spotting Interview (mp3) 28 October 2006
- Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment KCRW 11 October 2006
- Renee Montagne NPR Morning Edition - DVD Commentaries, 26 February 2003
- Scott Horsley NPR Morning Edition - DVD Sales Challenge Video-Rental Business, 25 February 2003
- Warren Olney Interview KCRW 15 March 2002