John Carpenter

John Carpenter
File:John carpenter.jpg John Carpenter, from the cover of John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness ISBN 1879505673
Born	January 16, 1948 Carthage, New York, USA
Occupation(s)	director, screenwriter, producer, and composer
Spouse	Sandy King
Website	http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/

This article is about the director. For other people named John Carpenter, refer to John Carpenter (disambiguation).

John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, film music composer and occasionally an actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, he is considered one of the most accomplished and influential horror and science fiction directors in Hollywood.

Early life

Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, but grew up in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He was captivated by movies from an early age, especially by the westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford, as well as 1950s low budget horror and science fiction films, such as Forbidden Planet and The Thing From Another World and began filming horror shorts on 8 mm film even before entering high school. He attended Western Kentucky University, where his father, Howard, chaired the music department. He later transferred to the University of Southern California to attend its film program and ultimately dropped out before completing his degree requirements.

1970s: From student films to major theatrical releases

While he was at USC the student film he edited and co-wrote The Resurrection of Broncho Billy with producer John Longenecker, which won the 1970 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.

His first major film in a directing role, Dark Star (1974), was a sci-fi dark comedy that he co-wrote with Dan O'Bannon (who later went on to write Alien, borrowing freely from much of Dark Star). The film reportedly cost only $60,000 and was difficult to make as both Carpenter and O'Bannon completed the film by multi-tasking, with Carpenter having done the musical score in addition to his writing, producing and directing duties, while O'Bannon was responsible for the special effects (and whose efforts caught the attention of George Lucas who hired him to do work on the special effects for Star Wars) and had acting duties. Carpenter's efforts did not go unnoticed as much of Hollywood marveled at his film-making abilities within the confines of a shoe-string budget.

Carpenter's next film was Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), a low-budget thriller influenced by the films of Howard Hawks, particularly Rio Bravo. As on Dark Star, Carpenter was responsible for many aspects of the film's creation. He not only wrote, directed and scored it, but also edited the film under the pseudonym "John T. Chance" (the name of John Wayne's character in Rio Bravo). Carpenter has said that he considers Assault on Precinct 13 to have been his first real film, because it was the first movie that he shot on a schedule. The film was also significant because it marked the first time Carpenter worked with Debra Hill, who played a prominent role in the creation of some of Carpenter's most important films.

Working within the limitations of a $100,000 budget, Carpenter assembled a main cast that consisted mostly of experienced, but little-known, actors. The two leads were Austin Stoker, who had appeared previously in science fiction, disaster, and blaxploitation films, and Darwin Joston, who had worked primarily in television and was also Carpenter's next-door neighbor.

The film was originally released in the United States to mixed critical reviews and lackluster box-office earnings, but after it was screened at the 1977 London Film Festival, it became a critical and commercial success in Europe and is often credited with launching Carpenter's career. Later, the film underwent a critical reassessment in the United States, where it is now generally regarded as one of the best exploitation films of the 1970s.

File:John Carpenter.jpg

John Carpenter on the set of Halloween in 1978.

Halloween (1978) was a smash hit on release and gave birth to the slasher film genre. Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans (entitled The Babysitter Murders), who envisioned a film about babysitters being menaced by a stalker, Carpenter took the idea and another suggestion from Yablans that it take place during Halloween and developed a story. Carpenter again worked with a relatively small budget of $320,000 and the film grossed over $65 million, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time. The film was written by Carpenter and Debra Hill with Carpenter admitting that the film was inspired by both Dario Argento's Suspiria and William Friedkin's The Exorcist.

Carpenter relied upon taut suspense, rather than the excessive use of gore that would define later slasher films, in order to make the menacing nature of the main character, Michael Myers, more palpable. At times, Carpenter has described Halloween in terms that appeared to directly contradict the more thoughtful, nuanced approach to horror that he actually used, such as: "True crass exploitation. I decided to make a film I would love to have seen as a kid, full of cheap tricks like a haunted house at a fair where you walk down the corridor and things jump out at you." Unlike later slasher films that largely mimicked Carpenter's work on Halloween, few have met with the same critical success.

In addition to the film's critical and commercial success, perhaps its strongest legacy is the film's original score by Carpenter, which remains one of the most recognizable film music themes of all time along with other notable scores such as John Williams' Jaws.

In 1979, John Carpenter began what was to be the first of many collaborations with actor Kurt Russell when he directed the TV movie Elvis. The made-for-TV movie was a smash with both viewers and critics, and revived the career of Kurt Russell.

1980s: Continued commercial success

Carpenter followed up the success of Halloween with The Fog (1980), a ghostly revenge tale (co-written by Hill) inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt and by the The Crawling Eye, a 1958 movie about monsters hiding in clouds.

Completing The Fog was an unusually difficult process for Carpenter. After viewing a rough cut of the film, he was dissatisfied with the result. For the first and only time in his filmmaking career, he had to devise a way to salvage a nearly finished film that didn't meet his standards. In order to make the movie more coherent and frightening, Carpenter shot additional footage that included a number of new scenes. Approximately one-third of the finished film is comprised of the newer footage.

Despite production problems and mostly negative critical reception, The Fog was another commercial success for Carpenter. The film was made on a budget of $1,000,000, but it grossed over $21,000,000 in the United States alone. Carpenter has said that The Fog is not his favorite film, although he considers it a "minor horror classic."

Carpenter immediately followed The Fog with the science-fiction adventure Escape From New York (1981), which quickly picked up large cult and mainstream audiences as well as critical acclaim.

His next film, The Thing (1982), is notable for its high production values, including innovative special effects by Rob Bottin, special visual effects by matte artist Albert Whitlock, a score by Ennio Morricone, and a cast that included rising star Kurt Russell and respected character actors such as Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, and Richard Masur. The Thing was made with a budget of $10,000,000, Carpenter's largest up to that point, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Although Carpenter's film was ostensibly a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks film, The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's version is more faithful to the John W. Campbell, Jr. short story, Who Goes There?, upon which both films were based. Moreover, unlike the Hawks film, The Thing has a dark, pessimistic tone and a bleak ending, which didn't appeal to audiences in the summer of 1982, when it was released in the wake of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Consequently, it did not perform well commercially and was Carpenter's first financial failure. It found new life, though, in the home video and cable markets, and is is now regarded as one of the best horror films ever made.

Carpenter's next film was 1983's adaptation of the Stephen King book Christine. The story was about a high-school nerd (Keith Gordon) who buys an old 50's hot-rod automobile which turns out to have supernatural powers. The film did respectable business upon its release, though Carpenter has been quoted as saying he did the film because it was the only thing offered to him at the time.

One of the high points in Carpenter's career came in 1984 with the release of Starman, a film that was critically praised, but only nominally successful commercially. Produced by Michael Douglas, the script was well received by Columbia Pictures, which chose it over the script for E.T. and prompted Steven Spielberg to go to Universal Pictures. Douglas chose Carpenter to be the director because of his reputation as an action director who could also convey strong emotion. Starman was favorably reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and LA Weekly and described by Carpenter as a film he envisioned as a romantic comedy similar to It Happened One Night only with a space alien. The film received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Jeff Bridges' portrayal of Starman and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical Score for Jack Nitzsche.

Following the box office failure of his big budget action-comedy Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Carpenter struggled to get films financed. He returned to making lower budget films such as Prince of Darkness (1987), a film influenced by the BBC series Quatermass, and They Live (1988). Although some of the films from this time did pick up a cult audience, he never again realized his mass-market potential.

1990s: Criticism and commercial decline

His recent career is characterized by a number of notable misfires: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Village of the Damned (1995), and Escape From L.A. (1996) are examples of films that were critically mauled and were failures at the box-office. Notable from this decade is:

• In the Mouth of Madness (1995), yet another Lovecraftian homage which, although did not do well at the box-office either and was seen by some critics as reminiscent of Wes Craven's New Nightmare, is considered by many Carpenter devotees as his last truly great movie.
• Vampires (1998), which starred James Woods as the leader of a band of vampire hunters in league with the Catholic church. Though not a big success at the box-office, Woods received praise from many critics from his performance, and the late critic Gene Siskel went so far as to say he thought the actor deserved an Oscar nomination for the film. Like many of Carpenter's films, Vampires went on to achieve a cult following, and a sequel was made in 2002 starring Jon Bon Jovi (though neither Carpenter nor Woods were involved).

2000s-present: Remakes and return to prominence

Carpenter's reputation remains strong, his earlier films are considered classics and (because they have continued to perform well on home video) several have been subjected to big budget remakes; 2005 saw remakes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog, the latter being produced by Carpenter himself, though in an interview he defined his involvement as "I come in and say hello to everybody. Go home."

Carpenter recently returned to the director's chair for an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror series, one of the thirteen filmmakers involved in the first season. His episode, Cigarette Burns, aired to generally positive reviews, and he has since decided to contribute another original episode for season two.

Career retrospective

With the exception of The Thing, he has scored all of his films (although some are collaborations), most famously the themes from Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13. His music is generally synthesized, with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics. All of his movies (with the exception of Dark Star) have been filmed in anamorphic widescreen.

Many horror/sci-fi/indie filmmakers have expressed admiration for Carpenter's work, including Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo Del Toro, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino.

Themes

• Regarding his work on Halloween, which has often been cited as an allegory on the virtue of sexual purity and the danger of casual sex, Carpenter has explained that this was not his intent: "It has been suggested that I was making some kind of moral statement. Believe me, I'm not. In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers."

• Carpenter was also intrigued by Halloween as a noted semi-holiday and liked the concept of haunted houses and wanted to make a film centered around these ideas: "Halloween night. It has never been the theme in a film. My idea was to do an old haunted house movie."

Innovative techniques

His films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, static cameras, and distinctive synthesized scores (usually self-composed). He describes himself as having been influenced by Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and The Twilight Zone.

Career setbacks

The Thing was Carpenter's first setback. The film was considered excessively dark, it did not do well at the box office and the effects by Rob Bottin were considered too grotesque for a mainstream audience. However the film itself has retrospectively gained much critical appreciation, and is now often considered his best.

Four years later, Big Trouble in Little China was also poorly received by audiences and critics alike, an eclectic mix of genres that was years ahead of its time. This film, like The Thing, found its audience on VHS and DVD years after its theatrical release.

More recently, both Escape From L.A. and Ghosts of Mars were widely panned by critics and failed to make a profit at the box office. Whether these films will gain a cult following remains to be seen.

Personal life and other contributions

Carpenter was romantically involved with his creative partner, Debra Hill, from the time they worked on Assault on Precinct 13 until Carpenter met his future wife, actress Adrienne Barbeau, on the set of his 1978 television movie, Someone's Watching Me!

Despite the end of their romantic relationship, Carpenter and Hill continued to collaborate on films and were able to maintain their friendship. Working with both Carpenter and Barbeau on The Fog, however, was reportedly an emotionally difficult experience for Hill.

Carpenter was married to Barbeau from January 1, 1979 to 1984. During their marriage, Barbeau starred in The Fog, and also appeared in Escape from New York. The couple have one son, John Cody Carpenter (born May 7, 1984).

Carpenter has been married to producer Sandy King since 1990. King produced a number of Carpenter's later feature films, including: They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars and Escape from L.A. She also functioned as script supervisor for some of these films as well as Starman, Big Trouble in Little China and Prince of Darkness.

Trivia

• Carpenter has referred to the films The Thing, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness as his 'Apocalypse Trilogy', each dealing with a different "end of the world" scenario.
• Some of the films that John Carpenter was attached to at one point but eventually left were Top Gun, Fatal Attraction, The Golden Child, No Way Out, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Deal of the Century, Armed & Dangerous, Firestarter and The Philadelphia Experiment.
• Throughout his career John Carpenter has employed several pseudonyms (some linked to his "hero" Howard Hawks) such as: Frank Armitage, James T. Chance, John T. Chance, Rip Haight, and Martin Quatermass.
• In addition to the numerous duties he assigns himself, Carpenter also flies a helicopter. He has a pilot's licence, and performed as a pilot for Memoirs of an Invisible Man.
• Many of the characters in John Carpenter's films are named after his friends, colleagues, and ex-girlfriends. The Fog, for example, contains at least five such characters (Nick Castle, Elizabeth Solley, Sandy Fadel, Dan O'Bannon, Tommy Wallace).
• Carpenter has recorded commentaries for the DVD releases of most of his theatrically released films. Films without commentaries include: Dark Star, Memoirs of An Invisible Man, Body Bags, Village Of The Damned, and Escape From L.A.

Filmography

• The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970)
• Dark Star (1974)
• Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
• Someone's Watching Me (1978, TV)
• Halloween (1978)
• Elvis (1979, TV)
• The Fog (1980)
• Escape from New York (1981)
• The Thing (1982), remake of The Thing From Another World
• Christine (1983)
• Starman (1984)
• Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
• Prince of Darkness (1987)
• They Live (1988)
• Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
• In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
• Village of the Damned (1995)
• Escape From L.A. (1996)
• Vampires (1998)
• Ghosts of Mars (2001)
• Cigarette Burns(2005)

Further reading

• Boulenger, Gilles. John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness, Silman-James Press (2003). ISBN 1879505673.
• Conrich, Ian & Woods, David. The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror (Directors' Cuts), Wallflower Press (2004). ISBN 1904764142.
• Foster, Alan Dean. John Carpenter's Starman: A Novel, Warner Books (1984). ISBN 0446325988.
• Foster, Alan Dean. The Thing, Bantam Books (1982). ISBN 0553204777.
• Muir, John Kenneth. The Films of John Carpenter, McFarland & Company, Inc. (2005). ISBN 0786422696.

External links

• John Carpenter's official website
• John Carpenter at IMDb
• An unofficial John Carpenter website
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• An unofficial John Carpenter forum