Remembering a classic creator
RANDOR GUY
|
Of the 39 films of varying genres that director Robert Wise made, "West Side Story" and "The Sound Of Music" immortalised him. A tribute.
|
THE MAN AND HIS MUSICALS: Robert Wise won four Oscars for "West Side Story" and "The Sound Of Music."
"My three Ps: passion, patience, and perseverance... You have to do this if you've got to be a filmmaker... I'd rather do my own thing ... choose projects that take me into different kinds of genres...I don't have a favourite kind of film to make. I just look for the best material I can find." He said in an interview years ago.
A master of the [film] medium, Robert Wise, who passed away recently in Los Angeles at 91, directed and produced two of the greatest movie musicals, "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music."
Different genres
He made 39 movies of varying genre over a period of 50 years and created some masterpieces and classics.
Deservedly, he was honoured with four Oscars for his creations.
Wise attracted attention when he edited Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane." It was an audio-visual textbook on cinema, and introduced many daring and creative editing devices.
Range
His body of work reveals an astonishing range. From Science Fiction ("The Day The Earth Stood Still" -1951), drama ("I Want To Live!" -1958), boxing ("The Set - Up" - 1949; and "Somebody Up There Likes Me "- 1956), war stories ("Run Silent Run Deep" -1958), westerns ("Tribute To A Bad Man" -1956), to horror ("The Curse of the Cat People" - 1944; and "The Body Snatcher" -1945).
"Executive Suite" (1954), a Wise classic, was a trend-setter. It exposed the backroom politics and horse trading of the corporate world of movies where board meetings, power games and chair-grabbing dominated
The star- studded cast had Frederic March, William Holden, Walter Pidgeon, Barbara Stanwyck, Nina Foch, and Shelley Winters.
Memorable musicals
The movies which made Wise immortal are "The West Side Story" (1961), and "The Sound of Music" (1965).
"West Side Story" is a modern "Romeo and Juliet" set in the New York City tenement slums of early 1960s.
Wise and Jerome Robbins directed this classic, which has music by Leonard Bernstein. It raked in 10 Oscars in all and was a box-office bonanza.
"The Sound of Music," based on the true story of the singing Von Trapp family who escaped from Nazi-ruled Austria, was a mega hit with Julia Andrews and Christopher Plummer in the lead and was one of the top grossers of all time. It won five Oscars including two for Wise. Its music topped the charts globally.
Robert Wise was born on September 10, 1914, in Winchester, Indiana, U.S.. He left college during the Depression to seek work. His brother, an accountant at RKO, helped him to get a lowly job at the studio.
Worked his way up
He worked his way up to become a film editor. He edited such movies as "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "All That Money Can Buy" and "Citizen Kane."
He also edited the under-rated Orson Welles masterpiece, "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942). Hereceived the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1966 and the Directors Guild of America's (DGA) highest honour, the D. W. Griffith Award, in 1988.
Wise's"Two for the Seesaw" (1962), "The Sand Pebbles" (1966), "The Andromeda Strain" (1970) and "Star Trek" (1979) are the other note-worthy films.
Robert Wise was a much respected man in the dog-eat-dog world of movies. Ironically, he passed away the day before a retrospective of his films began in Spain.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
