Philip Kaufman (1936 - )
Related: 1936 - American cinema - director
Titles: Henry & June (1990) - Quills (2000)
Biography
Philip Kaufman (born October 23, 1936) is a film director and screenwriter from Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago and later Harvard Law School. After spending some time backpacking in Europe with his wife, Kaufman relocated back to the United States. Much of his time in Europe heavily influenced Kaufman's decision to become a filmmaker, when he and his wife would wander into small movie theaters showcasing the works of John Cassavetes among others, He held some odd jobs including mailman. During his frequent travels he met Anais Nin, lover of writer Henry Miller. The relationship between Miller and Nin was the inspiration for Kaufman's film Henry and June.
In 1978 Kaufman directed the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which would become his first hit.
In 1983 Kaufman directed the critically acclaimed film, The Right Stuff, an adaptation of the book of the same name by Tom Wolfe.
In 1988 Kaufman was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
In 1990 he wrote and directed Henry & June, which is said to be a major factor in the development of a new MPAA rating, NC-17.
In 2000 Kaufman directed Quills, a film about the increasingly desperate efforts of the Marquis de Sade's jailers to censor his licentious works, starring Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Kate Winslet and Michael Caine.
In 2003 he directed Twisted, a thriller about a young policewoman whose casual sex partners are murdered while she herself suffers alcoholic blackouts. It starred Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia. Many critics cite that Kaufman's contribution to American film is that he's a director who refuses to be chosen as a one genre director, since every film he does is never in the same genre. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kaufman [Aug 2006]
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