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Karel Reisz is a Actor, Director and Producer British born on 21 july 1926 at Ostrava (Republique tcheque)

Karel Reisz

Karel Reisz
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Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 21 july 1926 at Ostrava (Republique tcheque)
Death 25 november 2002 (at 76 years) at London (United-kingdom)

Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–World War II Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.

Biography

Né en Tchécoslovaquie au sein d'une famille juive, Karel Reisz arrive à fuir vers la Grande-Bretagne à l'âge de 12 ans avant l'invasion du territoire par la Wehrmacht. Ses parents ne réchappent pas de la politique d'extermination nazie.A la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, il s'engage dans la section tchécoslovaque de la R.A.F.. Ce traumatisme nourrira son œuvre et ses engagements futurs.

Après 1945, Reisz suit un temps des études de biologie à l'université de Cambridge avant de devenir critique de cinéma. Il intègre le groupe « Sequence », du nom de la revue animée par Lindsay Anderson qui promeut les œuvres de Jacques Prévert et de Jean Vigo puis l'idée d'un cinéma d'auteur engagé. Il se lie d'amitié avec Anderson ainsi qu'avec Tony Richardson avec lesquels il fonde le « Free Cinema », en réaction à la facture conventionnelle des productions anglaises des années 1950. Ce mouvement cherche à s'inscrire dans l'authenticité des situations dépeintes et à s'ancrer dans une certaine réalité sociale. À propos de ce courant, Reisz déclare : « Nous travaillons hors du cadre habituel de l'industrie et nous avons en commun des préoccupations sociales que nous tentons d'exprimer dans nos films. ».

Il devient ensuite programmateur de la Cinémathèque de Londres et participe à la rédaction de la revue du British Film Institute Sight and Sound. En 1953, il publie La Technique du montage cinématographique (Technique of Film Editing), devenu un ouvrage de référence.

En 1955, il coréalise avec Tony Richardson un court-métrage documentaire consacré à l'engouement de la musique jazz dans certains milieux ouvriers, Momma Don't Allow. Deux ans plus tard, il produit le documentaire de Lindsay Anderson, Every Day Except Christmas, puis réalise un moyen-métrage ayant pour sujet le faubourg populaire de Lambeth et les loisirs de la jeunesse ouvrière : Ceux de Lambeth (We Are the Lambeth Boys). Le film surprend par la justesse de son observation, son style novateur et son anticonformisme, parfaitement représentatifs de la génération des « Jeunes gens en colère » dont le Free cinema est proche.

Son premier long-métrage : Samedi soir, dimanche matin (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1961), produit par Richardson et écrit par Alan Sillitoe sur la base de son roman, décrit l'ennui du dimanche après-midi dans les quartiers ouvriers. Il pose sur l'univers quotidien des prolétaires un regard lucide et sans fard. Initialement proche du documentaire, l'œuvre se dote d'un rythme narratif soutenu et d'une réelle dimension dramatique grâce au travail du monteur Seth Holt. Triomphe commercial inattendu, le film lance la carrière d'Albert Finney et communique au grand public les idéaux du Free cinema.

Après ce succès, Reisz met en scène le remake d'un film hollywoodien de Richard Thorpe, d'après une pièce d'Emlyn Williams : La Force des ténèbres (Night Must Fall). Parallèlement, il assure la production du premier film de fiction d'Anderson, Le Prix d'un homme (This Sporting Life). Il signe ensuite le film que la critique considère comme son chef-d'œuvre : Morgan (Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment) qui évoque, de manière corrosive, énergique et poétique, un cas de folie inspiré par King Kong. Le film révèle le comédien David Warner dans le rôle d'un étudiant gauchiste truculent, déluré et émouvant. Il vaut par ailleurs à Vanessa Redgrave le Prix d'interprétation féminine à Cannes, une nomination à l'Oscar de la meilleure actrice et le statut de star internationale. La comédienne incarne trois ans plus tard le rôle-titre d'Isadora, sa nouvelle réalisation. Il s'agit d'une biographie filmée audacieuse de la danseuse et chorégraphe américaine Isadora Duncan. Pour sa prestation, Redgrave reçoit un nouveau prix cannois et une deuxième nomination à l'Oscar. Le film se voit néanmoins remanié et plusieurs séquences sont supprimées pour assurer sa sortie américaine.

Après six ans, Reisz part pour les États-Unis tourner un film de studio avec James Caan : Le Flambeur (The Gambler), conçu comme un drame sur l'enfer du jeu. Il en revient néanmoins aux préoccupations sociales et politiques des débuts en 1978 avec Les Guerriers de l'enfer (Who'll Stop the Rain : Dog Soldiers), adapté d'un roman de Robert Stone, qui narre l'histoire d'un sombre trafic d'héroïne avec en toile de fond la réinsertion des vétérans de la guerre du Viêt Nam. Acclamé par la critique, le film, qui rend célèbre Nick Nolte, permet au metteur en scène de retrouver l'acuité des premières œuvres. Il réalise ensuite un film à costumes écrit par Harold Pinter sur la base d'un roman de John Fowles : La Maîtresse du lieutenant français avec Meryl Streep et Jeremy Irons. Très soignée plastiquement, l'œuvre mêle deux histoires éloignées dans le temps. Le réalisateur signe en 1985 une nouvelle biographie filmée, sobre et réaliste, consacrée à la chanteuse de musique country Patsy Cline : Sweet Dreams, avec Jessica Lange dans le rôle principal. Chacun sa chance (Everybody Wins), écrit par Arthur Miller, marque ses retrouvailles avec Nick Nolte en 1990. Il s'agit de son ultime réalisation pour le cinéma avant qu'il ne se consacre définitivement au théâtre.

Il meurt à Camden à Londres en 2002, à l'âge de 76 ans.

Il eut trois enfants d'un premier mariage et épousa, en 1963, l'actrice Betsy Blair.

Best films

Usually with

Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Karel Reisz (12 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Síla lidskosti - Nicholas Winton, 1h4
Directed by Matej Mináč
Genres Documentary
Themes Films about racism, Films about religion, Documentary films about racism, Documentary films about law, Documentary films about war, Documentary films about historical events, Documentaire sur une personnalité, Documentary films about religion, Political films, Films about Jews and Judaism, Documentary films about World War II
Actors Karel Reisz
Roles Self
Rating81% 4.085964.085964.085964.085964.08596
Partez à la rencontre de Nicholas Winton, véritable héros d'avant-guerre. Jamais considéré comme tel, cet homme a pourtant sauvé 669 enfants à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Dans la capitale tchécoslovaque, alors qu´il se préparait pour des vacances au ski, le jeune Nicholas Winton va organiser une extraordinaire opération de sauvetage d'enfants juifs menacés par les nazis.

Director

Everybody Wins, 1h37
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Crime
Themes Films based on plays
Actors Debra Winger, Nick Nolte, Will Patton, Jack Warden, Judith Ivey, Kathleen Wilhoite
Rating50% 2.543372.543372.543372.543372.54337
A prominent doctor from New England has been murdered, and his young nephew has been convicted for the crime. A seductive, possibly unstable woman named Angela Crispini persuades a private investigator, Tom O'Toole, to look into the case. She claims that the youth is innocent and that "everybody" knows who the real killer is.
Sweet Dreams, 1h55
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Biography, Musical, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, John Goodman, Ann Wedgeworth, David Clennon, Gary Basaraba
Rating69% 3.4969753.4969753.4969753.4969753.496975
Patsy Cline (Lange) is unhappily married and playing small-time gigs in the tri-state area consisting of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland when she meets Charlie Dick (Harris), whose charm and aggressive self-confidence catch her attention. In time, Patsy leaves her husband to marry Charlie, and she gives up music to focus on raising their children. But after Charlie gets drafted into the U.S. Army, Patsy begins singing again, and after joining forces with manager Randy Hughes, Patsy becomes a rising star on the country music scene.
The French Lieutenant's Woman, 2h4
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Historical, Romance
Themes Films about films
Actors Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, David Warner, Peter Vaughan, Hilton McRae, Liz Smith
Rating68% 3.4464753.4464753.4464753.4464753.446475
The film intercuts the stories of two affairs: one a Victorian period drama involving the gentleman palaeontologist Charles Smithson and the complex and troubled Sarah Woodruff, "The French Lieutenant's Woman"; the other between the actors "Mike" and "Anna", playing the lead roles in a modern filming of the story. In both segments, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the lead roles, but in line with John Fowles' source novel having multiple endings, the two otherwise parallel stories have different outcomes.
Who'll Stop the Rain, 2h6
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Science fiction, War, Thriller, Comedy, Action, Horror, Crime
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about drugs, Political films
Actors Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty, Richard Masur, Stuart Wilson, David Opatoshu
Rating66% 3.34713.34713.34713.34713.3471
The film opens in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War. John Converse (Moriarty), a disillusioned war correspondent, approaches Ray Hicks (Nolte), a merchant marine sailor and acquaintance of Converse's from the US, for help in smuggling a large quantity of heroin from Vietnam to San Francisco, where he will exchange the drugs for payment with Converse's wife Marge (Weld), who has become addicted to Dilaudid. When Hicks discovers he is being followed by thugs connected either to Converse or his suppliers, he goes on the run with Marge and the heroin, and is eventually pursued by the corrupt DEA agent (Zerbe), who initially set the deal in motion. As Marge is separated from her supply of prescription drugs, she experiences withdrawal, and Hicks decides to help her wean off her dilaudid addiction by using the heroin. Hicks also attempts to find another buyer for the heroin before his pursuers can catch up to him.
The Gambler, 1h51
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime
Actors James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton, Burt Young, Morris Carnovsky, Jacqueline Brookes
Rating70% 3.5460553.5460553.5460553.5460553.546055
Axel Freed is a New York City Harvard University–educated English professor and author with a gambling addiction that begins to spiral out of control. In the classroom, Freed inspires his college students with his interpretations of Fyodor Dostoevsky's work. In his personal life, Axel has the affection of the beautiful Billie and the admiration of his family, including his mother Naomi, who is a doctor, and his grandfather, a wealthy businessman.
Isadora
Isadora (1968)
, 2h48
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Biography, Historical, Musical, Romance
Themes Dance films, La provence
Actors Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox, Jason Robards, John Fraser, Bessie Love, Zvonimir Črnko
Rating68% 3.4448553.4448553.4448553.4448553.444855
In 1927, Isadora Duncan has become a legend as the innovator of modern dance, a temperamental bohemian, and an outspoken advocate of free love. Now past 40, she lives in poverty in a small hotel on the French Riviera with her companion Mary Estelle Dempsey/Mary Desti (named only as Mary in the film) and her secretary Roger, to whom she is dictating her memoirs. As a young girl in California, Isadora first demonstrates her disdain for accepted social standards by burning her parents' marriage certificate and pledging her dedication to the pursuit of art and beauty. In 1896, she performs under the name of Peppy Dora in a rowdy music hall in Chicago and publicly embarrasses the theatre manager into paying her $300 so that she can take her family to England. Modeling her free-form style of dance and costume after Greek classicism, she rapidly acquires international acclaim.
Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, 1h37
Directed by Stephen Frears, Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Fantasy
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about psychiatry
Actors David Warner, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Stephens, Irene Handl, Bernard Bresslaw, Bekim Fehmiu
Rating64% 3.247083.247083.247083.247083.24708
Morgan Delt (David Warner) is a failed artist and son of communist parents who own a fish and chips shop in downmarket London. His upper-class wife, Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), has given up on him and has just secured a divorce in order to marry Charles Napier (Robert Stephens), an art gallery owner of her own social standing. Given the innately rich and personal world of fantasy Morgan has locked himself into, he goes off the deep end. He performs a series of bizarre stunts in a campaign to win back Leonie, including putting a skeleton in Leonie's bed, blowing up her bed as Leonie's mother is on it, and crashing her wedding dressed as a gorilla, for which scene Reisz borrows clips from the original King Kong film to illustrate Morgan's fantasy world.
Night Must Fall, 1h41
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Thriller, Politic
Themes Medical-themed films, Théâtre, Films about psychiatry, Films based on plays
Actors Mona Washbourne, Albert Finney, Susan Hampshire, Sheila Hancock, Michael Medwin, Joe Gladwin
Rating64% 3.249333.249333.249333.249333.24933
Danny is a Welsh hotel bellboy who commits an axe murder near the home of Mrs. Bramson, a well-to-do widow. Danny disposes of the body in a nearby lake and charms Mrs. Bramson and her maid Dora into allowing him to stay with them. At Mrs. Bramson's home, Danny plays psychological games with Mrs. Bramson while seducing her daughter Olivia. Meanwhile, alone in his room, Danny engages in strange rituals with the severed heads of his victims, which he keeps in a black hatbox. But the police have uncovered the axe and the headless corpse from the lake, and the authorities begin closing in on Danny, whose psychopathic tendencies are beginning to manifest themselves at Mrs. Bramson's home.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1h29
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Romance
Themes Films about the labor movement
Actors Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts, Hylda Baker, Norman Rossington, Peter Madden
Rating74% 3.74543.74543.74543.74543.7454
Arthur Seaton is a young machinist at a Nottingham factory. He is determined not to be tied down to living a life of domestic drudgery like the people around him, including his parents, whom he describes as "dead from the neck up". He spends his wages at weekends on drinking and having a good time.

Producer

Night Must Fall, 1h41
Directed by Karel Reisz
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Thriller, Politic
Themes Medical-themed films, Théâtre, Films about psychiatry, Films based on plays
Actors Mona Washbourne, Albert Finney, Susan Hampshire, Sheila Hancock, Michael Medwin, Joe Gladwin
Roles Producer
Rating64% 3.249333.249333.249333.249333.24933
Danny is a Welsh hotel bellboy who commits an axe murder near the home of Mrs. Bramson, a well-to-do widow. Danny disposes of the body in a nearby lake and charms Mrs. Bramson and her maid Dora into allowing him to stay with them. At Mrs. Bramson's home, Danny plays psychological games with Mrs. Bramson while seducing her daughter Olivia. Meanwhile, alone in his room, Danny engages in strange rituals with the severed heads of his victims, which he keeps in a black hatbox. But the police have uncovered the axe and the headless corpse from the lake, and the authorities begin closing in on Danny, whose psychopathic tendencies are beginning to manifest themselves at Mrs. Bramson's home.
This Sporting Life, 2h14
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Romance
Themes Sports films, Rugby, Rugby à XIII
Actors Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, Alan Badel, William Hartnell, Colin Blakely, Arthur Lowe
Roles Producer
Rating74% 3.7450153.7450153.7450153.7450153.745015
Set in Wakefield, the film concerns a bitter young Yorkshire coal miner, Frank Machin (Harris). Following a nightclub altercation, in which he takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and punches a couple of the others, he is recruited by the team's manager, who sees profit in his aggressive streak.
Every Day Except Christmas, 37minutes
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Genres Documentary
Themes Documentary films about business, Documentary films about cities
Actors Alun Owen
Roles Producer
Rating67% 3.3678853.3678853.3678853.3678853.367885
Opening with a title card dedicating the film to about seven or eight of the drivers/loaders and market workers whom we’ll meet as the film progresses, Anderson establishes the rituals of the daily routine; the loading of the lorries, the post-midnight drive through the deserted country and city streets as, voice over, the BBC Light Programme's announcer says goodnight, signs off, and the national anthem, God Save the Queen plays.