William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in , was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the lack of an obvious "signature" in his diverse body of work denies him the honorific "auteur 6 Things Any Teacher Can Do to Help Close the Achievement Gap. By Kavita Venkatesh | Ideas & Best Practices | December 06, ; Bringing equity to all students is not a simple task. But by building deeper relationships and fostering a growth mindset for our students, we can start to close the achievement gap, classroom by classroom Aug 02, · Writing an argumentative essay is not the funniest thing to do. Even so, there are ways to ease this process and make it less strained. Dive into the article and choose the best argumentative essay topic for you
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William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death inwas considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the lack of an obvious "signature" in his diverse body of work denies him the honorific "auteur" that has become a standard measure do oscars essay greatness in the post-"Cahiers du Cinema" critical community, do oscars essay.
His directorial career spanned 45 years, from silent pictures to the cultural revolution of the s. So high was his reputation in his lifetime that he was the fourth recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, after Ford, James Cagney and Welles. Along with Ford and Welles, Wyler ranks with the best and most influential American directors, including Griffith, DeMille, Frank CapraHoward HawksAlfred HitchcockStanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg.
Born Willi Wyler on July 1,in Mulhouse, Alsace then a possession of Germanyto Jewish parents. His Swiss-born father, do oscars essay, Leopold, started as a traveling salesman but later became a thriving haberdasher in Mulhouse.
His mother, Melanie née Auerbach; died February 13,do oscars essay, Los Angeles, aged 77do oscars essay, was German-born, and a cousin of Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures.
Melanie Wyler often took him and his older brother Robert to concerts, opera, and the theatre, as well as the early cinema. Sometimes at home do oscars essay family and their friends would stage amateur theatricals for personal enjoyment. He used his family connections to establish himself in the film industry. Upon being offered a job by his mother's first cousin, Universal Studios head Carl LaemmleWyler emigrated to the US in do oscars essay the age of After starting in Universal's New York offices as an errand boy, he moved his way up through the organization, ending up in the California operation in Do oscars essay was given the opportunity to direct in Julydo oscars essay, with the two-reel western The Crook Buster It was on this film that he was first credited as William Wyler, though he never officially changed his name and would be known as "Willi" all his life, do oscars essay.
For almost five years he performed his apprenticeship in Universal's "B" unit, turning out a score of low-budget silent westerns, do oscars essay. In he made his first "A" picture, Hell's HeroesUniversal's first all-sound movie shot outside a studio. The western, the first version of the "Three Godfathers" story, was a commercial and critical success. The initial years of the Great Depression brought hard times for the film industry, and Universal went into receivership inpartially due to financial troubles brought about by rampant nepotism and the runaway production costs rung up by producer Carl Laemmle Jr.
There were 70 Laemmle family members on the Universal payroll at one point, including Wyler. In "Uncle" Carl was forced to sell the studio he had created in with the merger of his Independent Motion Picture Co. with several other production companies. Wyler continued to direct for Universal up until the end of the family regime, helming Counsellor at Lawthe film version of Elmer Rice 's play featuring one of John Barrymore 's more restrained performances, do oscars essay, and The Good Fairya comedy adapted from a Ferenc Molnár play by Preston Sturges and starring Margaret Sullavanwho was Wyler's wife for a short time.
Both films were produced by his cousin, "Junior" Laemmle. Emancipated from the Laemmle family, Wyler subsequently established himself as a major director in the mids, when he began directing films for independent producer Samuel Goldwyn. During this key period, he alternated between adaptations of famous plays and filming versions of classic novels. Willi would soon find his freedom do oscars essay by the man with the fabled "Goldwyn touch," which entailed bullying his directors to recast, rewrite and re-cut their films, and sometimes even replacing them during shooting.
The first of the Wyler-Goldwyn collaborations was These Threebased on Lillian Hellman 's lesbian-themed play "The Children's Hour" the Sapphic theme was jettisoned and sanitized into a conventional heterosexual love triangle due to censorship concerns, but it resurfaced intact when Wyler remade the film a quarter-century later.
His first unqualified success for Goldwyn was Dodsworthan adaptation of Sinclair Lewis ' portrait of a disintegrating American marriage, a marvelous film that still resonates with audiences in the 21st century.
He received his first Best Director Oscar nomination for this picture. The film was nominated for Best Picture, the first of seven straight years in which a Wyler-directed movie would earn that accolade, culminating with Oscars for both William Wyler and Mrs.
Miniver in Wyler's potential greatness can be seen as early as "Hell's Heroes," an early talkie that is not constrained by the restrictions of the new technology. The climax of the do oscars essay, with Charles Bickford 's dying badman walking into town, do oscars essay, is a long tracking shot that focuses not on the actor himself but the detritus that he shucks off to lighten his load as he brings a baby back to a cradle of civilization. The scene is a harbinger of the free-flowing style that would become a hallmark of his work, do oscars essay.
However, it was with "Dodsworth" that Wyler began to establish his critical reputation. The film features long takes and a probing camera, a style that Wyler would make his own.
Now established as Goldwyn's director of choice, Wyler made several films for him, including Dead End and Wuthering Heights Essentially an employee of the producer, Wyler clashed with Goldwyn over aesthetic choices and longed for his freedom. Goldwyn had demanded that the ghetto set of "Dead End" be spruced up and that "clean garbage" be used in the water tank representing the East River, over Wyler's objections. Goldwyn prevailed, as he did later with the ending of "Wuthering Heights.
Wyler opposed the new ending and refused to shoot it. Goldwyn had his ending shot without Wyler and had it tacked onto the final cut.
It was an artistic betrayal that rankled Wyler. Goldwyn loaned out Wyler to other studios, and he made Jezebel and The Letter for Warner Bros. Working with Bette Davis in the two masterpieces, as well as in Goldwyn's The Little FoxesWyler elicited three of the great diva's finest performances. In these films and his films of the mid-to-late s, Wyler pioneered the use of deep-focus cinematography, most famously with lighting cameraman Gregg Toland. Toland shot seven of the eight films Wyler directed for Goldwyn: "These Three", Come and Get It"Dead End," "Wuthering Heights" for which Toland won his only Academy AwardThe Westerner"The Little Foxes" and The Best Years of Our Lives Compositions in Wyler pictures frequently featured multiple horizontal do oscars essay with various characters arranged in diagonals at varying distances from the camera lens.
Creating an illusion of depth, these deep-focus shots enhanced the naturalism of the picture while heightening the drama.
As the photography of Wyler's do oscars essay was used to serve the story and create mood rather than call attention to itself, Toland was later mistakenly given credit for creating deep-focus cinematography along with another great director, Orson Welles, in Citizen Kane His first use of deep-focus cinematography was inwith "The Good Fairy", on which Norbert Brodine was the lighting cameraman.
It was the first of his films featuring deep-focus shots and the diagonal compositions that became a Wyler leitmotif. The film also includes a receding mirror shot a half-decade before Toland and Welles created a similar one for "Citizen Kane, do oscars essay. Miniver" for MGM, which also won the Oscar for Best Picture, the first of three Wyler films that would be so honored.
Made as a propaganda piece for American audiences to prepare them for the sacrifices necessitated by World War II, the movie is set in wartime England and elucidates the hardships suffered by an ordinary, middle-class English family coping with the war. An enthusiastic President Franklin D. Rooseveltafter seeing the film at a White House screening, said, "This has to be shown right away.
After "Miniver," Do oscars essay went off to war as an officer in the U, do oscars essay. Army Air Corps. One of his more memorable propaganda films of the period was a documentary about a B bomber, The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying FortressHe also directed the Navy documentary The Fighting Ladyan examination of life aboard an American aircraft carrier.
Though the later film won an Oscar as Best Documentary, "The Memphis Belle" is considered a classic of its form. The making of the documentary was even the subject of a feature film of the same name.
The documentary features aerial battle footage that Wyler and his crew shot over the skies of Germany. One of his photographic do oscars essay, flying in another plane, was killed during the filming of the air battles. Wyler himself lost the hearing in one ear and became partially deaf in the other due to the noise and concussion of the flak bursting around his aircraft.
Wyler's first picture upon returning from World War II would prove to be the last movie he made for Goldwyn. A returning veteran like those portrayed in "The Best Years of Our Lives"this film won Wyler his second Oscar, do oscars essay.
The movie, which featured a moving performance by real-life veteran and double amputee Harold Russellstruck a universal chord with Do oscars essay and was a major box office hit. It was the second Wyler-directed picture to be named Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The film also won Oscars for star Fredric March and co-star Russell who was also given an honorary award "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans"film editor Daniel Mandellcomposer Hugo Friedhofer and screenwriter Robert E.
Sherwoodand was instrumental in garnering the Irving Thalberg Award for Samuel Goldwyn, who also took home the Best Picture Oscar that year as "Best Years" producer, do oscars essay.
Though Wyler elicited some of the finest performances preserved on film, ironically he could not communicate what he wanted to an actor. A perfectionist, he became known as "Take Wyler", shooting a scene over and over again until the actors played it the way he wanted. With his use of long takes, actors were forced to act within each take as their performances would not be covered in the cutting room.
His long takes and lack of cutting slowed down the pacing of his films, providing a greater feeling of continuity within each scene and intimately involving the audience in the development of the drama. The story in a Wyler film was allowed to unfold organically, with no tricky editing to cover up holes in the script or to compensate for an inadequate performance.
Wyler typically rehearsed his actors for two weeks before the beginning of principal photography. While more actors won Academy Awards in Wyler movies, do oscars essay, 14 out of a total of 36 nominations more than any other two directors do oscars essayfew actors worked more than once or twice with him, do oscars essay.
Bette Davis worked on three films with him and won Do oscars essay Award nominations for each performance and an Oscar for "Jezebel. He proved hard on other experienced actors, such as Laurence Olivier in "Wuthering Heights," who gave credit to Willi for turning him from a stage actor into a movie actor. A year earlier, Wyler had forced Henry Fonda through 40 takes on the set of "Jezebel," Wyler's only direction being "Again" after each repeated take.
When Fonda demanded some input on what he was doing wrong, Wyler replied only: "It stinks. Do it again. When a dismayed Heston asked him what he should do, "Be better" is all that Wyler could supply. In his autobiography, do oscars essay, Elia Kazana famed "actor's director", tells how he offered advice to an actor acquaintance of his who was making a Wyler picture as he knew that the great director was inarticulate about acting and would be unable to give advice.
Wyler believed that after many takes, actors got angry and began to shed their preconceived ideas about acting in general and the part in particular.
Stripped of these notions, actors were able to play at a truer level. It is a process that Stanley Kubrick would subsequently use on his post- A Space Odyssey films, though to different results, creating an otherworldly anti-realism rather than the more naturalistic truth of a Wyler movie performance.
His methods often meant that his films went over schedule and over budget, but he got results. Wyler's reputation has suffered as he is not considered an "auteur," or "author" of his films.
However, in his postwar career, he definitely was the auteur, or controlling consciousness, behind his films. Although he never took a screenwriting credit other than for an early horse opera, Ridin' do oscars essay Lovehe selected his own stories and controlled the screenwriting, hiring his own writers in a development process do oscars essay could take years. His postwar period films include The Heiressa fine version of Henry James ' novel "Washington Square," with an Oscar-winning performance by Olivia de Havilland ; Detective Storya police drama that takes place on a minimal, controlled set almost as restricted as that of Hitchcock's Do oscars essay ; and Roman Holidaywhich won Audrey Hepburn an Oscar in her first leading role.
The other films of this period are CarrieThe Desperate Hours and Friendly Persuasion Wyler returned to the western genre one last time with The Big Countrya picture far removed in scope from his two-reeler origins, featuring Gregory Peckdo oscars essay, Heston, and Wyler's old "Hell's Heroes" star Bickford.
Burl Ives won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the patriarch of an outlaw clan in conflict with Bickford's family. Wyler was next enlisted by producer Sam Zimbalist to helm MGM's high-stakes "Ben-Hur"a remake of its classic. Principal photography required more than six months of shooting on location in Italy, with hundreds of crew members and thousands of extras.
The Origin of Oscar
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Documentary Feature winners Leon Gast and David Sonenberg with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman Aug 02, · Writing an argumentative essay is not the funniest thing to do. Even so, there are ways to ease this process and make it less strained. Dive into the article and choose the best argumentative essay topic for you William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in , was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the lack of an obvious "signature" in his diverse body of work denies him the honorific "auteur
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