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King Vidor | |
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.jpg) Vidor in 1925 | |
| Born | King Wallis Vidor February 8, 1894 Galveston, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | November 1, 1982 (aged 88) Paso Robles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | King W. Vidor, John Vidor |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1913–1980 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
King Wallis Vidor (/ˈviːdɔːr/ VEE-dor; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed the subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions.[1]
His most acclaimed and successful film in the silent era was The Big Parade (1925).[2] Vidor's sound films of the 1940s and early 1950s arguably represent his richest output. Among his finest works are Northwest Passage (1940), Comrade X (1940), An American Romance (1944), and Duel in the Sun (1946).[3][4] His dramatic depictions of the American western landscape endow nature with a sinister force where his characters struggle for survival and redemption.[5][6][7]
Vidor's earlier films tend to identify with the common people in a collective struggle, whereas his later works place individualists at the center of his narratives.[8][9]
He was considered an "actors' director": many of his players received Academy Award nominations or awards, among them Wallace Beery, Robert Donat, Barbara Stanwyck, Jennifer Jones, Anne Shirley, and Lillian Gish.[10]
Vidor was nominated five times by the Academy Awards for Best Director. In 1979, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his "incomparable achievements as a cinematic creator and innovator."[11] Additionally, he won eight national and international film awards during his career, including the Screen Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1957.[12]
In 1962, he was head of the jury at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival.[13] In 1969, he was a member of the jury at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival.[14]
- ^ Berlinale Retrospective 2020: "...he was actively involved in making movies for 67 years." And "allowed the material to define the style." And on "auteur": "Vidor's status as an auteur is definitely underscored by his independence and by the passion he brought to films. ...Vidor was indeed at times something of an auteur filmmaker..." And on "humane": "There is also a whole series of motifs that repeatedly turn up in his films, and which reflect the things he cared about – issues of class, as well as the issue of race in the US, which he incorporated into his films with a humanist bent..."
WSWS Reinhardt 2020: "What distinguished him as an artist was his instinct for substantial and relevant social topics and conflicts."
Gustaffson 2016: "At his best, Vidor "made films about the human condition, about human's moral and physical battles, and the battle between us and nature.
Baxter 1976, p. 41: "...Vidor adapted well to sound." - ^ Phillips, 2009: "The 141-minute feature was the first silent American movie to deal realistically with the horrors of war and to do it from the standpoint of ordinary soldiers. It was also the most profitable silent-era feature and remained MGM's most successful film until Gone with the Wind in 1939. In some American cities it screened for more than a year." Also: Decades after its release "it remains a formidable work."
Thomson, 2007: The metronome "sequence seems to have influenced many directors especially Kurosawa and Spielberg."
Reinhardt 2020: "His film The Big Parade (1925) influenced other anti-war classics such as Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)." - ^ Sarris, 1973. P. 27: "...the major directors of 1940 by almost any standard...included King Vidor (Northwest Passage, Comrade X)
Baxter 1976. P. 63: The 1940s and early 50s were "Vidor's greatest period...in [his] career." - ^ Koszarski, "...later films [such as] Northwest Passage, An American Romance, and The Fountainhead demonstrate that Vidor was able to create films of personal expressiveness...it could be easily argued that only in the 40s and 50s do his heroes and heroines develop the richness of personality that characterizes any director's mature style."
- ^ Thomson, 2007: "He made films glorifying the effects of Western civilization and its contents, detailing how ordinary men are made extraordinary through their fight against the neutral destructiveness of nature."
- ^ Baxter 1976: "...the sense of the American landscape...distinguishes his best films. What sets Vidor apart from his contemporaries is...a dark, almost demonic view of the land." And p. 9: "...Vidor's disquiet about natural forces."
- ^ Higham 1972: "Vidor has always been a poet of the American landscape, creating vivid images of rural life..."
- ^ Higham 1972: "Vidor's earlier movies had tended to emphasize the virtues of the common man. But gradually he came to believe that the individualist was the most important of beings, that a man must ignore received opinion and hold ruthlessly to what he believes."
- ^ Senses of Cinema 2007: In his later films "Vidor's men became more unlikable and scarier as his country itself veered away from the proletarian dreams of the 1930s and into the consumer culture of the '50s and beyond. All his men work against things: war, consuming lust, the land, the illnesses of the body, bourgeois routine, lost love. They always emerge stronger from their struggle."
- ^ Berlinale, 2020: "In general, King Vidor was a great "actors' director". You often see performances in his films that are absolutely astounding. And often it's the women who shine..."
- ^ Thomson, 2007: "He received five best director nominations and an honorary Oscar" from the Academy of Arts and Science.
- ^ "King Vidor". IMDb.
- ^ "12th Berlin International Film Festival: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
- ^ "6th Moscow International Film Festival (1969)". MIFF. Archived from the original on July 28, 2014. Retrieved December 17, 2012.