Fred Zinnemann
Alfred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907 – March 14, 1997) was an Austrian-American[1] film director and producer. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and play adaptations. He began his career in Europe before emigrating to the US, where he specialized in shorts before making 25 feature films during his 50-year career.
Fred Zinnemann
March 14, 1997 (aged 89)
- Film director
- producer
1932–1982
Academy Award for Best Director
1954 From Here to Eternity
1967 A Man for All Seasons
Academy Award for Best Picture
1967 A Man for All Seasons
1952 Benjy
He was among the first directors to insist on using authentic locations and for mixing stars with non-professional actors to give his films more realism. Within the film industry, he was considered a maverick for taking risks and thereby creating unique films, with many of his stories being dramas about lone and principled individuals tested by tragic events. According to one historian, Zinnemann's style demonstrated his sense of "psychological realism and his apparent determination to make worthwhile pictures that are nevertheless highly entertaining."
Among his films were The Search (1948), The Men (1950), High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Oklahoma! (1955), The Nun's Story (1959), The Sundowners (1960), A Man For All Seasons (1966), The Day of the Jackal (1973), and Julia (1977). His films have received 65 Oscar nominations, winning 24; Zinnemann himself was nominated for ten, and won Best Director for From Here to Eternity (1953), Best Picture and Best Director for A Man for All Seasons (1966), and Best Documentary, Short Subjects for Benjy (1951).
Zinnemann directed and introduced a number of stars in their U.S. film debuts, including Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Pier Angeli, Julie Harris, Brandon deWilde, Montgomery Clift, Shirley Jones and Meryl Streep. He directed 19 actors to Oscar nominations, including Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Glynis Johns, Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Jason Robards, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda, Gary Cooper and Maximilian Schell.
Career as director[edit]
Early career[edit]
Zinnemann worked in Germany with several other beginners (Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak also worked with him on the 1929 feature People on Sunday) after he studied filmmaking in France. His penchant for realism and authenticity is evident in his first feature The Wave (1936), shot on location in Mexico with mostly non-professional actors recruited among the locals, which is one of the earliest examples of social realism in narrative film. Earlier in the decade, in fact, Zinnemann had worked with documentarian Robert Flaherty, "probably the greatest single influence on my work as a filmmaker", he said.[8]
Although he was fascinated by the artistic culture of Germany, with its theater, music and films, he was also aware that the country was in a deep economic crisis. He became disenchanted with Berlin after continually seeing decadent ostentation and luxury existing alongside desperate unemployment. The wealthy classes were moving more to the political right and the poor to the left. "Emotion had long since begun to displace reason," he said.[3]: 16 As a result of the changing political climate, along with the fact that sound films had arrived in Europe, which was technically unprepared to produce their own, film production throughout Europe slowed dramatically. Zinnemann, then only 21, got his parents' permission to go to America where he hoped filmmaking opportunities would be greater.[3]: 16
He arrived in New York at the end of October 1929, at the time of the stock market crash. Despite the financial panic then beginning, he found New York to be a different cultural environment:[3]: 17
Final years and death[edit]
Zinnemann is often regarded as striking a blow against ageism in Hollywood.[26] The apocryphal story goes that in the 1980s, during a meeting with a young Hollywood executive, Zinnemann was surprised to find the executive didn't know who he was, despite having won four Academy Awards, and directing many of Hollywood's biggest films. When the young executive asked Zinnemann to list what he had done in his career, Zinnemann reportedly answered, "Sure. You first." In Hollywood, the story is known as "You First," and is often alluded to when veteran creators find that upstarts are unfamiliar with their work.[27]
Zinnemann insisted, "I've been trying to disown that story for years. It seems to me Billy Wilder told it to me about himself."[28]
Zinnemann died of a heart attack in London, England on March 14, 1997.[29] He was 89 years old. Zinneman's remains were cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and the cremated remains were collected from the cemetery. His wife died on December 18, 1997.[30]
Over the course of Zinnemann's career he has received three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.[8]