![]() ![]() The classic example is "The Right Stuff." Released in 1983, the movie drew overwhelming critical praise, but ticket sales were tepid. Kaufman's problem is that his vision is years ahead of mainstream filmmaking. "We filmed one scene in the Tenderloin area, and a local lying on cardboard on the sidewalk-practically naked-looked at our cameras and asked, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'We're filming "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."' He said, 'The original was better' and turned over." "Don Siegel's 1956 film was a cult favorite," Mr. His first commercial success as a director was the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in 1978, but even that film had doubters. Kaufman takes a sip from his lemon water and shakes his head. "I think 'Star Wars' came out a year later," he adds with a laugh. 'A high-up Paramount executive just decided that there's no future in science fiction.'" The movie was off. ![]() Kaufman was in preproduction and had even arranged to cast Toshiro Mifune as the head Klingon when he got a call from his producer. My wife was in the audience and heard a Trekkie say, 'Oh, God, couldn't they have gotten someone better?'" I was 'beamed' down to the stage in a cloud of sparkling dust and introduced as the man who would direct the first 'Star Trek' movie. "I was at a Trekkie convention where people were dressed as characters from the show-feelers on their heads, stuff like that. “He was honored at Cannes on May 16, but 'Hemingway & Gellhorn,' for HBO, is just his 13th film in nearly half a century. For instance, there was his brief employment as the director of the first "Star Trek" movie in 1977. In 1981, though, he was credited, along with George Lucas, for developing the story for "Raiders of the Lost Ark."ĭespite the support of such critics as Pauline Kael (who wrote of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" that "it was like a dream you long to return to"), he insists that "as a director, I've never had star power," and tells self-deprecating stories to back this up. He was fired as director of 1976's "The Outlaw Josey Wales" by Clint Eastwood, over what Mr. ![]() "I've never worked well in Hollywood," he says by way of explanation. Though his career has spanned nearly half a century, "Hemingway & Gellhorn" is just his 13th film. ![]() (It shared the 1964 Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes with Bernardo Bertolucci's "Before the Revolution.") He attended Harvard Law School, moved to San Francisco, and made "Goldstein" at age 28. Kaufman met his own wife, Rose (with whom he collaborated on all his films before her death in 2009), at the University of Chicago. ![]()
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