alan parker (1944 – )

 Alan Parker, born Islington in 1944, began his career in advertising (pubblicità)  In the late 60’s he was one of a small group of British directors who revolutionized world advertising.
As a film director he started his career with the BBC Television film, The Evacuees. His first feature film was

Bugsy Malone(1975) a  musical pastiche of 1920s gangster films with an entire cast of children (recitato da soli bambini). From this moment on his career was a series of successes:

  • Midnight Express (1977) about prisons in Turkey; he won two Oscars.
  • Fame (1979)  a celebration of youth and the arts in New York which won two Academy Awards
  • Shoot the Moon (1981) his most personal film starring Diane Keaton and Albert Finney .
  • Pink Floyd – The Wall the film adaptation of the successful rock album.
  • Birdy (1984) based on the William Wharton novel, starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine,
  • Angel Heart (1986) starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet
  • Mississippi Burning (1988) about  Civil Rights starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe
  • Come See the Paradise, (1989) against the internment (imprigionamento9  of Japanese Americans during World War II, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita.
  • The Commitments (1990) a story of a young Irish working- class soul band
  • The Road to Wellville (1993) based on the novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, and starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and Dana Carvey.
  • Evita  (1996) based on the play by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce.
  • Angela’s Ashes (1999  based on the book by Frank McCourt, starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle.
  • The Life of David Gale (2003) a thriller set against the politics of capital punishment in the United States, starred Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney and was released in.

Alan Parker is also a novelist – Puddles In The Lane, (1977) and The Sucker’s Kiss (2003) – and a cartoonist  – Hares in the Gate, (1982), Making Movies, (1998) and Will Write and Direct for Food (2005) . In 1995 Parker was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the British film industry and he received a knighthood in 2002.