Joe Wright is an English filmmaker. The winner of the BAFTA Award for Pride and Prejudice has been honored with the Karl Foreman Most Promising Newcomer Award.
The renowned British director Joe Wright began his career with the pastoral film Pride and Prejudice. Behind him were Atonement, The Soloist, Anna Karenina, Peter Pan, and A Hard Time.
The beginning of film activity
The director's biography began in 1972. The future filmmaker was born on August 25 in London in a family of puppet theater owners. The boy later called his childhood magical. He grew up in a wonderful world of fairy tales and dolls. The child began to think about how films are shot from an early age. Wright was deeply impressed by Lynch's Great Expectations, films by Billy Wilder and films with Greta Garbo.
The future filmmaker stopped getting involved in classics by adolescence. Cinematography captured Joe completely at the age of 16. After watching "Blue Velvet", the guy established himself in the choice of future activities. He became interested in the drama club, British realism. In his subsequent works, the director strove to build bridges between theatrical and film art.
In 1997 and 1998 the first films were filmed under the titles "Crocodile Cotton" and "The End". In 2003, viewers saw the mini-series "The Last King". The telenovela shows the story of Charles II, his exile, triumphant return, attempts to return the former glory to the country and the monarch's love stories.
The film debut was successful. Joe presented the audience with the dramatic film Pride and Prejudice. The work was nominated for an Oscar in four nominations, two for the Golden Globe and six for BAFTA. Shortcomings in the recreation of a bygone era were noticed only by a few critics. They pointed out to the newcomer to simplify the customs and conventions accepted in the society of that time.
However, almost all censors noted that neither the characters nor the plot were modernized, and the audience's attention was successfully accentuated by individual comic episodes with refined irony.
Iconic films
In the film adaptation of the famous work by Jane Austen, the main character was played by Keira Knightley. The actress has become Wright's favorite performer. The audience, who had time to fall in love with the director's work, greeted his new film "Atonement" with approval. Released two years later, the picture was again adorned with the inimitable Knightley. In 2007, the director became the youngest director to have the honor of showing his film at the opening of the Venice Film Festival.
Based on the work of the same name by Ian McEwan, the film showed the power of real feeling and penetration of art that managed to defeat death. Wright never considered his work to be truly Hollywood projects. The drama "Soloist" is much closer to such works.
Joe's next brilliant work was the action movie Hannah. The project merged the quirkiness and fascination of the cinema attraction and the originality of the script. Having read it for the first time, the director fell under the charm of the main character, a naive, albeit rude girl Hannah.
For the most part, the action scenes of the action-packed thriller are executed in the form of meticulously worked out and very long shots. Such episodes became Wright's hobbyhorse. To work on the project, Joe specially invited Alexander Sokurov, the operator of the steadicam from the Russian Ark.
An excellent script was written for the next adaptation of Anna Karenina, the main role was offered to Keira Knightley. The film won the prestigious BAFTA and Oscar awards.
Film experiment
However, the director calls his fantasy work Peng: Journey to Neverland as the most striking experimental project. Wright admitted that he missed happy endings so much that he decided to stage a positive picture with an optimistic ending for a change.
The director decided to show what was happening on the screen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. As a result, the film turned out to be very bright and memorable. The famous story of the legendary hero was so changed that the audience saw an almost new story, transferred to a different era and in a completely unusual environment.
In 2017, the military-political drama "Hard Time" ("Dark Times") came out on tap. The film highlights the iconic events in the life of the legendary Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The tape also tells about key moments in the history of the last century.
A screening of a new film by the director "Woman in the Window" is scheduled for 2019. According to the synopsis published by the media, the main character, suffering from agorophobia, happened to see a crime committed in front of her eyes.
New plans
Work is underway on the adaptation of the work of the British writer Alex von Tunzelmann "Indian Summer". The action unfolds around the friendship of the last king of British India, Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina, with Jawaharlal Nehru. The Mountbatten couples travel together in the summer of 1947 across India, which will soon officially become an independent country. During their vacation in the mountains, the head of the new government comes to them.
William Nicholson is busy writing the script, Cate Blanchett was offered the main role, and it was decided to shoot the picture in India.
The director's personal life changed in 2007. On the set of Pride and Prejudice, the director met the actress Rosamund Pike. Joe became engaged to her, but in 2008 the couple broke up.
In 2010, Wright and sitarist Anushka Shankar officially became husband and wife. In 2011, the first child appeared in the family, the son of Zubin Shankar Wright. His younger brother Mohan Shankar Wright was born in 2015. The decision to break up was made by the spouses in 2018.
