There are few people in the British Film Industry as important as Alan Parker. For years he worked across genres and reinvigorated the British film industry at a time when it was in dire need of support.
Parker’s career began in cinema with the musical hit Bugsy Malone (1976), which famously made use of the gangster genre and portrayed all the same drama, but with an all-children cast, including Jodie Foster in starring roles. Malone proved successful enough being nominated for three Golden Globes and an Academy Award. The film itself went on to be a standard childhood viewing as well as an important school production in every county in the country.
Parker’s next film was a much darker change of pace, with Oliver Stone writing the screenplay based on William Hayes memoir Midnight Express (1978). The film follows Hayes, then a college student from America who is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and imprisoned. The film won rave reviews from critics for its compelling true story and proved successful at the awards. The film won two Academy Awards for Giorgio Moroder’s score and Oliver Stone’s Adapted Screenplay. It was further nominated for four awards including Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Supporting Actor for John Hurt and one for Parker’s direction.
Parker went back to more lighthearted fare with Fame (1980), a picture about people trying to make it in a performing arts school. The film was another success that helped cement Parker as both a maker of mainstream films and critically lauded works. At the Academy Awards, the title song and the score were both awarded with them going to Michael Gore, while the sound, screenplay, editing and Out Here on My Own all nominated further.
Next was the intimate family drama Shoot the Moon (1982), which saw a family on the brink of divorce and pondering of what that means for the children, the film was nominated for two Golden Globes, one for Albert Finney and one for Diane Keaton. That same year, Parker directed the musical art film Pink Floyd – The Wall, with animation by Gerald Scarfe. The influence and importance of the film taking an album and turning it into an artistic visual medium can be seen even today in something like Beyonce’s Black is King or Lemonade.
Afterwards Parker directed the box office disappointment Birdy (1984), initially Parker had believed that there was no way to adapt the book into a film but changed his mind, yet the film still proved hard to market and to get audiences to invest in. Three years later in 1987 Parker directed Angel Heart, an adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel with Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert De Niro; the supernatural horror proved popular, the fractured narrative influenced works like Christopher Nolan’s Memento.
The next year Parker directed Mississippi Burning based on the Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner murder investigation. Parker clashed with the screenwriter and did uncredited rewrites on the script but the film was a critical hit earning rave reviews along with an Academy Award for Peter Biziou’s cinematography. It was fritter nominated for Best Editing, Sound, Picture, Actor for Gene Hackman, Supporting Actress for Frances McDormand and Parker himself received his second nomination for Best Director.
His next film 19990’s Come See The Paradise was a commercial failure and on partially well received. The film which followed a romance between an Irish-American and a Japanese-American before and during World War II was deemed to be the most obvious example of an oscar bait film ever made though it failed to secure any. The next year he adapted the book The Commitments to critical success and strong Box Office. He directed the much forgotten The Road to Wellville (1994) before 1996, when he directed the most important film of his career.
Adapting Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice’s rock-musical biopic about the life of Eva Perron, Evita was the first modern musical. Controversially, Parker cast Madonna in the role of Eva, which immediately drew worries from many that her voice wasn’t strong enough. In the end, Lloyd Webber and Rice won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for their new song “You Must Love Me”, and Madonna won the Golden Globe.
At the Golden Globes, Parker and Antonio Banderas as Che were nominated, and the film also starred Jonathan Pryce as Juan Perron. Evita proved that there was still interest in the movie musical, and helped reinvigorate the genre before Chicago came along a few years later.
Parker also directed an adaptation of Angela’s Ashes, adapted from the memoir by Frank McCourt, which saw John Williams Oscar-nominated for his score. Parker’s final film was 2003’s death row drama The Life of David Gale starring Kevin Spacey. The film was derided for being overtly lecturing, and lacking narrative drive that could have helped bring it to the mainstream. Parker did not direct another film for the rest of his life, but even so, his works have remained crucial to the reinvigoration of musicals, as well as British cinema. His storytelling ability proved time and again he could make films in different genres. His legacy is well cemented.
Sir Alan Parker
1944 – 2020
