King Vidor

King Vidor is a Réalisateur American born the February 8th 1894 with Galveston with the Texas and deceased on November 1st 1982 with Paso Robles in California.

Scenario writer with the style epic and baroque, his achievements inspired several generations of scenario writer. Of David Lean to Michael Cimino, of Orson Welles with Martin Scorsese.

Career

King Vidor is the scenario writer of cinematographic frescos among most imposing of the 20th century. Its full and demiurgic vision of the world takes its full measure to the films epic in which he will become the specialist. Some examples: the Large Parade (1925) on the First World War, Crowd (1927) intimist but with the monumental vision, the Great Passage (1940) on the Indian wars, Year American Lovesong (1944) industrial epopee unfortunately amputated by the producers, Duel with the sun (1946), Western of Series B hypertrophied by D.O. Selznick and by the visual power of Vidor and finally Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1958) ultimate film of the scenario writer and formidable biblical Péplum.

One notes an expensive and epic adaptation of Guerre and peace of Tolstoï in 1956 and a fictionalized version of the life of Frank Lloyd Wright with the Rebel in 1949. This film lyric and blazing, based on the novel with success of Ayn Rand, is regarded as the chief of work of the Cinéaste.

Fascinated by the builders, the captains of industry, the war leaders, in short: the “ Bigger Than Life ”, it expressed also a deep intêret for the anonymities and forgotten large companies. Let us think of Crowd in 1928, Our bread daily in 1934 or Hallelujah in 1929, first film of Hollywood entirely interpreted by Blacks.

The melodrama celebrates the Champion in 1931, which told the friendship between a small child and an old man Boxeur missed, also belongs him to the humanistic vein and social of the scenario writer.

Private life

King Vidor Maria with three recoveries:
  • Florence Arto (1917-1924); a girl
  • Eleanor Boardman (1926-1931); two girls
  • Elizabeth Hill (1932-1982).

It devoted the 25 last years of its life to the Peinture.

Selective catalog of films

Anecdote

  • In 1900, the five years age, it survived large the Ouragan of Galveston which struck the Texas while making between 6 and 12.000 dead.

  • In spite of the fact that it is not credited with the generic (and that the scene failed to be crossed), it put in unforgettable scene one moment of the history of the American Cinéma: the sequence where Judy Garland sings the mythical song Over The Rainbow in the Magician of OZ of Victor Fleming in 1939.

  • one duration 140 minutes, an American lovesong, its fresco on the industry of the Acier (of a budget record of 3 million dollars) was cut down of more than one half hour because it was urgent to multiply the meetings. Crossed without the assistance of the scenario writer, the film was an immense failure and marked the end of collaboration between Vidor and MGM. When it evokes this failure in its memories, Vidor will seem strongly marked by this experiment.

  • Crowd (1928) is a single film in the history of Hollywood. The film told the life of an average American. It was out of the question for King Vidor to take a star of the time. He crossed one day, in front of an office of Casting, an individual interesting for the role. He caught up with it with difficulty in the street and asked him its name. While being engulfed in the car, it jetta “Murray, appearing” and disappeared. Vidor had hardly time to say to him “I am a director and I will have can be a work for you”. The man did not recall. Having forgotten the name, Vidor consulted lists it observers of the studio and recognized the name of Murray. When it tried to recontact it the man says to him that it did not have time to lose. Vidor had to propose money to him so that it moves for one return. When King Vidor required of James Murray why he did not answer these calls, that Ci answered: “I did not believe you… ”. James Murray will be engaged to play the main role of film.

  • King Vidor is in the book of the records for more the long career of director of cinema. Its first film goes back to 1913 with Ouragan on Galveston and its last of 1980: documentary the the Metaphor .

  • Charles Chaplin cut the hair itself, and King Vidor met it one evening in a park of New York. Charles Chaplin offering to him to cut the hair to him, it did not miss a similar occasion. Did a few months later, it go in the hairdresser and this last required of him, perplexed “Which cut you the hair the last time? ”, then he answered him “Charles Chaplin”, and the hairdresser was upset rétorquant: “When I put a serious question, I await a serious answer! ”.

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