Fred Zinneman

Fred Zinnemann (Vienna, April 29, 1907-London, March 14, 1997) was a famous Austrian film director who won four Oscars.

Biography

He was born into a Jewish family in Rzeszów, in the part of Poland that belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918. Growing up in Poland, he wanted to become a musician, although he later studied law in Vienna. While studying at the University of Vienna he worked as a camera operator. He later worked in Germany together with Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak, also beginners; the three of them took part in Los hombres del domingo (1929). He subsequently emigrated to the United States to study film.

Early American period

One of his first jobs in Hollywood would be as an extra in All Quiet Front (1930), although he would be fired from the production for criticizing the film's director, Lewis Milestone. Zinnemann based himself on realism to make his first fiction short Redes (1935), shot in Mexico and performed by non-professional actors. This would be one of the first examples of the realism that would triumph in Italy after the war.

After some success with different short films, he graduated in 1942, directing two B-movie thrillers, Eyes in the Night and Kid Glove Killer before turning to meet with his first hit The Seventh Cross (1944), starring Spencer Tracy. The film showed an anti-Nazi message, developing the story of seven men trying to escape from a German concentration camp and being harassed by the Gestapo.

After being fired from the filming of The Clock (1945) due to differences with the actress Judy Garland —the film would be finished by Vincente Minnelli—, he made the melodrama Little Mister Jim (1946) and the comedy My brother talk to horses (1947), which were the prelude to the title that made him a first-rate director, Lost Angels (1948), war drama with an almost documentary tone that served to discover Montgomery Clift. The director again chose authentic locations and extras from immediate post-war Berlin, rather than Hollywood sets.

In Men (1950), the director met for the first time with screenwriter Carl Foreman and producer Stanley Kramer, always interested in giving their work a perspective and social reflection. The film introduced one of the best actors of his generation, Marlon Brando, who played a paraplegic hero of World War II. With this title, for which Foreman was nominated for an Oscar, Zinnemann displayed his excellent knack for defining feelings and psychologies. True to his custom, he would film many scenes in a California hospital, alongside real patients as extras.

In 1951, he shot Teresa (1951), a drama with Pier Angeli and John Ericson, the director would win his first Oscar with the documentary Benjy (1951), a short narrated by Henry Fonda about a boy with serious physical problems from birth.

The Golden Age

In 1952 he produced perhaps his best-known work for Alone in the Face of Danger (1952). With a psychological and moral examination of a lawman, starring Gary Cooper, the political allegory is reminiscent of McCarthyism's witch hunt. It also highlights its innovative chronology in which the film lasts 80 minutes, exactly what the countdown lasts before the final duel.

The following year, Zinnemann was once again on everyone's lips with From Here to Eternity (1953), set in the days before the Japanese aircraft attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be one of the first leading roles of, until then, crooner Frank Sinatra, in addition to having an excellent cast with Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine and Deborah Kerr. From Here to Eternity would be a success at the box office, critics and also at the Oscars, the film being the big winner of the night, Fred Zinnemann achieving his first statuette as best director.

After this, other hits would come, such as the musical Oklahoma (1955), with Gloria Grahame, Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones in her film debut, A Hat Full of Rain (1957), a stupendous drama about a drug addict played by Don Murray, and A Nun's Story (1959), an adaptation of the novel by Kathryn C. Hulme starring Audrey Hepburn.

In 1966, he had a resounding success with A Man for All Seasons, a historical film written by Robert Bolt and starring Paul Scofield as Thomas More. The film managed to win the Oscar for best film of the year and Zinnemann won his second Oscar for best director.

Zinnemann goes into production

In the 1960s, he got into film production. His first feature film as a producer was Three Wandering Lives a drama set in Australia starring Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Peter Ustinov and, later, And the day of revenge arrived (1964), with Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, which narrates the life of the maquis exiled in France after the Spanish Civil War.

Latest works

In the 1970s he would premiere the political thriller Jackal (1973), based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth and starring Edward Fox, which centered its plot on a plot to end the life of Charles de Gaulle; and Julia (1977), in the context of World War II, narrated the experiences of the writer Lillian Hellman with her friend Julia, excellently interpreted by Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, who would win the Oscar for best supporting actress, like Jason Robards in the male category. The Austrian director would be nominated in the best director category, although the award would go to Woody Allen for Annie Hall.

The director would say goodbye to cinema with Five Days One Summer (1982), one of his less outstanding films, set in a love triangle set in the Alps in the 1930s. The film was played by Sean Connery, Betsy Brantley and Lambert Wilson. Away from the big screen, he would die at the age of 89 on March 14, 1997 of a heart attack in London, Great Britain.

Filmography

As director

• Eyes in the Night (1942)
• Kid Glove Killer (1942)
• The seventh cross (The Seventh Cross(1944)
• Little Mister Jim (1946)
• My brother talk to horses (1947)
• Act of violence (Act of Violence(1948)
• Lost angels (The Search(1948)
• Men (The Men) (1950)
• Teresa (Teresa(1951)
• The Member of the Wedding (1952)
• Only in the face of danger (High Noon(1952)
• From here to eternity (From Here to Eternity(1953)
• Oklahoma (Oklahoma!(1955)
• A hat full of rain (A Hatful of Rain(1957)
• History of a nun (The Nun’s Story(1959)
• Three wandering lives (The Sundowners(1960)
• And the day of vengeance came (Behold a Pale Horse(1964)
• A man for eternity (A Man for All Seasons(1966)
• Chacal (The Day of the Jackal(1973)
• Julia (Julia(1977)
• Five days a summer (Five Days One Summer(1982)

Awards and distinctions

Oscar Awards

Cannes International Film Festival

Venice International Film Festival

San Sebastian International Film Festival