Arthur Hiller Penn (born September 27, 1922) is an
American
film director and
producer with a hefty background as a theatre
director as well. Although best known as the director of
Bonnie and Clyde
(1967), Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work though the
1960s and 1970s, keenly focusing on themes relevant to the
times.
Life and career
Penn was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sonia (née
Greenberg), a nurse, and Harry Penn, a watchmaker. After making a
name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn
made his feature debut with a
Western,
The Left Handed Gun (1958). A
re-telling of the
Billy the Kid
legend, it was notable for its sharp portrayal of the outlaw
(played by
Paul Newman) as a
psychologically troubled youth (the role was originally intended
for the archetypal troubled teen
James
Dean).
Penn’s next film was
The Miracle
Worker (1962), the story of
Anne
Sullivan's struggle to teach the blind and deaf
Helen Keller how to communicate. It garnered
two Academy Awards for its leads
Anne
Bancroft and
Patty Duke . Penn had
directed the stage production, written by
William Gibson, also starring Bancroft and
Duke, and he had directed Bancroft's Broadway debut in playwright
Gibson's first Broadway production,
Two for the Seesaw.
In 1965 Penn directed
Mickey
One. Heavily influenced by the
French New Wave, it was the dream-like story
of a stand-up comedian (played by
Warren
Beatty) on the run from sinister ambiguous forces. Ambitious,
startlingly shot and elliptically edited, it baffled critics and
audiences alike. It may be worth noting that
Mickey One’s
atmosphere of sweaty paranoia foreshadows some of the conspiracy
thrillers of the 70’s- not least Warren Beatty’s later
Parallax View. (Penn himself later
contributed to the genre with
Night Moves.)
Penn’s next film was
The
Chase (1966) a thriller following events in a small
corrupt Southern town on the day an escaped convict returns (played
by
Robert Redford). Although not a
major success,
The Chase nonetheless caught the mood of
the turbulent times, a ‘state of the nation’ tale of racism,
corruption and the violence endemic in American society. The film
is also notable for an extended brutally violent scene where
Marlon Brando’s sheriff is beaten to a
bloody pulp.
Re-uniting with Warren Beatty for the rural gangster film
Bonnie and Clyde
(1967), Penn once again showed that he had his finger on the pulse
of the
zeitgeist, perfectly catching the
youthful disenchantment of the late '60s. Although depression-set,
it was very much in the spirit of the
counter-culture.
Bonnie and
Clyde went on to become a worldwide phenomenon, at the same
time (along with Peckinpah’s
The Wild
Bunch two years later) pushing the limits of acceptable
screen violence with its bloody machine-gun climax.
Once again the film drew strong influence from the French New Wave
and itself went on to make a huge impression on a younger
generation of film-makers. Indeed there was a strong resurgence in
the “love on the run” sub-genre in the wake of
Bonnie and
Clyde, most notably
Badlands (1973) (where Penn received
acknowledgement in the credits).
Next came
Alice's
Restaurant (1969), based on one of
Arlo Guthrie’s songs, a satirical account
1960’s counter culture. His next film after this was a return to
the western,
Little Big Man
(1970), a shaggy dog account of one man's life (played by
Dustin Hoffman), a white man adopted into
Native (Cheyenne) society.
In 1973 Penn provided a segment for the Olympic film
Visions of Eight along with several
other major directors such as
John
Schlesinger and
Miloš Forman.
The director’s next film was a paranoid L.A.-set thriller,
Night Moves (1975)
about a private detective (played by
Gene
Hackman) on the trail of a runaway.
Next came another comic western which reunited him with Marlon
Brando,
The Missouri
Breaks (1976), a ramshackle, eccentric story of a horse
thief (
Jack Nicholson) facing off
with an eccentric bounty hunter (Brando).
Four Friends (1981) was
a traumatic look back at the '60s, returning to the old themes of
Vietnam, civil rights, sexual politics, and drugs. Penn’s career
subsequently lost its momentum:
Target (1985) was a mainstream
thriller reuniting the director with Gene Hackman.
Dead of Winter (1987) was a
horror/thriller in the vein of
Alfred
Hitchcock.
Since then Penn has returned to work in television, including an
executive producer role for the crime series
Law & Order.
Throughout
the years, Penn has maintained an affiliation with Yale University
, occasionally teaching classes there.
In July 2009, Penn was hospitalized with
pneumonia but was "expected to make a full
recovery".
Work
Filmography
Stage
See also
References
External links
Wikis
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