Guy Maddin, OM (born February
28, 1956) is a Canadian
screenwriter and director of both features
and short films from Winnipeg
, Manitoba
. His
most distinctive quality is his penchant for recreating the look
and style of
silent or
early sound era films which has solidified his
popularity and acclaim in alternative film circles.
Career
While
Maddin strives to recreate the styles and moods of early film
melodramas, Weimar
Republic
German silent films, and 1920s Soviet
agit-prop, his own personal style lies in his use
of clichés, psychosexual situations, bizarre stories and
humor. Reminiscent of the early work of American director
David Lynch, it is this self-conscious
and surreal merging of early film-making techniques with a
post-modern sensibility that give Maddin's films
a style referred to as "Ultra-Conformist" or "Anti-Progressive".
Assistance from provincial and national Arts Councils as well as
the Winnipeg Film Group aid in Maddin's pursuit in the making of
his films.
His film
education came not with any formal training at a trade school, or
his experiences at the University of Winnipeg
, but with endless weekends of watching films with
close friends John Paizs and Steve
Snyder. Soon realizing that Paizs was making and
performing in his own post-modern films and Snyder was teaching
production at the University of Manitoba
, Maddin eventually gave up an unsatisfying day-job
as a bank-teller and decided that he needed to put his own
knowledge to work and step behind the camera, in his case the
popular Bolex hand-wound 16mm
camera.
Maddin's first film was the Winnipeg Film Group assisted 1986 16mm
short film The Dead Father. His
first 16mm
feature film was
Tales from the Gimli
Hospital.
In 2007, Maddin became the first artist-curator of the
UCLA Film and Television
Archive. In this position, he performs the programming for
their new "Curated by..." series.
As of fall
2007, Maddin will be teaching film at the University of
Manitoba. Also in 2007, Maddin's film My Winnipeg won the Best Canadian Feature
award at the Toronto International Film
Festival
. The haunting track used in the film is
"Wonderful Winnipeg" by "The Swinging Strings" (vocal by Jim
Wheeler) issued in 1967 on the Eagle Records label of Winnipeg.
Super Oldies (www.superoldies.com) is issuing the track on an Eagle
Records compilation CD in 2008.
Maddin's
films are often set in his home town of Winnipeg and are
usually set in abstract 20th century historical periods.
Themes in Maddin's films frequently include
unrequited love,
murder,
Soviet Russia,
homoeroticism,
incest,
dismemberment
and the workings of human impulse and
subconscious.
Feature films
Short films
- Night Mayor (2009)
- Send Her to the Electric Chair (2009)
- Glorious (2009)
- Spanky: To the Pier and Back (2008)
- Odin's Shield Maiden (2007)
- Nude Caboose (2006)
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2006, A portrait of Roberto Rossellini, where he is depicted
as a giant pillow tummy. Starring his daughter Isabella Rossellini
- Sissy Boy Slap Party (II) (2004)
- Sombra Dolorosa (2004)
- A Trip to the Orphanage (2004)
- Fancy, Fancy Being Rich (2002)
- The Heart of the
World (2000)
- Fleshpots of Antiquity (2000)
- Hospital Fragment (1999)
- Maldoror: Tygers (1998)
- The Cock Crew or Love-Chaunt of the Chimney
(1998)
- The Hoyden or Idylls of Womanhood (1998)
- Imperial Orgies or The Rabbi of Bacharach
(1996)
- The Hands of Ida (1995)
- Sissy Boy Slap Party or The Coming Terror
(1995)
- Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a
Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1995, Toronto
International Film Festival award winner)
- Sea Beggars or The Weaker Sex (1994)
- The Pomps of Satan (1993)
- Indigo High-Hatters (1991)
- Tyro (1990)
- BBB (1989)
- Mauve Decade (1989)
- The Dead Father (1986)
References
- Series Details
External links
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