Michael "Mike" Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is
an
English film director,
writer,
and
composer.
Personal life
Figgis was
born in Carlisle
, England
and grew up
in Africa. Figgis for several years
had a relationship with the actress
Saffron Burrows and cast her in several
films. He is cousin to Irish filmmakers
Jonathan Figgis and
Jason Figgis who run the award-winning film
production company
October
Eleven Pictures in Ireland. His sons Arlen Figgis and Louis
Figgis have also followed their father in to the film industry, as
editor and producer respectively.
Career
Figgis's early interest was in music and he played keyboards for
Bryan Ferry's first band. In 1983 he
directed a theatre play, produced in
Theatre Gerard-Philipe (Saint-Denis,
Paris, France). This play performed with great success at
Festival de Grenada and in
Theatre der Welt (Munich, Germany).
After working in theatre (he was a musician and performer in the
experimental group
People Show) he made
his feature film debut with the low budget
Stormy Monday in 1988.
The film earned him
attention as a director who could get interesting performances from
established Hollywood
actors. He initially made a splash in
America in the 1990s with the gritty thriller
Internal Affairs that helped to
revive the career of
Richard Gere. His
next Hollywood feature
Mr.
Jones was misunderstood by the studio who attempted to
market the downbeat story as a feelgood movie resulting in a box
office flop. Figgis poured his disenchantment with the film
industry into
Leaving Las
Vegas, creating star turns for
Nicolas Cage and
Elisabeth Shue which earned Figgis
Academy Award nominations for Best Directing
and Best Screenplay.His most ambitious film to date is the low
budget film
The Loss of
Sexual Innocence, a loosely based autiobiographical movie of
the director himself.
Forays into
digital video technology
led him to conceive of and direct
Timecode, which took advantage of the
technology to create an ensemble film shot simultaneously with four
cameras all in one take and also presented simultaneously and
uncut, dividing the screen into four quarters. Since then, his work
output has almost exclusively been on the cutting edge of creative
digital filmmaking, with the exception of star-laden
Cold Creek Manor. He returned to the
Timecode quad-screen approach for his section of
Ten Minutes Older, but
has also worked on documentary pieces including a segment of
The Blues (called Red, White,
and Blues) and a short piece on the
flamenco. His curiosity with the cinematic use of
time has led him to cite
Robert
Enrico's film version of
An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge as an influential film for him. Figgis has a
well-documented love-hate relationship with the Hollywood system
which leads him to often be an outspoken critic of the system while
also despairing the lack of a better alternative, in his mind, at
the moment. At an appearance at
Camerimage in 2005, he expressed the view that
filmmaking had become "boring and perhaps need[ed] to become even
worse before anything better can emerge" successfully at least in
reaction.
He was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers online
community
Shooting People. Adetailt
one of their events in 2005 he said that filmmaking with a small
digital camera made the experience more like painting or novel
writing than the movie industry. His fascination with camera
technology has also led him to create a camera stabilization rig
for smaller video cameras, called the
Fig
Rig which places the
camera on a platform
held within a
steering wheel-like
system and has since been released by
Manfrotto Group.
In 2007, Figgis shot his newest feature "Love Live Long" set
between Istanbul and Bratislava on the infamous Gumball 3000 Rally,
starring Sophie Winkleman and Daniel Lapaine.
In 2008, Figgis was called upon by
Transport for London to help shoot a
PIF entitled
A Little
Thought From Each of Us, A Big Difference For Everyone,
encouraging more considerate behaviour on London's public transport
systems, which was then shown in London cinemas. The ad comprised
the screen split into four sections, each section showing one of
four scenarios all on the same double-decker bus. At the end of the
ad, the friction-creating scenarios were resolved and the ad ended
on "A little thought from each of us. A big difference for
everyone."
According to recent rumours Figgis is currently working on an
experimental film called "Life Captured" with 21 talented
individuals from across the world.
From a press release: “It’s an honour to be working with a film
director of Mike’s calibre. ‘Life Captured’ will challenge the
boundaries of traditional photography, and showcase to the world an
emerging form of film-making using a mobile phone. The film is a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for aspiring film-makers,
photographers and visual artists to work with a world-renowned
director and have their work showcased to top industry
figures".
‘Life Captured’ will premiere at the 16th Raindance Film Festival
in London on the 2nd October 2008 and the five Outstanding
Achievers from ‘Life Captured’ with Sony Ericsson, selected from
the top 21 around the world, will be there to join in the
party.
Filmography
External links
(2001)
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search