Sir Alan Parker
For Choice Brits Alan Parker introduces Girl With A Pearl Earring
"When I was a little lad in Islington, I never ever dreamed for an instant that I'd be a Knight, or that I would achieve what I've managed so far, it was beyond my personal wildest dreams........"
Sir Alan Parker wrote and directed his first film Bugsy Malone in 1975. The film received eight British Academy Award nominations and scooped five Awards. He followed this with the controversial Midnight Express (1977) which won two Oscars® and six Oscar® nominations, including one for Parker as Best Director. The film also collected six Golden Globe Awards and four BAFTAs. His follow-up was Fame in 1979, a celebration of youth and the arts, which won two Oscars®, six nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and was later adapted into a hugely successful television series. In 1981, Parker directed Shoot The Moon starring Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, and Pink Floyd The Wall, the feature film adaptation of the successful rock album, which has become a classic of its genre.
In 1984, Parker tackled Birdy, starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine, which took the Grand Prix Special Du Jury at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. From there he wrote and directed Angel Heart, in 1986 starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet. In 1988 his Civil Rights drama, Mississippi Burning, which he directed and which starred Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, was nominated for seven American Academy Awards. Parker was also awarded the D.W. Griffith Award by the National Board of Review for his achievement in directing. Mississippi Burning was nominated for five BAFTAs, winning three. It also won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The following year, Parker wrote and directed Come See The Paradise, a love story set against the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita.
Returning to music for The Commitments in 1990, Parker’s picture of a young Irish working-class soul band was awarded a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Picture, as well as BAFTAs for Editing, Screenplay, Director and Best Picture. Three years later, Parker wrote and directed The Road To Wellville, starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and Dana Carvey.
In 1996, Parker directed, wrote and produced Evita, based on the successful stage show by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. The film won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture. Angela's Ashes, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir by Frank McCourt, was written and directed by Parker in 1999, and starred Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle. His most recent feature, released in Spring 2003, was The Life Of David Gale and starred Kate Winslet and Kevin Spacey.
Alongside his illustrious film career, Alan Parker is also a novelist and author of the best-selling book written from his own screenplay of Bugsy Malone, and Puddles In The Lane, which was published in 1977. A compendium of his satirical cartoons, Hares In The Gate, was published in 1982. A founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain, Parker has lectured at film schools around the world. In 1985 he was honored by the British Academy with the prestigious Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema, and in November 1995 Parker was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the British film industry. During the filming of Angela's Ashes Parker was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of Great Britain. In January 1998, Parker took up his post as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute, a position he relinquished in August 1999 as he was appointed first Chairman of the newly-formed UK Film Council.
