Alan J. Pakula

{{short description|American film director, writer and producer (1928-1998)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Alan J. Pakula

| image = Alan J. Pakula.jpg

| caption = Pakula in 1990

| birth_name = Alan Jay Pakula

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1928|4|7}}

| birth_place = The Bronx, New York City, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1998|11|19|1928|4|7}}

| death_place = Melville, New York, U.S.

| years_active = 1957–1998

| notable works = {{plainlist|

}}

| alma_mater = Yale University

| occupation = Film director, screenwriter, producer

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Hope Lange|1963|1971|end=divorced}}
{{marriage|Hannah Cohn Boorstin|1973}}

}}

Alan Jay Pakula ({{IPAc-en|p|ə|ˈ|k|uː|l|ə}}; April 7, 1928 – November 19, 1998) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Associated with the New Hollywood movement,{{Cite web |title=Alan J. Pakula: An American Cinematheque Retrospective |url=https://www.americancinematheque.com/series/alan-j-pakula-an-american-cinematheque-retrospective/ |access-date=2024-06-22 |website=American Cinematheque |language=en-US}} his best-known works include his critically acclaimed "paranoia trilogy": the neo-noir mystery Klute (1971), the conspiracy thriller The Parallax View (1974), and the Watergate scandal drama All the President's Men (1976). His other notable films included Comes a Horseman (1978), Starting Over (1979), Sophie's Choice (1982), Presumed Innocent (1990), and The Pelican Brief (1993).

Pakula received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for All the President's Men and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice. He was also nominated for Best Picture for producing To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Additionally, he was a BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Directors Guild of America Award nominee.

Pakula's films often dealt with psychological and political themes. His New York Times obituary stated Pakula made "different kinds of movies, all of them intended to entertain, but the thread connecting many of them was a style that emphasized and explored the psychology and motivations of his characters."{{Cite news |last=Sterngold |first=James |date=1998-11-20 |title=Alan J. Pakula, Film Director, Dies at 70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/20/movies/alan-j-pakula-film-director-dies-at-70.html |access-date=2024-06-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} He was the subject of the 2023 documentary Alan Pakula: Going for Truth.{{Cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Lisa |date=2023-04-06 |title='Alan Pakula: Going for Truth' Review: A Hollywood Memorial for a Friend |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/movies/alan-pakula-going-for-truth-review.html |access-date=2023-09-15 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

Early life and education

Pakula was born in The Bronx, New York, to Polish Jewish parents, Jeanette (née Goldstein) and Paul Pakula. He was educated at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and Yale University, where he majored in drama.

Career

Pakula started his Hollywood career as an assistant in the cartoon department at Warner Bros. In 1957, he undertook his first production role for Paramount Pictures. In 1962, he produced To Kill a Mockingbird,{{cite book|title=501 Movie Directors|editor-first=Steven Jay|editor-last=Schneider|publisher=Cassell Illustrated|location=London|year=2007|page=311|isbn=9781844035731|oclc=1347156402}} for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Pakula had a successful professional relationship as the producer of movies directed by Mockingbird director Robert Mulligan from 1957 to 1968. In 1969, he directed his first feature, The Sterile Cuckoo, starring Liza Minnelli.{{cite web|work=The New York Times|title=The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) Screen: 'The Sterile Cuckoo,' Old-Style TV Drama|author-link=Vincent Canby|first=Vincent|last=Canby|date=October 23, 1969|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9505E1D9163AE433A25750C2A9669D946891D6CF}}

= Paranoia trilogy =

In 1971, Pakula released the first installment of what would informally come to be known as his "paranoia trilogy."{{cite book |last1=Pratt |first1=Ray |title=Projecting Paranoia: Conspiratorial Visions in American Film |date=2001 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |location=Lawrence |isbn=9780700611485 |page=131 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KWdZAAAAMAAJ&dq=pakula+%22paranoia+trilogy%22&pg=PA131 |access-date=2025-01-11}}Karen Gai Dean, "Pakula, Alan J.", in {{cite book |editor1-last=Knight |editor1-first=Peter |title=Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia |date=2003 |publisher=Bloomsbury |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |isbn=9781576078136 |page=571 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=okTPEAAAQBAJ&dq=pakula+%22paranoia+trilogy%22&pg=PA571 |access-date=2025-01-11}}{{cite magazine |last1=Aquilina |first1=Tyler |title=All the Way to the Top: Why a trilogy of 1970s paranoid thrillers still resonates 50 years later |url=https://ew.com/movies/why-1970s-paranoia-trilogy-still-resonates-50-years-later/ |access-date=2025-01-11 |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=27 June 2021}} Klute, the story of a relationship between a private eye (played by Donald Sutherland) and a call girl (played by Jane Fonda, who won an Oscar for her performance), was a commercial and critical success. This was followed in 1974 by The Parallax View starring Warren Beatty, a labyrinthine post-Watergate thriller involving political assassinations. The film has been noted for its experimental use of hypnotic imagery in a celebrated film-within-a-film sequence in which the protagonist is inducted into the Parallax Corporation, whose main, although secret, enterprise is domestic terrorism.

Finally, in 1976, Pakula rounded out the "trilogy" with All the President's Men, based on the bestselling account of the Watergate scandal written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively. It was another commercial hit, considered by many critics and fans to be one of the best thrillers of the 1970s.{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/all_the_presidents_men/ |title=All the President's Men Movie Reviews, Pictures |website=Rotten Tomatoes |date=January 1976 |access-date=November 8, 2013}}

= Subsequent films =

Pakula scored another hit in 1982 with Sophie's Choice, starring Meryl Streep. His screenplay, based on the novel by William Styron, was nominated for an Academy Award. Later commercial successes included Presumed Innocent, based on the bestselling novel by Scott Turow, and The Pelican Brief, an adaptation of John Grisham's bestseller. His final film was the thriller The Devil's Own, where he reunited with Harrison Ford.

Personal life

From October 19, 1963, until 1971, Pakula was married to actress Hope Lange. He was married to his second wife, author Hannah Pakula (formerly Hannah Cohn Boorstin) from 1973 until his death in 1998.{{Cite news |last=Sterngold |first=James |date=1998-11-20 |title=Alan J. Pakula, Film Director, Dies at 70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/20/movies/alan-j-pakula-film-director-dies-at-70.html |access-date=2024-01-28 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

He had two stepchildren from his marriage with Hope Lange, Christopher and Patricia Murray, and three stepchildren from his second marriage. They are Louis, Robert, and Anna Boorstin. He spoke very openly about his stepson Robert's battle with depression.{{Cite news |last=Bumiller |first=Elisabeth |date=1998-05-13 |title=PUBLIC LIVES; A Filmmaker's Family Faces Mental Illness |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/13/nyregion/public-lives-a-filmmaker-s-family-faces-mental-illness.html |access-date=2024-01-28 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

=Death=

On November 19, 1998, Pakula was driving on the Long Island Expressway in Melville, New York, when a driver in front of him hit a metal pipe, causing it to crash through Pakula’s windshield and strike him in the head. His car swerved off the road and into a fence. He was taken to North Shore University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/20/movies/alan-j-pakula-film-director-dies-at-70.html|title=Alan J. Pakula, Film Director, Dies at 70|last=Sterngold|first=James|date=November 20, 1998|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=March 17, 2009}}

Filmography

class="wikitable sortable"

style="background:#b0c4de; text-align:center;"

!Year

!Title

!Director

!Producer

!Writer

1969

|The Sterile Cuckoo

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1971

|Klute

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1973

|Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1974

|The Parallax View

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1976

|All the President's Men

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1978

|Comes a Horseman

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1979

|Starting Over

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1981

|Rollover

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1982

|Sophie's Choice

|{{yes}}

1986

|Dream Lover

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1987

|Orphans

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1989

|See You in the Morning

|{{yes}}

1990

| Presumed Innocent

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

|{{yes}}

1992

|Consenting Adults

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

1993

|The Pelican Brief

|{{yes}}

1997

|The Devil's Own

|{{yes}}

|{{no}}

class="wikitable sortable"

|+Producer only

!Year

!Title

!Director

1957

|Fear Strikes Out

| rowspan="7" |Robert Mulligan

1962

|To Kill a Mockingbird

1963

|Love with the Proper Stranger

rowspan="2" |1965

|Baby the Rain Must Fall

Inside Daisy Clover

1967

|Up the Down Staircase

1968

|The Stalking Moon

References

External links

{{IMDb name|1587}}
{{Find a Grave|4058}}
[http://catalog.oscars.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=68160 Alan J. Pakula papers.] Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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Category:1928 births

Category:1998 deaths

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:20th-century American businesspeople

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American screenwriters

Category:American male screenwriters

Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent