Happy 70th Birthday, John Sayles! Born today in 1950 as John Thomas Sayles, this American his American novelist, editor, screenwriter, actor and independent film director who, since the 1980s, has been among the most prominent independent filmmakers in the United States.
A bright child, Sayles began reading novels before age nine. A Williams grad in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs, moving to east Boston to take a factory job.
While there, he wrote stories and submitted them to various magazines, and the Atlantic Monthly gave him the idea of publishing them in a novel--thus "Pride of the Bimbos" (1975) was born.
By the time being an independent filmmaker was the hip new thing, Sayles already had an exemplary body of work that demonstrated the artistic freedom he sought to achieve by making a living as a script doctor-for-hire and using the money to finance his personal projects.
After making his start as an actor and published author, John Sayles first entered filmmaking as a prolific screenwriter.
This was for American director, actor, and low-budget producer Roger Corman ('The Masque of the Red Death').
Like Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, Sayles began his career working with "The Pope of Pop Cinema".
After the box office success of Steven Spielberg's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (1977), he wrote up a treatment for a sequel he titled Watch the Night Skies. This was a reference to the final line spoken in 'The Thing from Another World' (1951),
Spielberg wanted to produce the film but not write or direct, and he ended up hiring the twenty-year-old Sayles to flesh out a treatment and turn it into a script.
It was while filming 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981) that Spielberg had a complete change of heart about the entire feature, feeling a strongly desire to get back the "spirituality" of 'Close Encounters', rather than make a horror film about vicious alien monsters.
His feelings only became stronger when Melissa Matheson–soon-to-be wife of Harrison Ford–read the screenplay for Night Skies and found herself incredibly drawn to the sub-plot of an alien named Buddy developing a relationship with a young boy.
It was at that moment that Spielberg decided that specific story into a movie, rather than the whole of Night Skies.
In the late 1970s, Sayles used $30,000 he earned writing scripts for Corman to fund his first film. This was the 1979 American drama/comedy-drama film 'Return of the Secaucus 7'.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Sayles wrote the screenplays for 'Piranha' (1978), 'Alligator' (1980), 'The Howling' (1981), and John Frankenheimer's ('The Manchurian Candidate', 'Seconds') 'The Challenge' (1982).
Two years later, Sayles wrote and directed the low-budget 1984 American sci-fi/comedy film 'The Brother from Another Planet'. Sayles appeared as Man in Black #1.
Also in the early 1980s, after writing and directing the 1983 American film romantic comedy film 'Baby It's You' (starring American actress, film director and film producer Rosanna Arquette), Sayles received a MacArthur Fellowship.
In the early 1990s, Sayles acted in Dante's film 1993 American black and white/color period comedy/parody film 'Matinee'. Sayles had previous worked with on Dante's previous films 'Piranha and 'The Howling'.
Sayles got the rest of his funding by working as a script doctor; he rewrote for Ron Howard's 'Apollo 13' (1995) and Guillermo del Toro's 'Mimic' (1997).
Sayles had also acted, written and directed his own films throughout the late 1980s to the mid-to-late 1990s. Of these, Sayles is best known for writing and directing the 1996 American neo-Western mystery film 'Lone Star'.
In the Texas border town of Frontera, Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) digs up the past when he finds an old skull in the desert.
As he traces the murder of Sheriff Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson) forty years earlier, Deeds' investigation points toward his late father, the much-loved Deputy Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey).
Ignoring warnings not to delve any deeper, Sam rekindles a romance with his high school sweetheart Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Peña) while bringing up old tensions in the town and exposing secrets long put to rest.
Filmed on location along the Rio Grande in southern and southwestern Texas, 'Lone Star' received near-universal critical acclaim, with critics regarding it as a high point of 1990s independent cinema as well as Sayles' best work.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, and also appeared on the ballot for the AFI's 10 Top 10 in the western category. 'Lone Star' was a box office success, grossing $13 million against its $3 million budget.
In 1997, 'Return of the Seacaucus 7' was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for its historic merits.
In the mid-2010s, Spielberg had commissioned Sayles to write a script (unused) for the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park series with 'Jurassic World' (2015).
According to his personal life, Sayles currently serves on the advisory board for the Austin Film Society.
Sayles is a great admirer of Akira Kurosawa and borrowed the basic plot of "Battle beyond the Stars" from 'The Seven Samurai'.
Sayles has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. These included 'Return of the Secaucus Seven' (1979) and 'Malcolm X' (1992).
In the 2008 Empire Magazine movie poll, Sayles listed his ten favorite films.
These included 'Yojimbo' (1961), 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' (1948), 'Two Women' (1960), 'The Organizer' (1963), 'The Spirit of the Beehive' (1973), 'Seven Samurai' (1954), 'Sawdust and Tinsel' (1953), 'Raging Bull' (1980), 'The Wages of Fear' (1953), and 'Port of Shadows' (1938).
One of America's preeminent and best-respected independent filmmakers, Sayles has established a reputation for refusing to abandon his values in favor of becoming a studio filmmaker.
As a result, his films tend to be rich, nuanced explorations of personal and political relationships, a style that reflects Sayles' beginnings as a novelist.
Sayles' interest in storytelling began at an early age: before the age of nine, he was an avid novel reader.
Sayles once admitted, "My main interest is making films about people...I'm not interested in cinematic art."
Parlaying his fees as a screenwriter of mainstream Hollywood films into funding for his own ambitious filmmaking projects, Sayles has created an oeuvre in which the personal and the political intersect at the heart of the American experience.
Sayles has been active from 1978–present.
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