TSPDT - John Sayles

John Sayles

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Robert Altman

Allison Anders

Roger Corman

Lawrence Kasdan

Ang Lee

Spike Lee

Ken Loach

Louis Malle

Arthur Penn

Martin Ritt

Tim Robbins

Nancy Savoca

Director / Screenwriter / Editor / Actor

1950 -

Born September 28, Schenectady, New York, USA

Key Production Country: USA

Key Genres: Drama, Ensemble Film, Social Problem Film, Americana, Psychological Drama, Comedy Drama

Key Collaborators: Mason Daring (Composer), Maggie Renzi (Producer), David Strathairn (Character Player), Chris Cooper (Leading Player), Haskell Wexler (Cinematographer), Gordon Clapp (Character Player), Sarah Green (Producer), Dan Bishop (Production Designer), Clifton James (Character Player), Kris Kristofferson (Character Player)

Highly Recommended: Lone Star (1995), Sunshine State (2002)

Recommended: Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Passion Fish (1992), Limbo (1999)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ TCMDB ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ John Sayles Retro ] [ Spliced Wire Interview (2002) ] [ Bright Lights Film Journal Article ] [ DGA Interview ] [ Borders and Boundaries: An Interview with John Sayles (1996) ] [ Guardian Interview (2005) ] [ Wired for Books: Audio Interview with John Sayles (1991) ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Mother Jones Article (1996) ] [ Filmmaker Article (2007) ] [ GreenCine Interview (2007) ]

Books: [ Sayles on Sayles ] [ Thinking in Pictures: The Making of the Movie Matewan ] [ John Sayles: Interviews ] [ The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories ] [ John Sayles: An Unauthorized Biography of the Pioneer Indy Filmmaker ] [ Sayles Talk: New Perspectives on Independent Filmmaker John Sayles ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Lone Star (1995)


	"John Sayles, prolific writer, actor and producer, has retained a reputation as a truly inventive and versatile independent Hollywood director for the past twenty years...For the most part his films are allegorical in content, socialist in perspective, and generally focus on communities under threat from the external and internal forces of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy." - Peter Homden & Ian Haydn Smith (Contemporary North American Film Directors, 2002)

	"The sheer variety of Sayles' material, and his ability to mould it to a private vision of American history, confirm him as an unusually ambitious writer-director whose work admirably defies categorisation." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)

	"No other American director has so successfully straddled both Hollywood and independent filmmaking as John Sayles. While his fellow independents have tended to restrict themselves either in terms of audience (Jim Jarmusch, Henry Jaglom) or creative scope (Woody Allen), Sayles has continued to make highly individual, idiosyncratic films of increasingly ambitious range, aimed firmly at a mainstream audience, without compromising his own subversive outlook." - Philip Kemp (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)

	"In a movie you have all these logistical problems; all these practical problems. But you're also going to have people come who can do things that you can't do, and you get to direct their talents." - John Sayles