by Nathaniel R
Joel Schumacher and the star he made, Colin FarrellI once walked across the street in the East Village with Joel Schumacher. I didn't say anything though I immediately recognized him; as directors go he was hard to miss -- very tall with long silver hair. Anything I might have wanted to say would surely have been too belabored in a street crossing. "I love your work," is rote and in this case untrue though I loved some of his work enthusiastically in a formative (St Elmo's Fire) or camp (Batman & Robin) or moment-in-time (Flatliners, Tigerland).
Sometimes I loved his work in all of those ways at once -- Love you, Lost Boys!
It's been curious to see so much appreciation spring up on the internet today, particularly because Schumacher was never a director to inspire reverence in the masses though he made several popular pictures...
on the set of Batman & Robin
on the set of The Lost Boys
on the set of Dying Young
His aesthetic was often too kitsch or fun or, okay, GAY, for the kind of critical praise that more sober directors with prestige ambitions collect.
The openly gay directors broke into the movies as a costume director on famous pictures like Sleeper, Interiors, and The Last of Sheila and as a screenwriter of musicals (Sparkle, Car Wash, The Wiz) in the 1970s. But it's as a director beginning with 1981's Lily Tomlin vehicle The Incredible Shrinking Woman through to 2011's misbegotten Trespass starring Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman that he found fame and fortune. The director made 23 films in his 80 years and among his accomplishments that he'll be remembered for, he...
- gave Matthew McConaughey (A Time to Kill), Colin Farrell (Tigerland) and Mare Winningham (St Elmo's Fire) their breakout roles.
- was the very first director to cast Shea Wigham (Tigerland), Octavia Spencer (A Time to Kill), Daniel Sunjata (Bad Company), Hope Davis (Flatliners), Brad Renfro (The Client) and Phillip Ettinger (Twelve) who all went on to prove he had a greateye for fresh talent.
- directed Susan Sarandon to an Oscar nomination (The Client).
- nurtured Julia Roberts and Colin Farrell in their earliest years of stardom with two of their first leading roles.
- ...and, yes, put nipples on Batman.
That's a good legacy. Rest in peace.