Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann (
April 29,
1907–
March 14,
1997) was a noted
film director. He was born to a
Jewish family in
Vienna,
Austria, and died of a
heart attack in
London,
England. While growing up in Austria, he wanted to become a musician, then studied law. He was drawn to films, while studying at the
University of Vienna, and eventually became a
cameraman. He worked in Germany with several other tyros (
Billy Wilder and
Robert Siodmak also worked with him on the
1929 feature
People on Sunday) before coming to America to study film.
One of his first assignments in
Hollywood was when he found work as an
extra in
All Quiet on the Western Front (
1930), although he was fired from the production for talking back to the
director,
Lewis Milestone. After some success with short films, he graduated to features in
1942, turning out two crisp B mysteries,
Eyes in the Night and
Kid Glove Killer before getting his big break with
The Seventh Cross (
1944), a top-notch A picture starring
Spencer Tracy, and his first hit.
He directed many different film genres including
thrillers,
westerns,
film noir, and
play adaptations. Nineteen actors appearing in Zinnemann's films received
Academy Award nominations for their performances: among that number are
Frank Sinatra,
Audrey Hepburn,
Glynis Johns,
Paul Scofield,
Robert Shaw,
Wendy Hiller,
Jason Robards,
Vanessa Redgrave,
Jane Fonda,
Gary Cooper and
Maximilian Schell. Zinnemann's 1950 film
The Men is noted for giving
Marlon Brando his first screen role.
Zinnemann enjoyed an outstanding career spanning six decades, during which he directed 22 features, 19 short subjects and won four Oscars. Perhaps his best-known work is
High Noon (
1952), one of the first 25 American film classics chosen in
1989 for the
National Film Registry. With its psychological and moral examinations of its lawman hero, played by Gary Cooper, its allegorical political commentary (on
McCarthy-era
witch-hunting) and its innovative chronology whereby screen time approximated the tense 80-minute countdown to the confrontational hour,
High Noon shattered the mould of the formulaic shoot-‘em-up western.
The director's other eminent films, all compelling dramas of lone and principled individuals tested by tragic events, include
From Here to Eternity (
1953);
The Nun's Story (
1959);
A Man For All Seasons (
1966); and
Julia (
1977). Regarded as a consummate craftsman, Zinnemann traditionally endowed his work with meticulous attention to detail, an intuitive gift for brilliant casting and a preoccupation with the moral dilemmas of his characters.
Zinnemann's penchant for realism and authenticity is evident in his first feature
The Wave (
1935), shot on location in Mexico with mostly non-professional actors recruited among the locals, which is one of the earliest examples of realism in narrative film. Earlier in the decade, in fact, Zinnemann had worked with documentarian
Robert Flaherty, an association he considered "the most important event of my professional life".
His adaptation of
The Seventh Cross, though filmed entirely on the MGM
backlot, captured the essence of the
Anna Seghers novel by realistic use of refugee German actors in even the smallest roles.
The filmmaker also used authentic
locales and extras in
The Search (
1948), which won an Oscar for screenwriting and secured his position in the Hollywood establishment, a vivid drama of
World War II aftermath in
Berlin that drew on Zinnemann's skills as both documentarian and
dramatist. Shot in war-ravaged Germany, the film stars
Montgomery Clift in his screen debut as a GI who cares for a lost Czech boy traumatised by the war. In the critically acclaimed
The Men (
1950), starring newcomer Marlon Brando as a
paraplegic war veteran, Zinnemann filmed many scenes in a California hospital where real patients served as extras.
Besides Clift and Brando, other Zinnemann discoveries included
Pier Angeli and
John Ericson, who co-starred in
Teresa (
1951), with
Rod Steiger and
Ralph Meeker debuting in secondary roles. And in
Oklahoma! (
1955), Zinnemann's version of the
Rodgers and
Hammerstein musical, the wide screen format
Todd-AO made its debut, as did the film's young star
Shirley Jones.
Zinnemann's casting choices were often as daring as they were judicious. For his screen adaptation of the play
The Member of the Wedding (
1952), Zinnemann chose the 26-year-old
Julie Harris as the film's 12-year-old
protagonist, although she had created the role on Broadway just as the two other leading actors,
Ethel Waters and
Brandon De Wilde, had. In
From Here to Eternity (1953), he cast
Frank Sinatra, who was at the lowest point of his popularity. As the likable loser Maggio, Sinatra won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
From Here to Eternity also featured
Deborah Kerr, best known for prim and proper roles, as a philandering Army wife. And
Audrey Hepburn, previously cast in delightful comedic roles, gave the performance of her career as the anguished Sister Luke in the highly acclaimed
The Nun's Story.
Throughout his career Zinnemann favoured a protagonist morally impelled to act heroically in defence of his or her beliefs. Hepburn in
The Nun's Story and Cooper in
High Noon, determined to confront savage outlaws hungry for revenge, are two other prominent examples.
Paul Scofield as
Sir Thomas More in
A Man For All Seasons (1966) gave a brilliant portrayal of a man driven by conscience to his ultimate fate.
A variation on that theme is found in
The Seventh Cross, in which the central character is comparatively passive and fatalistic. He is, however, the subject of heroic assistance from anti-Nazi Germans. In a sense, the protagonist of the movie is not the Tracy characer but a humble German worker played by
Hume Cronyn, who changes from Nazi sympathizer to active opponent of the regime as he aids Tracy.
And in
Julia (1977), another of Zinnemann's crowning achievements,
Vanessa Redgrave is a doomed American
heiress who forsakes the safety and comfort of great wealth to devote her life to the
anti-Nazi cause in
Germany. (The film is also notable for being the screen debut of
Meryl Streep.) Perhaps the most unusual and perversely engaging loner in Zinnemann's films is
Edward Fox as the cold-blooded anti-hero
assassin in the taut thriller
Day of the Jackal (
1973), a man who is impelled by sheer profesionalism rather than politics to try to kill French
president Charles DeGaulle.
He won the
Academy Award for Directing for
From Here to Eternity and
A Man for All Seasons and also took home the
Best Picture Oscar for
producing the latter film. He received his first Oscar in 1951 for the
documentary short Benjy.
His final film was the rather lacklustre
Five Days One Summer in
1982.
*
The Search (
1948)
*
The Men (
1950)
*
High Noon (
1952)
*
From Here to Eternity (
1953)
*
Oklahoma! (
1956)
*
The Nun's Story (
1959)
*
The Sundowners (
1960)
*
A Man for All Seasons (
1966)
*
The Day of the Jackal (
1973)
*
Julia (
1977)
*
Five Days One Summer (
1982)
*
