Many would agree that if television is a
writer’s medium, then the theater is an actor’s medium and that film is a
director’s medium. By this, I don’t mean
to imply that the acting, writing and directing aren’t all crucial aspects in
the performing arts; I’m just meaning to say that for each of those mediums,
the importance of a certain component becomes somewhat heightened. In the cinema, it’s the director’s vision
that sees a project through from its infancy stage until the final product is
shown on silver screens around the globe.
However, film didn’t always used to be a director’s medium. Back in the formative days of Hollywood, the
producer was king. These were the days
of the studio system, and men like Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer lorded over
the industry. But ever since the studio
system was broken up, the producer’s role in the creative process has steadily
decreased. Indeed the celebrity aspect
of being a producer has been thoroughly diminished, save a couple of
exceptions. Producers like Robert Evans,
Harvey Weinstein and Jerry Bruckheimer have attained some notoriety over the
course of their respective careers. One
of cinema’s most famed producers of any era passed away last July. His name was Richard D. Zanuck, and the
influence he had on American cinema was indelible.
If the name Zanuck rings a bell, it may
be because of him and because of his lineage.
The Zanuck family has long been a powerful clan in Hollywood, starting
with patriarch Darryl F. Zanuck. He was
one of the founding members of what is now 20th Century Fox. Richard’s career certainly benefited from his
surname; ask anyone and you’ll find that Hollywood is a town built on
nepotism. But again, ask anyone in
Hollywood, and they will surely tell you that Richard had a special talent and
dedication that made him truly special among most ordinary film producers.
Even though he was studying at Stanford
University, Zanuck interrupted his studies to take a position at his father’s
studio in the story department. His rise
to the top was speedy to say the least.
He produced his first film, “Compulsion,” in 1959, and was president of
the studio only a few years after that.
His reign at Fox was short-lived however, due to flops like “Doctor
Doolittle” and “Star.” Zanuck would
later say about these flops, “’The Sound of Music’ did more damage to the
industry than any other picture. Everyone tried to copy it. We were the biggest offenders.”
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| Jaws: 1975 |
Whereas many others may have not
survived a similar firing (his father didn’t), Zanuck took other jobs around
the town, including at Warner Bros. He
started to find his biggest success in 1972, when he and friend David Brown
partnered up to form their own company, the Zanuck/Brown Company. The two men discovered a young, upstart
director who agreed to make a couple of films for them. That director’s name was Steven Spielberg,
and one of those films was the 1975 blockbuster/masterpiece “Jaws.” Despite all of the problems that plagued the
production of that film (a faulty mechanical shark, an unfinished script),
“Jaws” went on to be the highest grossing film of all time, and has largely
been attributed as a game changer in studio filmmaking along with “Star
Wars.” Zanuck and crew had pioneered the
Hollywood blockbuster. His filmography
would go on to include several more, including “Cocoon,” “Road to Perdition”
and a bevy of Tim Burton films. He also
won the elusive Best Picture Academy Award for his work on “Driving Miss
Daisy.”
Zack Mandell is a movie enthusiast and owner of
www.movieroomreviews.com and writer of movie reviews about movies such as Road to
Perdition. He writes extensively about the movie industry for sites
such as Gossip Center, Yahoo, NowPublic, and Helium.
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