Альфред Циннеманн: Жизнь и творчество австрийско-американского режиссера.

Austrian American film director (1907–1997)

Alfred Zinnemann (April 29, 1907 – March 14, 1997) was an Austrian American the son of Anna (Feiwel) and Oskar Zinnemann, a doctor. His parents were Austrian Jews. He had one younger brother. Zinnemann grew up in Vienna during the First World War, during much of which his father was serving as a combat medic with the Austro Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front. Zinnemann later recalled that his father was severely traumatized by his war experiences and often suffered from nightmares. While growing up in the First Austrian Republic, which had been formed as a rump state of a fallen Empire in 1918 and which he later described as, "a tiny, defeated, impoverished country", Zinnemann wanted to become a musician, but went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of Vienna in 1927. One of Zinnemann's first jobs in Hollywood was as an extra in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He said that many of the other extras were former Russian aristocrats and high ranking officers who fled to America as refugees from the October Revolution in 1917 and the ensuing Red Terror. However, his next film, The Search (1948), won an Oscar for screenwriting and secured his position in the Hollywood establishment. Shot in war ravaged Germany, the film stars Montgomery Clift in his screen debut as a GI who cares for a lost Czech boy traumatized by the war. It was followed by Act of Violence (1948), a gritty film noir starring Van Heflin as a haunted POW, Robert Ryan as his hot tempered former friend, Janet Leigh as Heflin's wife, and Mary Astor as a sympathetic prostitute. Zinnemann considered Act of Violence the first project in which he "felt comfortable knowing exactly what I wanted and exactly how to get it." During production he established a strong rapport with Gary Cooper, photographing the aging actor in many tight close ups which showed him sweating, and at one point, even crying on screen. Screenwriter Carl Foreman apparently intended High Noon to be an allegory of Senator Joseph McCarthy's vendetta against alleged Communists. However, Zinnemann disagreed, insisting, late in life, that the issues in the film, for him, were broader, and were more about conscience and independent, uncompromising fearlessness. He says, "High Noon is "not a Western, as far as I'm concerned; it just happens to be set in the Old West." Film critic Stephen Prince suggests that the character of Kane actually represents Zinnemann, who tried to create an atmosphere of impending threat on the horizon, a fear of potential "fascism", represented by the gang of killers soon arriving. Zinnemann explained the general context for many of his films: "One of the crucial things today [is] trying to preserve our civilization." Zinnemann explains the theme of the film and its relevance to modern times:

For his screen adaptation of the play The Member of the Wedding (1952), Zinnemann chose Julie Harris as the film's 12 year old protagonist, although she was by then 26 years old. Two years earlier Harris had created the role on Broadway just as the two other leading actors, Ethel Waters and Brandon deWilde, had. Zinnemann's next film, From Here to Eternity (1953), based on the novel by James Jones, was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and would go on to win 8, including Best Picture and Best Director. Zinnemann fought hard with producer Harry Cohn to cast Montgomery Clift as the character of Prewitt, although Frank Sinatra, who was at the lowest point of his popularity, cast himself in the role of "Maggio" against Zinnemann's wishes. Sinatra would later win 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. Donna Reed played the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke, a prostitute and mistress of Montgomery Clift's character which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 1953. 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. It was also an expression of Zinnemann's continued faith and optimism about America, with its energy and exuberance. In 1965 he was a member of the jury at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. Zinnemann's fortunes changed once again with A Man for All Seasons (1966), scripted by Robert Bolt from his own play and starring Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, portraying him as a man driven by conscience to his ultimate fate. The film went on to win six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Scofield) and Best Director, Zinnemann's second such Oscar to date. The film was also entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. After this, Zinnemann was all set to direct an adaptation of Man's Fate for MGM. However, the project was shut down in 1969, and the studio attempted to hold Zinnemann responsible for at least $1 million of the $3.5 million that had already been spent on pre production. In protest, Zinnemann filed a lawsuit against the studio, and it would be four years before he would make his next film.

By the early 1970s, Zinnemann had been out of work since the cancellation of Man's Fate; he believed it had "marked the end of an era in picture making and the dawn of a new one, when lawyers and accountants began to replace showmen as head of the studios and when a handshake was a handshake no longer." The Day of the Jackal was followed four years later by Julia (1977), based on a story in the book Pentimento: A Book of Portraits by Lillian Hellman. The film starred Jane Fonda as a young Hellman and Vanessa Redgrave as her best friend Julia, an American heiress who forsakes the safety and comfort of both her homeland and great wealth to devote her life with fatal consequences to the Austrian Resistance to Nazism. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won three, for Best Screenplay (Alvin Sargent), Best Supporting Actor (Jason Robards), and Best Supporting Actress for Vanessa Redgrave, who received scattered boos on Oscar night for her "Zionist hoodlums" acceptance speech. Zinnemann thought that Fonda's acting was extraordinary and she also deserved an Oscar. Zinnemann blamed the film's critical and commercial failure for his retirement from filmmaking: "I'm not saying it was a good picture. But there was a degree of viciousness in the reviews. The pleasure some people took in tearing down the film really hurt."

Zinnemann is often regarded as striking a blow against ageism in Hollywood. The apocryphal story goes that in the 1980s, during a meeting with a young Hollywood executive, Zinnemann was surprised to find the executive didn't know who he was, despite having won four Academy Awards, and directing many of Hollywood's biggest films. When the young executive asked Zinnemann to list what he had done in his career, Zinnemann reportedly answered, "Sure. You first." In Hollywood, the story is known as "You First," and is often alluded to when veteran creators find that upstarts are unfamiliar with their work. Zinnemann insisted, "I've been trying to disown that story for years. It seems to me Billy Wilder told it to me about himself." Zinnemann died of a heart attack in London, England on March 14, 1997. He was 89 years old. Zinneman's remains were cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and the cremated remains were collected from the cemetery. His wife died on December 18, 1997.

In From Here to Eternity, for example, he effectively added actual newsreel footage of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which enhanced and dramatized the story. Similarly, in A Hatful of Rain, he used a documentary style to present real life drug addiction in New York City. Zinnemann again incorporated newsreel footage in Behold a Pale Horse, about the Spanish Civil War. The Day of the Jackal, a political thriller about an attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, was shot on location in newsreel style, while Julia placed the characters in authentic settings, as in a suspenseful train journey from Paris to Moscow during World War II. Academy Award for Best Short Subject, One Reel: That Mothers Might Live (1938). Golden Globe for Best Film Promoting International Understanding: "The Search" (1948). Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject: Benjy (1951). New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director: High Noon (1952). Academy Award for Best Director, Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures: From Here to Eternity (1953). New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director: The Nun's Story (1959). Academy Award for Best Director, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, and Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures: A Man for All Seasons (1966). D. W. Griffith Award, 1971. Order of Arts and Letters, France, 1982. U. S. Congressional Lifetime Achievement Award, 1987. John Huston Award, Artists Right Foundation, 1994.