Joe Wright

Joe Wright was born in London, United Kingdom, in 1972. His father could well have been his grandfather, because when the newborn saw the light of the world he was 65 years old. In the English capital, his parents ran the Little Angel Theatre, a puppet theater located in the Islington district. Presumably, such a home served to develop his taste and artistic talent, painting, acting in a theater club, and making Super 8 movies. This while living with his dyslexia, a difficulty that undoubtedly contributed to his not finishing his studies. high school studies.

So the young Wright began working in his parents’ theater, while taking acting classes at the Anna Scher School. Art studies did appeal to him, as he demonstrated at St. Martins, where he earned a degree in film and fine art. He would obtain a scholarship from the BBC to shoot a short, Crocodile Snap (1997), which was highly awarded and was even nominated for a BAFTA. But this and other achievements would never be seen by Joe’s father, who died when he was 19 years old.

Then came the television jobs, a wonderful school for training in the filmmaking trade, although it was clear that Wright had a gift for directing. His first miniseries was Nature Boy (2000), and then he did Bodily Harm (2002) with Timothy Spall , but the television work that gave him the most joy was undoubtedly Charles II: The Power & The Passion (2003), awarded with the BAFTA. for best drama series.

It certainly takes courage to make your film debut with a Jane Austen novel repeatedly adapted for film and television. But the truth is that Pride and Prejudice (2005) was a charming version, where the tribulations of the Bennet family were perfectly captured, and Keira Knightley -Oscar nominee- was charming as Lizzy, unable to recognize her attraction to the surly Darcy, played by Matthew McFayden, who certainly had a hard time making people forget the work of Colin Firthin the television version. Wright claimed that this work was the first he did with a happy ending, and she realized that “happy endings and complete satisfaction are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.”

And if in Austen’s film the characters were very enamored, it also seemed that the director found love in Rosamund Pike , one of the Bennet sisters; With her he came to announce her marriage commitment, although in the end it never materialized.

Starting from a good literary base seemed to suit Wright, who for his second feature film adapted one of Ian McEwan ‘s best novels . In Atonement (2007) , she once again addressed a story of upset love, but one that was more torn apart, especially by the jealousy and lies that triggered the tragedy. She repeated Knightley with the filmmaker, but the then unknown Saoirse Ronan took the plunge , perfect as Briony, Cecilia’s sister whose life is tremendously complicated. Ronan was nominated for an Oscar, one of seven options for the awards that included best picture.

The film drew attention not only for its great direction of actors and setting, but for its audacious narratives, in time jumps, or in the repetition of the same events from different points of view. The transitions were wonderful, and the use of sound was very clever, for example marrying the beautiful soundtrack with the typing of budding writer Briony’s typewriter. In addition, a display of a sequence shot in a military camp was included.

McEwan noted the difficulty of capturing Briony’s thoughts and consciousness on film, but stated that “the casting of Saoirse Ronan was really astute. She is a very observant girl, a completely intuitive young actress.

In his third film foray, Wright was also handling material that had previously been in book form. Of course, this time it is a contemporary story based on real events. In The Soloist he told the story of a homeless man discovered by a journalist, who is a true violin virtuoso even though he has mental problems. Once again he explored musical sounds, and although the film didn’t attract as much attention as the previous ones, it was more than interesting and had two great actors, Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx .

Hanna ‘s latest film foray (2011) proves Wright is an original filmmaker with a desire to explore. In this film he deals with a text written directly for the screen for the first time, and the fact that we are dealing with an intriguing spy film with a lot of action may not seem to suit the filmmaker very well. But the truth is that the film has its roots in the literary tradition of the story, and is tremendously imaginative, also in the visual and sound aspects. The film stars an actress who is growing well and with whom Wright already worked in Atonement: Saoirse Ronan. This is how the filmmaker explained her involvement in the project: “The first and most important thing that interested me was the character of Hanna; We don’t see too many movies with teenage actresses as the leads. Thematically, I have always been curious about characters who are holy fools -like ET the Extra-Terrestrial , Chauncey Gardiner in Welcome Mr. Chance and Kaspar Hauser in Werner Herzog ‘s film [ The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser ]– and who are not. really out of this world. Especially the last two, they grew up in a world where there is no social pressure of so-called civilization. They enter our world with an adult consciousness but with the innocence of a child.”

Wright’s next project will be a literary one, an adaptation of “Anna Karenina”, a challenging work by Leo Tolstoy without a doubt, and taken repeatedly to the screen. The protagonist will be Keira Knightley, and some of her usual actors such as Saoirse Ronan, Matthew McFayden and Olivia Williams will repeat with the director, as well as Jude Law and Aaron Johnson .