Celebrity Biographies
Ridley Scott
Producer David Puttnam was the one who offered him to direct his first film: The Duelists. “It was clear,” Puttnam says, “that he had immense talent. My luck was that no one before me had thought of him. He was hoping that a first producer would give him his chance.”
Ridley Scott was then 40 years old and his debut stood out for its beautiful photography and a dazzling visual finish. WithDuelists , Scott gained international recognition when he received the award for best new director at the Cannes Film Festival and made it clear that he was in favor of the image.
Ridley Scott was born in Durham (England) in 1937. He studied at the Royal College of Art in London and was soon hired by the BBC. But Scott aspired to movies. At twenty-eight he filmed Boy on a Bicycle , a 27-minute short, and later decided to set up his own business. Along with his brother Tony, he founded his own production company, Ridley Scott Associates, with which he embarked on a brilliant career in the world of advertising.
After The Duelists , he was offered to direct a horror story set in a spaceship.Alien, the eighth passenger (1979) was the film that established him in the cinema. Scott gave a master class in creating oppressive atmospheres, and all with minimal economy of means, since practically the entire story took place on the Nostromo ship. Three years later, Scott ushered in a new vision of the future with the mythicalBlade Runner . Today, the tragic story of replicants fleeing death is considered a masterpiece. And it may be the best movie ever made about death, about the loneliness of waiting and its harrowing reception.
But not everything was going to be laurels. Ridley also had to dance with the ugliest. there are the baroqueLegend (1985);The shadow of the witness (1987), correct but nothing original;Black Rain (1989), where the setting shines again;Thelma and Louise (1991), a fast-paced feminist odyssey for which Scott was nominated for an Oscar;1492. The conquest of paradise (1992), a true fiasco;White storm (1995), predictable youth adventure; YLieutenant O’Neil , a coarsely vulgar topic with the air of a TV movie.
And then the new millennium arrived. “The most difficult thing is to get a good script. Once you have it all it’s relatively easy. History, history, history,” says Scott. And that was what he had inGladiator (2000), an epic script of honor and redemption that he endowed with impressive visual power. The prize was five Oscars. The following year he ledHannibal (2001), characterized by the sordid tone and again by the photographic treatment. Then she impressed again withBlack Hawk Down , quasi-documentary recreation of the US military intervention in Somalia in 1993. Scott showed his expertise in handling the camera and the narrative rhythm, and earned his third Oscar nomination. And in his last film so far,The imposters , dares with a picaresque comedy about the misadventures of an agoraphobic con man (great Nicolas Cage ). With her, Scott has touched practically all genres, from drama and romance, to war movies and science fiction, through horror or comedy. But at sixty-five years old he still has rope. We’ll see him in his next project,The kingdom of heaven .