Director extraordinaire Philip Kaufman will join GQ magazine critic Terrence Rafferty for an intimate discussion about his life work Saturday at the Wexner Center.
“We’ve been working on getting Philip Kaufman here for off and on for almost five years,” said David Filipi, associate curator in Media Arts at the Wexner Center. “We had the critic Terrence Rafferty here about five years ago and we were talking about favorite filmmakers and we mentioned Philip Kaufman. He said that he was really good friends with Kaufman and he put us in touch with him.”
An avid supporter of Kaufman’s work, Rafferty will take the audience through a visual journey of his films while Kaufman shares his own insights and memories. The talk is the highlight of a month-long retrospective featuring some of his best-known films. Attendees will receive a complementary commemorative booklet on the life of Philip Kaufman.
Kaufman attended the University of Chicago, then spent a year at Harvard Law School before he turned his interests to directing. Traveling around Europe in the 1960s, he became greatly inspired by European filmmakers. He returned to Chicago to begin his own directing career starting in independent features.
Kaufman is celebrated in cinema as a director entranced with the mysteries of the mind. A good deal of his movies focus on actual events brought to cinematic life with an honesty and passion that sets them apart from other typical Hollywood movies.
“He’s the rare filmmaker in Hollywood who’s dealing with serious, well-written characters,” Filipi said. “He works with grown-up ideas and issues as opposed to a lot of the issues that come through the Hollywood system.”
“He’s widely respected by his peers as being one of Hollywood cinemas most thoughtful, intellectual filmmakers,” said Bill Horrigan, curator at Media Arts in the Wexner Center.
Kaufman has created works such as “The Right Stuff,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “The Wanderers” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
” ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ was generally thought to be un-filmable, even by the author before Kaufman translated it,” Horrigan said. The film went on to garner many accolades, most notably the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director and Best Picture. It also received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
His most recent work, the Oscar-nominated “Quills,” will be showcased at 7 p.m. tomorrow. The controversial film brings to brilliant life the last days of the Marquis de Sade. Geoffrey Rush earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of the blasphemous author who gleefully danced around the touchy issues of freedom of expression and pornography. “Quills” was honored with the Best Film award from the National Board of Review last year.
Kaufman’s adaptation of the Michael Crichton political thriller, “Rising Sun” will be shown at 7 p.m. on April 20. The classic Western “The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid,” starring Robert Duvall as Jesse James, will round out the night.
Kaufman is the first ever director to receive the NC-17 rating for his film “Henry & June.” The sexually explicit film is based on the real-life diaries of writer Anais Nin. The film flies in the face of convention as it explores the torrid love triangle between Nin, novelist Henry Miller and his wife June. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. on April 21.
Another double feature will conclude the retrospective at 2 p.m. on April 22. Viewers will be taken back to Kaufman’s artistic beginning with two of his earliest and most seldom seen works, “The White Dawn” and “Goldstein.” Admission to this double feature is free.
The Wexner Center devotes several months out of the year to celebrate exceptional filmmakers. “It gives Columbus audiences a chance to see one filmmaker in depth by seeing all their films and understand what they’re trying to do,” Horrigan said.
All screenings (except those noted above) are $5 for the general public, $4 for Wexner Center members, students and senior citizens and $2 for children under 12. Those interested can find out more information by calling the Wexner Center at 292-3535 or by visiting its website at www.wexarts.org.
