James Bridges ator, roteirista e diretor americano

James Bridges (nascido em 3 de fevereiro de 1936, Paris, Arkansas, EUA - faleceu em 6 de junho de 1993, Los Angeles, Califórnia), ator, roteirista e diretor americano mais conhecido por The China Syndrome (1979) e Urban Cowboy (1980).

Questionário

Escola de Cinema: Fato ou Ficção?

Nenhum filme mudo já ganhou um Oscar.

Bridges começou sua carreira no entretenimento como ator, e os primeiros créditos incluíam pequenas partes em vários programas de televisão e um papel de protagonista como Tarzan no filme underground de Andy Warhol, Tarzan e Jane Regained.

Mais ou menos (1964). No entanto, ele finalmente se concentrou em trabalhar atrás da câmera. Ele escreveu o bem recebido veículo de Marlon Brando, The Appaloosa (1966), além de vários episódios da The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Em 1970, Bridges roteirizou e dirigiu The Baby Maker, um drama de baixo orçamento sobre um casal sem filhos que contrata um hippie (interpretado por Barbara Hershey) para servir como mãe de aluguel, com resultados inesperados.

Mais amplamente visto foi The Paper Chase (1973), um drama sobre um calouro da Faculdade de Direito de Harvard (Timothy Bottoms) que luta para sobreviver aos rigores do trabalho de seu curso com o exigente professor Kingsfield (John Houseman, que ganhou um Oscar por seu papel)) enquanto corteja a filha de espírito livre do professor (Lindsay Wagner). A adaptação de Bridges do romance fonte também foi indicada ao Oscar, e o filme popular foi posteriormente adaptado para uma série de televisão de sucesso.

Bridges next wrote and directed 9/30/55 (1978; also known as September 30, 1955), a dramatization of a fan (Richard Thomas) struggling to come to grips with the death of idol James Dean in 1955. However, it was the suspenseful The China Syndrome (1979) that became Bridges’s first breakout hit. Jane Fonda played a television reporter who stumbles onto a cover-up at a nuclear power plant that nearly suffered a meltdown, and Jack Lemmon portrayed the engineer who blows the whistle on his criminally negligent superiors. Both actors were Oscar-nominated, as was Bridges for cowriting the prescient original screenplay. The film received an enormous boost when, a few weeks after it opened, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred in Pennsylvania.

Bridges also scored big with Urban Cowboy (1980), a formulaic but entertaining story about a young Texas construction worker (John Travolta) who lets his marriage to independent Sissy (Debra Winger) disintegrate while he struggles to be accepted in the world of Gilley’s, the famed Houston honky-tonk, with its mechanical bull and competitive dance floors. Cowritten by Bridges, Urban Cowboy was a box office hit and spawned a best-selling sound track. Bridges next wrote the existential murder mystery Mike’s Murder for his longtime friend Winger, but the studio rejected the cut he delivered in 1982, and the film remained on the shelf until 1984, when a much-edited version was released to critical and commercial failure.

Bridges’s next film, Perfect (1985), centred on the new subculture of health clubs. It starred Travolta as a bright but unscrupulous Rolling Stone reporter on the trail of a story and Jamie Lee Curtis as the club instructor he first exploits, then falls in love with. Perfect, which was coscripted by Bridges, was widely panned and failed to find an audience. In 1988 he helmed his last film, Bright Lights, Big City, an intelligent but curiously flat adaptation of the Jay McInerney best seller about the club-and-cocaine scene in 1980s New York City. Two years later Clint Eastwood directed White Hunter, Black Heart, which was based on a script cowritten by Bridges. Diagnosed with cancer, Bridges died in 1993. In 1999 the main screening venue of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media was renamed the James Bridges Theater.