Carroll Ballard | |
---|---|
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | October 14, 1937
Occupation | Film director |
Years active | 1965–2005 |
Carroll Ballard (born October 14, 1937) is a retired American film director. He has directed six feature films, including The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), Wind (1992), Fly Away Home (1996) and Duma (2005).
After serving in the U.S. Army, Ballard attended film school at UCLA, where one of his classmates was Francis Ford Coppola. [1] He made a well received student film called Waiting for May in 1964. [2]
His early credits include the documentaries Beyond This Winter's Wheat (1965) and Harvest (1967), both of which he made for the U.S. Information Agency. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award. He directed a short subject called The Perils of Priscilla (1969), which was filmed from the point of view of a cat who escapes from home. [3] Rodeo (1970) provided an intimate look at the 1968 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. [4] He shot the title sequence of Coppola's 1968 musical Finian's Rainbow and was second unit director on Star Wars (1977), for which he handled many of the outdoor desert scenes.
Ballard finally got the chance to make a feature film when Coppola offered him the job of directing The Black Stallion (1979), an adaptation of the children's book by Walter Farley. [5] The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Mickey Rooney). In 2002 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry.
He then directed Never Cry Wolf (1983), based on Farley Mowat's autobiographical book of the same name, which detailed Mowat's experiences with Arctic wolves. [6]
In the 1990s, he made two films: Wind (1992) and Fly Away Home (1996).
His most recent film is Duma (2005), about a South African boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah. [7] Duma had tested badly and Warner Bros. planned to not release this film in the United States theatrically, but the film received acclaim from influential film critics like Scott Foundas and Roger Ebert, and it led Warner Bros to reconsider. [8] [9] Warner Bros. finally gave Duma a limited theatrical release in the US. [10]
Ballard has received acclaim from film critics. Pauline Kael was an early admirer. [11] Kenneth Turan once wrote: "[Ballard] knows how to be both caring and restrained, minimizing a movie's saccharine content while maximizing the sense of wonder." [12]
Year | Title | Distributor |
---|---|---|
1979 | The Black Stallion | United Artists |
1983 | Never Cry Wolf | Buena Vista Distribution |
1986 | Nutcracker: The Motion Picture | Atlantic Entertainment Group |
1992 | Wind | TriStar Pictures |
1996 | Fly Away Home | Sony Pictures Releasing |
2005 | Duma | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood film movement of the 1960s and 1970s and is widely considered one of the greatest directors of all time. He is the recipient of five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or, and a British Academy Film Award (BAFTA).
THX 1138 is a 1971 American social science fiction film co-written and directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by Walter Murch, the film stars Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence, with Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie, and Ian Wolfe in supporting roles. The film is set in a dystopian future in which the citizens are controlled by android police and mandatory use of drugs that suppress emotions.
Farley McGill Mowat, was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970.
The Black Stallion is a 1979 American adventure film based on the 1941 classic children's novel of the same name by Walter Farley. The film starts in 1946, five years after the book was published. It tells the story of Alec Ramsey, a boy who is shipwrecked on a deserted island with a wild Arabian stallion that he befriends. After being rescued, they are set on entering a race challenging two champion horses.
Never Cry Wolf is a fictional account of the author's subjective experience observing wolves in subarctic Canada by Farley Mowat, first published in 1963 by McClelland and Stewart. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1983. It has been credited for dramatically improving the public image of the wolf.
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Duma is a 2005 American family drama adventure film about a young South African boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah, based on How It Was with Dooms by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. It was directed by Carroll Ballard and stars Alexander Michaletos in his only film role, Eamonn Walker, Campbell Scott and Hope Davis. This was Carroll Ballard's final film before his retirement.
Alexander Michaletos is a South African former child actor.
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