Noah Baumbach
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| Noah Baumbach | ||||||
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| Image:Replace this image male.svg Noah Baumbach | ||||||
| Born | September 3 1969 Image:Flag of the United States.svg Brooklyn, New York, US | |||||
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Jason Leigh (2005-present) | |||||
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Noah Baumbach (born September 3, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American independent film writer and director.
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[edit] Life and work
Baumbach is the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He attended Midwood High School (1987) and Vassar College.
He made his writing and directing debut at the age of 26 with Kicking and Screaming (1995), a comedy about four young men who graduate from college and refuse to move on with their lives, each in his own peculiar way. The film, which starred Josh Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott, and featured Eric Stoltz, Olivia d'Abo and Parker Posey, premiered in 1995 at the prestigious New York Film Festival to critical acclaim. Baumbach was chosen as one of Newsweek's "Ten New Faces of 1996". The film appeared in several "Top Ten" lists. It later became a tradition at Vassar for graduating seniors to watch Kicking and Screaming.
Next he wrote and directed Mr. Jealousy (1997), about a young writer so jealous over his girlfriend that he sneaks into the group therapy sessions of her ex-boyfriend to discover what kind of relationship they had. He then co-wrote (under the name Jesse Carter) and directed (under the name Ernie Fusco) the New York-set comedy of manners Highball (1997). Although many of Baumbach's fans liked Highball, he disowns it. This trio of dark, talky, witty comedies about young people have been compared to Whit Stillman's mid-90s trio of dark talky movies about the frivolous lives of wealthy and witty young people, Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco.
His film, The Squid and the Whale (2005), is an autobiographical comedy-drama about his childhood in Brooklyn and the effect of his parents' divorce on the family in the mid 1980s. The film stars Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney in the parent roles. The Squid and the Whale became something of an unexpected sleeper hit and a critical success, earning Baumbach two awards at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It also received six Independent Spirit Award nominations, three Golden Globe nominations, while the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review all voted it the year’s best screenplay.
Baumbach and his girlfriend of four years, the critically acclaimed Hollywood actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, were married on September 3, 2005. It was Leigh who suggested casting the child actor Owen Kline in a pivotal role in The Squid and the Whale, as Owen is the son of her best friend Phoebe Cates and husband Kevin Kline.
Baumbach's most recent film is a comedy drama titled Margot at the Wedding, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh with Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and John Turturro. In the film, Kidman plays a woman named Margot who spends a weekend visiting her sister Pauline (Leigh) on the eve of her wedding to Black's character. It was shot in April/May 2006 in Hampton Bays, and City Island, Bronx and is currently scheduled for US release via Paramount Classics on October 12, 2007.
Baumbach has "shown an affinity for writing about the East Coast elite". Ron Howard is slated to direct Baumbach's script of Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children. Baumbach has also written an adaptation of Curtis Sittenfeld's novel Prep.[1]
Baumbach is also slated to co-write a script of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox with Wes Anderson who will also direct it using stop-motion technology.
Baumbach is a contributor to The New Yorker magazine's Shouts & Murmurs department, and is one of the commentators on the Criterion Collection version of Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels. He co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) with Wes Anderson.
[edit] References
[edit] Filmography
- Kicking and Screaming (1995)
- Highball (1997)
- Mr. Jealousy (1997)
- The Squid and the Whale (2005)
- Margot at the Wedding (2007)
[edit] External links
- Noah Baumbach at the Internet Movie Database
- "To Wed and To Fail" - Review of Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, in n+1 magazine, by Christian Lorentzen.
- "Young Intellectuals Making Movies", essay on Noah Baumbach and Andrew Bujalski in Dissent (magazine), Summer 2006.
- "Reasons for Kicking and Screaming - Critical Essay of Kicking and Screaming by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Baumbach, Noah |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Film director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1969-9-3 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Brooklyn, New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
ja:ノア・バームバック ru:Баумбах, Ной sv:Noah Baumbach zh:諾亞·波拜克
