British director Alan Parker , author of films such as Midnight's Escape, Mississippi Burning, Will be Famous and Evita, has died at the age of 76 . The British Film Institute announced this, explaining that the filmmaker died after a "long illness".
He was proud of his title of baronet, granted by Queen Elizabeth in 2002 to crown a successful career, but he was equally proud of his humble origins and the cockney accent to be exhibited almost as a distinctive sign. Alan Parker was a thoroughbred British born and raised in the London suburb of Islington from a seamstress mother and a house painter father. At school he was not a model pupil, but with tenacity he applied himself in scientific subjects and reaped consensus among his companions for his ability as a narrator, at ease with the most diverse genres. He liked photography and loved music, especially the American one brought by the marines to England, just as he was born, in 1944, the year of D-Day. At 18 he left the studio to earn his freedom as an errand boy in an advertising agency: he didn't know it but it would have been his luck since he was soon appreciated by everyone as a copy writer and storyteller. One of the first to notice this was one of the great producers of his generation, Alan Marshall, who together with David Puttnam would have been his friend and pygmalion. Thanks to Marshall, in fact, he would have designed and directed his first commercials and then he would have become the creative partner in one of the most sought after agencies in the Anglo-Saxon world.
"At that time - Parker said - there was no longer an English film industry; after the last wave of the 'angry' in the early 1960s it was the turn of advertisers like me who became directors thanks to the commercials with which they had past the mess tin. " After many awards in advertising and a good debut as a screenwriter thanks to David Puttnam ("Melody" of 1971), for Parker as for Ridley Scott and Hugh Hudson the moment of his debut as a director arrives in 1976: he chooses a path of his own, that of the American ambient musical but all acted and for children, "Little gangsters". The protagonist is the generation of prohibition gangsters such as Al Capone and Bugsy Malone, but their weapons are twisted in the face and puffs burst. The budding actors are Jodie Foster and Scott Baio, the music is by Paul Williams who is also among the adults to whom the songs are entrusted. "I have always loved working with children and adolescents - the director said - because they always give you something you don't expect. But I have no qualms in admitting that with that first film I wanted above all to subvert some rules of the musical genre and make myself noticed in Hollywood" .
An invitation to the Cannes festival is worth Parker the waiting call to Hollywood and the contract for the subsequent "Midnight Escape" with Brad Davis and John Hurt. Marshall and Puttnam produce, the screenwriter writes novice Oliver Stone, the prison thriller (based on a true story) travels the world, runs for six Oscars and wins two for the screenplay and music by Giorgio Moroder. Two years later, however, Parker returns to his favorite genre the musical with another cult film: "They will be famous" (1980) set in the most famous music and dance school in New York with Irene Cara among a swarm of talented debutants. "I didn't want the usual musical film in which the action stops to let people sing - Parker said - but a real odyssey of young musicians sick of passion, life, hunger for success". The director's career is not very dense also because the restless Alan has become a producer and not only of his works. He will be able to range from intimate stories (the autobiographical "Shoot the moon") to human dramas ("Birdy", his masterpiece according to critics), from social frescoes ("Angela's ashes") to noir ("Mississippi Burning "), from the trial (" David Gale ") to horror (the visionary" Angel Heart "with Al Pacino). But music remains his true passion and obsession: "Pink Floyd the Wall", "Evita", "The committments" (perhaps his most loved film).
His formidable technical ability, the millimetric rhythm with which he punctuates each scene, the wisdom with which he manages the actors as in a choreography in the style of the most classic Hollywood are the signs that make him always recognizable even in the diversity of narrative choices. They defined him as the best storyteller and it was not a usurped fame.