Marc Forster, director: filmography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Marc Forster is an acclaimed Swiss-German film director, gifted visionary and screenwriter best known for Monster's Ball, Quantum of Solace and World War Z.

Short biography

Forster Mark was born at the end of January 1969 in the German city of Illertissen. The future director spent most of his adolescence and youth in Switzerland at the Davos ski resort, where, after graduating from a private school, he continued his studies at the University. M. Zugerberg. The young man was interested in the film industry from an early age, Mark kept in mind a lot of original ideas, planning to embody them later on the screen. At the age of twenty, Foster decides to move to the United States, where, after graduating from New York University, he finally has the opportunity to fulfill his dream. Foster Mark creates his first feature film project after a string of documentaries. It is the film Loungers, which, despite a meager budget of 10 thousand dollars, receives the approval of film industry experts and several prizes.

Formation of creative handwriting

The second work of the director was the film "All Together", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Forster Mark, whose films are now known to every self-respecting cinephile, underwent a serious internship with the Twin Peaks series in the 90s. The young visionary boldly took over from David Lynch as a director and completed the TV movie. If director Mark Forster was not listed in the credits of the last episodes, then no one would have paid any attention to the replacement of the director. These lessons were definitely not in vain for Mark, he managed to elegantly style himself as his predecessor, having received the nickname “shadow Lynch” in narrow circles. Therefore, "All Together" he built solely on suspense - the total expectation of something bad. Moreover, suspense does not disappear in the tape even when, it would seem, all the "i" are dotted, the viewer knows the answer to the main exciting question. Foster turns a family tragedy into a detective thriller without speculating on misfortune.

Director's finds

A mobile digital camera that nervously captures everything that happens, unpredictable editing joints, collisions, blackouts, sound design drops - it seems to be a simple arsenal of artistic cinematic means, skillfully used by the visionary, which allowed creating an aura of growing tension in the movie "All Together", would later become a hallmark of Forster's signature style. Unfortunately, this tape suffered an unenviable fate - no one especially noticed or appreciated it, neither the audience nor the film festivals. And completely undeserved. In terms of popularity, the picture loses to the next project of the director undercalled "Monster's Ball", but all one is worthy of attention and can be recommended for viewing.

Exemplary psychological drama

The third picture of the director "Monster's Ball", according to world film critics, is a good psychological drama, smoothly played and professionally staged. In the picture, everything looks quite vital and natural, without depressing exaggerations and stupid inconsistencies. The film, first of all, is good from the staging side, shot very competently and flawlessly. It is noticeable from the actors that they do not play as they please, but clearly obey the task set by the director. Therefore, the performers play harmoniously, monolithically, without a single false note. This drama, with an IMDb rating of 7.10, is considered by the film community to be one of the director's best works. Forster Mark himself celebrated the lead actress Halle Berry, who later won an Oscar.

Slanted towards fantasy cinema

In 2004 Forster Mark is making the film "Wonderland". The producer of the picture, Richard N. Gladstein, in an interview with the media stated that over 50 directors changed during the preparatory stage of the project. However, after he managed to conclude an agreement with Johnny Depp, who had already managed to conquer the entire planet in the form of a daring pirate of the Caribbean, the ups and downs of production ended, the filming of the film went like clockwork. Despite this fact, the director's personality should still be considered the key to the success of the picture. Foster, already establisheddescribed above acute social film drama, unexpectedly showed interest in fantasy cinema. After the premiere, the picture became extremely popular, it was highly appreciated by film critics of all stripes and the general public, as evidenced by its IMDb rating: 7.80. The director was awarded a lot of film awards, including 7 Oscars, 5 Golden Globes, 11 BAFTAs.

Fabulous

The director's creative path sometimes causes serious bewilderment in an outside inexperienced observer. Having become famous for the unhurried and gloomy "Monster's Ball", in "Magic Land", having made a touching, pathetic to a perfect idyll story out of the fate of the creator of "Peter Pan", in "Stay" Mark Forster created a rather intelligible mystical drama, despite the fact that the film was positioned like a psychological thriller. Unfortunately, the picture failed at the box office, with a budget of $ 50,000,000, collecting an amount of about $ 7 million and an IMDb rating of 6.90. Not paying attention to the modest assessment of his efforts, the director a year later creates the movie "Character" (IMDb: 7.60) - a real lyrical comedy. It would seem that there is little in common between the films of his filmography, but if you look closely, it becomes clear that the director masters the same genre - a parable. But unlike Shyamalan, Mark is much wiser and more subtle, he deftly and cunningly disguises his parables as more familiar and popular movie genres.

007 takes no prisoners

In 2008, the director took the director's chair of the direct continuation of the "Casino Royale"James Bond episode "Quantum of Solace". Unfortunately, the intelligent director, who used to shoot smart, albeit somewhat overdone dramas, did not keep the balance between style and pathos. On the one hand, he rested on realism, on the other hand, he abused style. There is not a single phrase in the cinema that could become winged, or dialogue that could be parsed into quotes in the future. The entire narrative is a relentless carousel of encounters and locations. But praise was given to the work of the artist, the play of the rather ingenuous Kurylenko and the impeccable Craig.

In 2011, the director tried his hand at action again with a biographical action film about biker preacher Sam Childers, destined to become a protector of orphans in Sudan.

A fair amount of skepticism

About the "World War Z" (in the version of domestic distributors "War of the Worlds Z"), directed by Foster, many filmmakers had a fair amount of skepticism. A multi-million-dollar film exaggerating a zombie theme with an age rating of "12+" alarmed many. Some felt the overly detailed treatment of family values that were supposed to be present in every scene, others assumed that all the fun was collected in the trailer. Both one and the other were wrong. The new project of Mark Foster turned out to be a strong and selective film. It, of course, cannot be positioned as the greatest zombie film, but the tape is able to impress even the most skeptical fans of the genre. And most importantly, what to watchFoster's next masterpiece is very interesting.