AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RETROSPECTIVE: MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Date: Sat, July 4th 2009 - Wed, September 2nd 2009External Link: Event Website
Event Tags: The Movies
Location: AFI Silver Theatre & Cultural Center
July 4 - September 2
Michael Douglas was born into Hollywood royalty, but he has built a singular career as a producer and actor one step at a time. A self-proclaimed late bloomer, Douglas soaked up lessons in moviemaking and acting early, watching his legendary father Kirk and actress mother Diana. In his thirties, he caught the public's attention in the hit television series THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO. When the opportunity came to develop a story he felt passionately about, he took a chance at producing. The result was ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and with it he launched a producing career that has been remarkable for its timely choices and extraordinary rate of success.
The through line in Douglas's long, productive life in the movies has been his instinct for subjects that capture the zeitgeist while entertaining a global audience. Movies like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, THE CHINA SYNDROME, FATAL ATTRACTION, WALL STREET, BASIC INSTINCT, TRAFFIC and FALLING DOWN not only engendered public debate, but they remain an enduring part of America's cultural legacy.
As an actor, Michael Douglas has created a rogue's gallery of imperfect men who grapple with the issues of the times while slyly delighting audiences. In 1987, already in his forties, Douglas discovered his strength as an actor in two iconic roles: as the husband who underestimates the costs of a casual affair in FATAL ATTRACTION, and in WALL STREET, as rapacious tycoon Gordon Gekko.
Since then, Douglas has grown into one of America's great character actors, mining the darker side of modern manhood as D-Fens, the befuddled defense worker in FALLING DOWN, and Grady Tripp, the pot-smoking professor in a pink bathrobe in WONDER BOYS. Now in his sixties, Douglas remains a force--about to bring back Gekko in the timely, much-anticipated WALL STREET 2.
To honor this year's recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, AFI Silver screens a selection of some of the defining works in Michael Douglas's distinguished career.
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AFI Member passes will be accepted at all screenings in the AFI Life Achievement Award Retrospective: Michael Douglas series. |
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
#33 on AFI 100 Years . . . 100 Movies
Kirk Douglas had acquired the rights to Ken Kesey's 1962 novel prior to publication, but none of the studios wanted to get behind a movie version. A decade later, son Michael Douglas took over the reins as a producer, and, still without a studio on board, at just 30 years old, he made the film with Saul Zaentz . . . and the rest is movie history. Jack Nicholson made his rogue/antihero reputation with the role of McMurphy, rallying his fellow psychiatric ward inmates against the authoritarianism of Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched (#5 on AFI 100 Heroes and Villains list). Only the second movie to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director for Miloš Forman, Best Actor and Actress for Nicholson and Fletcher, and Best Screenplay, Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman).
DIR Miloš Forman; SCR Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey and the play by Dale Wasserman; PROD Michael Douglas, Saul Zaentz. US, 1975, color, 133 min. RATED R
Saturday, July 4, 7:00; Sunday, July 5, 2:45
THE CHINA SYNDROME
30th Anniversary!
While visiting a nuclear power plant, TV reporter Jane Fonda and her cameraman Michael Douglas (who also produced the film) witness an emergency shutdown. Officials claim that everything is fine, but Fonda, Douglas and shift supervisor Jack Lemmon smell a rat, and begin a dangerous search for the truth. Nominated for four Oscars (including nods for Fonda and Lemmon), this film connected to the zeitgeist in a chilling fashion--its release predated the Three Mile Island disaster by only 13 days.
DIR/SCR James Bridges; SCR Mike Gray, T.S. Cook; PROD Michael Douglas. US, 1979, color, 122 min. RATED PG
Saturday, July 11, 12:30; Tuesday, July 14, 7:00
ROMANCING THE STONE
25th Anniversary!
When romance novelist Kathleen Turner travels to Colombia to pay her kidnapped sister's ransom with a mysterious treasure map in hand, she soon finds herself in danger--but help is on the way, in the form of soldier of fortune Michael Douglas. As the two cross the jungle, running from corrupt cops and bumbling kidnappers (including a hilarious Danny DeVito), an unlikely romance blossoms. Driven by the remarkable chemistry between its leads, this film is a rollicking, enchanting adventure. Douglas also produced.
DIR Robert Zemeckis; SCR Diane Thomas; PROD Michael Douglas. US/Mexico, 1984, color, 106 min. In English, Spanish and French with English subtitles. RATED PG
Saturday, July 18, 12:30; Monday, July 20, 9:30; Thursday, July 23, 4:45
FATAL ATTRACTION
Manhattan lawyer Michael Douglas has a wife and child, but can't resist a weekend fling with Glenn Close--a decision that comes back to haunt him, as the increasingly unstable Close spies, stalks and threatens her way back into his life. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress, this film set the gold standard for the modern, sexually-charged thriller.
DIR Adrian Lyne; SCR James Dearden; PROD Stanley R. Jaffe, Sherry Lansing. US, 1987, color, 119 min. RATED R
Saturday, July 25, 9:10; Monday, July 27, 9:20
WALL STREET
25th Anniversary!
"Greed is good." Michael Douglas in his most iconic role, as financial hot shot Gordon Gekko, a corporate raider who unapologetically consumes and dismantles companies. Charlie Sheen is a young trader under the spell of the charismatic Gekko, until the company that employs Sheen's hard-working father becomes the target of his rapaciousness. Oliver Stone delivered a zeitgeist-attuned hit in 1987, in the wake of real-life Wall Street scandals involving highflying traders Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken.
DIR/SCR Oliver Stone; SCR Stanley Weiser; PROD Edward R. Pressman. US, 1987, color, 125 min. RATED R
Friday, July 31, 7:00; Saturday, August 1, 12:30
BASIC INSTINCT
Director Paul Verhoeven's super-steamy erotic thriller pits embittered police detective Michael Douglas against the bisexual queen of femmes fatales, Sharon Stone, a twisted goddess and writer who may just be the ice-pick murderer the cops are searching for. Joe Eszterhas's screenplay is notoriously politically incorrect, and there are juicy bits of dialogue (none of them repeatable here) all through this extremely entertaining chess game of terminal seduction. (Note courtesy of American Cinematheque)
DIR Paul Verhoeven; SCR Joe Eszterhas; PROD Alan Marshall. US/France, 1992, color, 127 min. RATED R
Friday, August 7, 9:30; Monday, August 10, 9:30
FALLING DOWN
Michael Douglas is a downsized defense worker whose anger at society snowballs 'til it takes the form of a spontaneous crime spree across Los Angeles. As he targets gangs, Nazis and fast food chains, Douglas is trailed by Robert Duvall, a cop with his own frustrations. Extremely controversial upon its release, the film boasts a fine leading performance from Douglas, who mixes pathology and pathos to create a chilling look at middle-class rage gone wrong.
DIR Joel Schumacher; SCR Ebbe Roe Smith; PROD Timothy Harris, Arnold Kopelson, Herschel Weingrod. US/France/UK, 1993, color, 113 min. RATED R
Saturday, August 15, 2:30; Monday, August 17, 7:00, Tuesday, August 18, 4:30, Wednesday, August 19, 4:30, 9:30
WONDER BOYS
Michael Chabon's beloved novel, a coming of age/midlife crisis comic mashup, comes to life on the big screen, adapted by the HARRY POTTER franchise's regular screenwriter Steve Kloves (who earned an Oscar nomination here) and directed by the versatile Curtis Hanson (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL). Michael Douglas gives a thoroughly winning performance as Grady Tripp, a pothead Pittsburgh literature professor who, paralyzed by an early literary success, has spent decades working on a multi-thousand-page magnum opus he can't finish. Robert Downey, Jr., is his impatient editor, Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes are the students who help lift his spirits, and Frances McDormand is the dean and love interest who helps get him grounded.
DIR Curtis Hanson; SCR Steve Kloves, based on the novel by Michael Chabon; PROD Scott Rudin. US/UK/Germany/Japan, 2000, color, 111 min. RATED R
Saturday, August 22, 7:15; Sunday, August 23, 1:00; Monday, August 24, 4:30; Wednesday, August 26, 4:30; Thursday, August 27, 4:30
TRAFFIC
Adapted from the landmark UK miniseries TRAFFIK, Steven Soderbergh's film is a landmark achievement in mastering parallel and intersecting storylines, matched here to the suitably intricate and tangled subject matter of the Mexico-US drug trade. Michael Douglas is outstanding as a Midwest judge tapped by the President as the nation's new drug czar, only to discover that his own teenage honor student daughter in fact has a burgeoning drug habit. Other plot lines involve DEA agents Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán in San Diego, naïve housewife-cum ruthless drug lord's wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, and put-upon Tijuana cops Benicio Del Toro and Jacob Vargas. Nominated for five Oscars, winning four including Best Director for Soderbergh, Supporting Actor for Del Toro, Screenplay for Stephen Gaghan, and Editing for Stephen Mirrione.
DIR Steven Soderbergh; SCR Stephen Gaghan, based on the miniseries by Simon Moore; PROD Laura Bickford, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick. US/Germany, 2000, color, 147 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. RATED R
Saturday, August 29, 7:30; Sunday, August 30, 2:15; Wednesday, September 2, 7:00
