Career
Raised in Chicago, Zwigoff, moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and met R. Crumb, who shared his interest in pre-war American roots music. Zwigoff, who plays cello and mandolin, joined Crumb’s string band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders with whom he recorded several records.
Zwigoff began his film career making documentary films, starting with 1985's Louie Bluie, a one-hour documentary about the obscure blues and string band musician, Howard Armstrong. Zwigoff had been inspired to locate and interview him after listening to a 30s recording, "State Street Rag", on which Armstrong played the mandolin.
In 1994, he completed Crumb, a critically acclaimed documentary about R. Crumb and his two brothers. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the DGA award, the NY Film Critics Circle Award, the LA Film Critics Award, and the National Society of Film Critics Award. Additionally, critic Gene Siskel named Crumb the best film of 1995 as did over ten other major film critics. It appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists of important critics. When Crumb failed to receive an Oscar nomination, there was an outcry from the media which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to revamp their documentary nomination process that previously had been dominated by the distributors of documentary films.
Zwigoff’s first fiction feature film was the comedy-drama Ghost World, based on the comic book of the same name. For this, Zwigoff and co-writer Daniel Clowes were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won the Independent Spirit Award. Ghost World was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and two AFI awards. USA Today and The Washington Post called it the best film of the year. Ghost World appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists.
Zwigoff’s next film was the 2003 black comedy Bad Santa whose star, Billy Bob Thornton, was nominated for a Golden Globe award. The film cost $23 million to make and grossed over $76 million worldwide.
His latest feature film was Art School Confidential whose best known stars are John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, and Anjelica Huston. Art School Confidential was Zwigoff’s second collaboration with writer Daniel Clowes.
Read more about this topic: Terry Zwigoff
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)