John Box
Encyclopedia
John Allan Hyatt Box OBE
, (January 27, 1920—March 7, 2005), was a British
film production designer
and art director. During his career he won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction
on four occasions and won its BAFTA equivalent three times, making him the most decorated film designer of all time. Throughout his career he earned a reputation for recreating exotic locations in rather more mundane surroundings, for example he once created a walled Chinese
city in Snowdonia
.
, briefly attending Highgate School
but, due to his father's job as a civil engineer
, spent most of his childhood in Sri Lanka
, then the British colony of Ceylon. After studying architecture
at North London Polytechnic
he served in the Royal Armoured Corps
during World War II
.
winner. During this period he worked on several British films, including Anthony Asquith
's 1951 adaptation of The Browning Version
. Box’s first films as an art director were low budget affairs, the first being the 1956 science fiction
B-movie
The Gamma People
. His first big break came when Mark Robson
asked him to work on the period film
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
, which starred Ingrid Bergman
. After this Box worked on both Richard Quine
’s The World of Suzie Wong
and Carol Reed
's adaptation of Graham Greene
’s novel Our Man in Havana
, both of which were released in 1960.
It was his role as the production designer of Lawrence of Arabia
that made him famous, as well as winning him his first Oscar. Box got the job working on this film after John Bryan
fell ill. Box designed Of Human Bondage
in 1964 and worked with David Lean
again on the 1965 adaptation of Doctor Zhivago
, for which he again won an Oscar for his set designs.
The following year Box won his first BAFTA award for his reproduction of Tudor
England in Fred Zinnemann
's version of A Man for All Seasons
. In his next production he recreated Victorian era
London for the musical Oliver!
. He won an Oscar for Oliver!, a feat he repeated in his next film three years later, Nicholas and Alexandra
, which provided Box with his final Academy Award for his detailed reproduction of pre-revolution
Russia
.
In 1972, Box worked on Travels with My Aunt
, which earned him another Oscar nomination. He won a BAFTA in 1974 for his role on Jack Clayton
’s version of The Great Gatsby
, and won the award again the following year for Rollerball
.
Box's next two projects were 1977's Sorcerer
and The Keep
from 1983, both of which were expensive and unsuccessful. He reunited with David Lean in 1984 for the film A Passage to India
, for which Box received Oscar and BAFTA nominations. He retired after this film, but returned in the mid-90s to work on an adaptation of Black Beauty
, as well as First Knight
, his first foray into computer assisted set design and his final film. He was awarded the OBE in 1998.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, (January 27, 1920—March 7, 2005), was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
film production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
and art director. During his career he won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
on four occasions and won its BAFTA equivalent three times, making him the most decorated film designer of all time. Throughout his career he earned a reputation for recreating exotic locations in rather more mundane surroundings, for example he once created a walled Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
city in Snowdonia
Snowdonia
Snowdonia is a region in north Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three National Parks in Wales, in 1951.-Name and extent:...
.
Early life
Box was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, briefly attending Highgate School
Highgate School
-Notable members of staff and governing body:* John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General* 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law* T. S...
but, due to his father's job as a civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
, spent most of his childhood in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, then the British colony of Ceylon. After studying architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
at North London Polytechnic
University of North London
The University of North London was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002. On 1 August 2002, it merged with London Guildhall University to form London Metropolitan University. The former University of North London premises now form the new university's north campus, situated on...
he served in the Royal Armoured Corps
Royal Armoured Corps
The Royal Armoured Corps is currently a collection of ten regular regiments, mostly converted from old horse cavalry regiments, and four Yeomanry regiments of the Territorial Army...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Career
After the war Box served his apprenticeship an assistant to the art director Carmen Dillon, herself an OscarAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
winner. During this period he worked on several British films, including Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith was a leading English film director. He collaborated successfully with playwright Terence Rattigan on The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version , among other adaptations...
's 1951 adaptation of The Browning Version
The Browning Version (1951 film)
The Browning Version is a 1951 British film based on the 1948 play of the same name by Terence Rattigan. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and starred Michael Redgrave.-Plot:...
. Box’s first films as an art director were low budget affairs, the first being the 1956 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
The Gamma People
The Gamma People
The Gamma People is a 1956 British science fiction film directed by John Gilling and starring Paul Douglas, Eva Bartok and Leslie Phillips.-Plot:...
. His first big break came when Mark Robson
Mark Robson
Mark Robson was a Canadian-born film editor, film director and producer in Hollywood.-Career:Born in Montreal, Quebec, he moved to the United States at a young age. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles then found work in the prop department at 20th Century Fox studios...
asked him to work on the period film
Historical drama film
The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous persons. Some historical dramas attempt to accurately portray a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow...
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a 1958 American 20th Century Fox film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British maid, who became a missionary in China during the tumultuous years leading up to World War II...
, which starred Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
. After this Box worked on both Richard Quine
Richard Quine
Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...
’s The World of Suzie Wong
The World of Suzie Wong
The World of Suzie Wong is a 1957 novel written by Richard Mason. The main characters are Robert Lomax, a young British artist living in Hong Kong, and Suzie Wong, the title character, a Chinese woman who works as a prostitute...
and Carol Reed
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
's adaptation of Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
’s novel Our Man in Havana
Our Man in Havana
Our Man In Havana is a novel by British author Graham Greene, where he makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants....
, both of which were released in 1960.
It was his role as the production designer of Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
that made him famous, as well as winning him his first Oscar. Box got the job working on this film after John Bryan
John Bryan (art director)
John Bryan was an art director and film producer.John Bryan was born in London, England. He won the Oscar for Best Art Direction for the film Great Expectations in 1946. He was nominated twice more, for Caesar and Cleopatra in 1947 and for Becket in 1964...
fell ill. Box designed Of Human Bondage
Of Human Bondage (1964 film)
Of Human Bondage is a 1964 British drama film directed by Ken Hughes. The MGM release, the third screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel, was written by Bryan Forbes.-Synopsis:...
in 1964 and worked with David Lean
David Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
again on the 1965 adaptation of Doctor Zhivago
Doctor Zhivago (1965 film)
Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 epic drama-romance-war film directed by David Lean and loosely based on the famous novel of the same name by Boris Pasternak...
, for which he again won an Oscar for his set designs.
The following year Box won his first BAFTA award for his reproduction of Tudor
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
England in Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
's version of A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)
A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 film based on Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons about Sir Thomas More. It was released on December 12, 1966. Paul Scofield, who had played More in the West End stage premiere, also took the role in the film. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann, who had...
. In his next production he recreated Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
London for the musical Oliver!
Oliver! (film)
Oliver! is a 1968 British musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris....
. He won an Oscar for Oliver!, a feat he repeated in his next film three years later, Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra is a 1971 biographical film which tells the story of the last Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra....
, which provided Box with his final Academy Award for his detailed reproduction of pre-revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
In 1972, Box worked on Travels with My Aunt
Travels with My Aunt (film)
Travels with My Aunt is a 1972 American comedy film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Jay Presson Allen and Hugh Wheeler is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Graham Greene.-Plot:...
, which earned him another Oscar nomination. He won a BAFTA in 1974 for his role on Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
’s version of The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby (1974 film)
The Great Gatsby is a 1974 romantic drama film distributed by Newdon Productions and Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Jack Clayton and produced by David Merrick, from a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola based on F...
, and won the award again the following year for Rollerball
Rollerball (1975 film)
Rollerball is a 1975 American dystopian fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by William Harrison, who adapted his own short story "Roller Ball Murder", which first appeared in 1973 in Esquire magazine.-The Game:...
.
Box's next two projects were 1977's Sorcerer
Sorcerer (film)
Sorcerer is a 1977 thriller adventure film, produced and directed by William Friedkin, starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal and Amidou. It is the second remake of the 1953 French film Le Salaire de la Peur ....
and The Keep
The Keep (film)
The Keep is a 1983 horror film directed by Michael Mann and starring Scott Glenn, Gabriel Byrne, Jürgen Prochnow, Alberta Watson and Ian McKellen. It was released by Paramount Pictures. The story is based on the F...
from 1983, both of which were expensive and unsuccessful. He reunited with David Lean in 1984 for the film A Passage to India
A Passage to India (film)
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film written and directed by David Lean. The screenplay is based on the 1924 novel of the same title by E. M. Forster and the 1960 play by Santha Rama Rau that was inspired by the novel....
, for which Box received Oscar and BAFTA nominations. He retired after this film, but returned in the mid-90s to work on an adaptation of Black Beauty
Black Beauty
Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
, as well as First Knight
First Knight
First Knight is a 1995 American medieval film based on Arthurian legend, directed by Jerry Zucker. It stars Richard Gere as Lancelot, Julia Ormond as Guinevere, Sean Connery as King Arthur and Ben Cross as Malagant....
, his first foray into computer assisted set design and his final film. He was awarded the OBE in 1998.