Tamara Jenkins
Encyclopedia
Tamara Jenkins is an American screenwriter
, actress and director
. She is best known for her two feature films, Slums of Beverly Hills
(1998) and The Savages
(2007).
. After her parents divorced, her father, a car salesman and former nightclub owner, took custody of her and her three brothers. She lived in Beverly Hills with her father and brothers and attended Beverly Hills High for a year and a half.
A stage actor and a performance artist in New York's East Village during the 1980s, she enrolled in the Graduate Filmmaking program at New York University
's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts
in the '90s. Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, Jenkins also attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Filmmakers Lab.
. Afterwards she completed a congressional mandate associated with PBS
to bring diverse programming to public television, that was funded by the Independent Television Service. Another black and white short film, 1993's Family Remains, followed, which earned her early acclaim; it received a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Short Filmmaking at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.
Her debut feature film, 1998's semi autobiographical Slums of Beverly Hills
which she both wrote and directed, played at both Sundance and the Cannes film festival
. Slums is a dark comedy about growing up broke in glitzy Los Angeles
. Starring Alan Arkin
, Natasha Lyonne
and Marisa Tomei
, the film was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards
(Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay) and has since become a cult hit. Jenkins took a nearly decade-long hiatus to complete her next feature film. In the nine-year gap between her two films, she worked on an eventually abandoned screenplay about photographer Diane Arbus
and also took on rewrite jobs, published essays about art and worked on sex-education films and public-service announcements.
Shortly after her marriage, Jenkins went to Yaddo
, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York
, to work on her next screenplay that would eventually become 2007's The Savages
. For this tragicomedy about a dysfunctional family
dealing with the aftershocks of its patriarch's elderly dementia, Jenkins took inspiration from her experiences with her grandmother and father, both of whom were in nursing homes with dementia
. Jenkins' father, who was much older than her mother, first needed care when his daughter was in her 30s.
The project was initially with Focus Features
, which had given Jenkins a "blind deal" to write any script she wanted, but agreed to let her develop it elsewhere after what she characterized as a disagreement over casting. Fox Searchlight picked up the film with a modest budget ($8 million) and compressed shooting schedule of 30 days. Starring Laura Linney
(who received her third Academy Award nomination for her role) and Philip Seymour Hoffman
, the film became a critical success after screening at numerous film festivals, including Sundance and the Toronto Film Festival. Jenkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
.
In 2002, Jenkins married screenwriter Jim Taylor
, the writing and producing partner of the director Alexander Payne
.
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, actress and director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. She is best known for her two feature films, Slums of Beverly Hills
Slums of Beverly Hills
The Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 motion picture, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. Its hero is a teenage girl struggling to grow up in a lower-middle-class family that moves every few months in the late 1970s....
(1998) and The Savages
The Savages (film)
The Savages is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:...
(2007).
Early life
Tamara Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. After her parents divorced, her father, a car salesman and former nightclub owner, took custody of her and her three brothers. She lived in Beverly Hills with her father and brothers and attended Beverly Hills High for a year and a half.
A stage actor and a performance artist in New York's East Village during the 1980s, she enrolled in the Graduate Filmmaking program at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts
Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15 schools that make up New York University ....
in the '90s. Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, Jenkins also attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Filmmakers Lab.
Career
Jenkins began her short career with a film, 1991's Fugitive Love, which screened at the Sundance Film FestivalSundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. Afterwards she completed a congressional mandate associated with PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
to bring diverse programming to public television, that was funded by the Independent Television Service. Another black and white short film, 1993's Family Remains, followed, which earned her early acclaim; it received a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Short Filmmaking at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.
Her debut feature film, 1998's semi autobiographical Slums of Beverly Hills
Slums of Beverly Hills
The Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 motion picture, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. Its hero is a teenage girl struggling to grow up in a lower-middle-class family that moves every few months in the late 1970s....
which she both wrote and directed, played at both Sundance and the Cannes film festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
. Slums is a dark comedy about growing up broke in glitzy Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Starring Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
, Natasha Lyonne
Natasha Lyonne
-Early life:Lyonne was born Natasha Braunstein in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Yvette Lyonne, a product licensing consultant, and Aaron Braunstein, a native of Brooklyn who worked as a boxing promoter. Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household...
and Marisa Tomei
Marisa Tomei
Marisa Tomei is an American stage, film and television actress. Following her work on As The World Turns, Tomei came to prominence as a supporting cast member on The Cosby Show spinoff A Different World in 1987...
, the film was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
(Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay) and has since become a cult hit. Jenkins took a nearly decade-long hiatus to complete her next feature film. In the nine-year gap between her two films, she worked on an eventually abandoned screenplay about photographer Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid.....
and also took on rewrite jobs, published essays about art and worked on sex-education films and public-service announcements.
Shortly after her marriage, Jenkins went to Yaddo
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
, the artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs, also known as simply Saratoga, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word "Saratoga" is known to be a corruption of a Native American name, ...
, to work on her next screenplay that would eventually become 2007's The Savages
The Savages (film)
The Savages is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:...
. For this tragicomedy about a dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
dealing with the aftershocks of its patriarch's elderly dementia, Jenkins took inspiration from her experiences with her grandmother and father, both of whom were in nursing homes with dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
. Jenkins' father, who was much older than her mother, first needed care when his daughter was in her 30s.
The project was initially with Focus Features
Focus Features
Focus Features is the art house films division of NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and acts as both a producer and distributor for its own films and a distributor for foreign films....
, which had given Jenkins a "blind deal" to write any script she wanted, but agreed to let her develop it elsewhere after what she characterized as a disagreement over casting. Fox Searchlight picked up the film with a modest budget ($8 million) and compressed shooting schedule of 30 days. Starring Laura Linney
Laura Linney
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...
(who received her third Academy Award nomination for her role) and Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, the film became a critical success after screening at numerous film festivals, including Sundance and the Toronto Film Festival. Jenkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Personal life
In addition to her work in film, Jenkins' writing has been published in Zoetrope: All-Story and Tin House Magazine. Most recently her essay, "Holy Innocents", appeared in the book Lisa Yuskavage: Small Paintings 1993-2004. She has also directed theater at The New Group, worked with teens creating a sex education film for the non-profit organization Scenarios and directed a series of public service announcements for Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
.
In 2002, Jenkins married screenwriter Jim Taylor
Jim Taylor (writer)
Jim Taylor is an American producer and screenwriter, best known as the writing partner of Alexander Payne. They are credited as co-writers of six films released between 1996 and 2007:Citizen Ruth ,...
, the writing and producing partner of the director Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne
Alexander Payne, born Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos is an American film director and screenwriter. His films are noted for their dark humor and satirical depictions of contemporary American society.- Early life :...
.
Director
- Fugitive Love (1991)
- Family Remains (1993)
- Slums of Beverly HillsSlums of Beverly HillsThe Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 motion picture, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. Its hero is a teenage girl struggling to grow up in a lower-middle-class family that moves every few months in the late 1970s....
(1998) - Choices: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (2004)
- The SavagesThe Savages (film)The Savages is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:...
(2007)
Actress
- Cheap Flight (1996)
- Happy AccidentsHappy AccidentsHappy Accidents is a 2000 American film starring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio. The movie revolves around Ruby Weaver, a New York woman with a string of failed relationships, and Sam Deed, a man who claims to be from the year 2470...
(2000) - Love in the Time of Money (2002)
Writer
- Family Remains (1993)
- Slums of Beverly HillsSlums of Beverly HillsThe Slums of Beverly Hills is a 1998 motion picture, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. Its hero is a teenage girl struggling to grow up in a lower-middle-class family that moves every few months in the late 1970s....
(1998) - The SavagesThe Savages (film)The Savages is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:...
(2007)