Todd Field
Encyclopedia
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
and Mel Tormé
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
) in Ashland
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
from the AFI Conservatory
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
in Radio Days
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
, Victor Nuñez
, and Carl Franklin
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Award from the British Film Institute
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
. To date, unadjusted box office
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
, a film based on the short story Killings
by author Andre Dubus
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
, Best Actor
(Tom Wilkinson
, his first nomination), Best Actress
(Sissy Spacek
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
(Marisa Tomei
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
of Newsweek
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Board of Review
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Board of Review
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Los Angeles Film Critics Association
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | New York Film Critics Circle
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Chicago Film Critics Association
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Golden Satellite Awards
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Golden Satellite Awards
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Independent Spirit Awards
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Montréal World Film Festival
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | British Film Institute
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | American Film Institute
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | San Francisco Film Critics Circle
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | San Francisco Film Critics Circle
|-
|-
! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Iowa Film Critics
|-
|-
Publications
Academic Papers
Audio
Video
Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
| Year | Film | Duties | Notes and Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 1992 in film The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards... |
The Dog The Dog (film) The Dog is a 1992 short film that Todd Field and Alex Vlacos created on the side while making Victor Nuñez’s Ruby in Paradise.As one of Field's earliest works, it is an experimental piece about a bible-toting fundamentalist wandering through the bikini clad bodies of Panama City, Florida.... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos | Short experimental film |
| Too Romantic Too Romantic Too Romantic is a 1992 dramatic short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It was his directorial debut. It is a dramatic piece about a fifteen-year-old boy taking a road trip with his recently widowed grandmother... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1993 1993 in film The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:... |
When I Was a Boy When I Was a Boy (film) When I Was a Boy is a 1993 short film created by Todd Field, Alex Vlacos and Matthew Modine. It is an experimental piece about a grown man reflecting on how he was reared by his mother and treated by others as a child. The piece premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival in front of Victor... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos & Matthew Modine | Premiered at Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... in front of Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... 's Grand Jury Prize winning Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... in which Field also starred. Exhibited at MoMA as part of the New Directors/New Films Series |
| The Tree The Tree (short film) The Tree is a 1993 short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a non-verbal dramatic piece following the life of a boy born at the turn of the century... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| Delivering Delivering (film) Delivering is a 1993 short film that Todd Field, while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory, adapted from the story of the same name by Andre Dubus. It is a dramatic piece that takes place on the day two brothers discover their mother has abandoned the family. This film is notable as it was the first... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1995 | Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex is a 1995 short film that Todd Field directed while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a dramatic piece about two eight-year-old children, a girl and boy who are left to their own devices in trying to sort out whether or not Alex's recently deceased mother is truly haunting... |
Director | AFI Second Year Thesis Project Winner Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... Special Jury Award, Winner College Emmy Best Film Award, Winner Aspen Short Fest Grand Prize |
Actor
| Year | Film | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 1987 in film -Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records.... |
Radio Days Radio Days Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:... |
Crooner | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
| The Allnighter The Allnighter (film) The Allnighter is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, released on May 1, 1987. The movie stars Susanna Hoffs, Dedee Pfeiffer, Joan Cusack and Pam Grier.-Background:... |
Bellhop | Tamar Hoffs | |
| Student Exchange Student Exchange Student Exchange is a 1987 television film directed by Mollie Miller.-Plot:Carole and Neil, two nerdy teenagers, get only perfect grades but have no social skills. When Carole learns that two foreign exchange students from France and Italy have gone to another school, they grab their chance and... |
Neil Barton/Adriano Fabrizzi | Molly Miller | |
| 1988 1988 in film -Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice... |
Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy | Private Anthony Glenn | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| Back to Back | Todd Brand | John Kincaide | |
| The End of Innocence | Richard | Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer.-Early life:... |
|
| 1989 1989 in film -Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million... |
Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy is a 1989 film that reenacts the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied endeavor to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The film is named after the nuclear weapons known by the code names "Fat Man" and "Little Boy". The code names can be taken for joking... |
Robert Rathbun Wilson | Roland Joffe Roland Joffé Roland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada... |
| Gross Anatomy Gross Anatomy (1989 film) Gross Anatomy is a 1989 American drama film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Matthew Modine and Daphne Zuniga. It was released by Touchstone Pictures.-Synopsis:... |
David Schreiner | Thom Eberhardt | |
| 1990 | Full Fathom Five Full Fathom Five (film) Full Fathom Five is an action film from 1990, written by Bart Davis and directed by Carl Franklin, starring Michael Moriarty, Maria Rangel, and Diego Bertie.-Synopsis:Full Fathom Five, based on the novel by... |
Johnson | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| 1991 | Queens Logic Queens Logic Queens Logic is a 1991 comedy from Seven Arts Pictures starring Kevin Bacon, Linda Fiorentino, Joe Mantegna, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Malkovich, Ken Olin, Chloe Webb and Tom Waits... |
Cecil | Steve Rash |
| 1993 | Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... |
Mike McCaslin | Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... |
| 1994 | Sleep With Me Sleep with Me Sleep With Me is a 1994 film starring Meg Tilly, Eric Stoltz and Craig Sheffer who play good friends who become involved in a love triangle, a relationship complicated by the marriage of Tilly's and Stoltz'es characters... |
Duane | Rory Kelly |
| 1996 1996 in film Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:... |
Twister | Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
| Walking and Talking Walking and Talking Walking and Talking is a 1996 independent film starring Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Todd Field, Liev Schreiber and Kevin Corrigan.Walking and Talking is a story about two women best friends and how they deal with their changing relationship as one prepares to get married and the other struggles... |
Frank | Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director. She has directed four feature films, most recently Please Give.-Career:... |
|
| 1999 1999 in film The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep... |
Broken Vessels Broken Vessels Broken Vessels is a 1998 medical drama film directed by Scott Ziehl and written by Ziehl along with David Baer and John McMahon. The film debuted at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and marked Ziehl's directorial debut. It stars Todd Field, Jason London, Roxana Zal, Susan Traylor, and... |
Jimmy Wazniack | Scott Ziehl |
| Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr... |
Nick Nightingale | Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career... |
|
| The Haunting The Haunting (1999 film) The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor... |
Todd Hackett | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
|
| 2002, 2003 | Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force , retitled Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 in 2011, is an American animated television series on Cartoon Network late night programing block, Adult Swim, as well as Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block and later G4 Canada's ADd block in Canada... |
Ol' Drippy | Matt Maiellaro Matt Maiellaro Matthew Gerard Maiellaro is the co-creator and writer of the cult television animated Adult Swim shows, Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 and Perfect Hair Forever, and creator of 12 Oz. Mouse... and Dave Willis Dave Willis David "Dave" Willis is an American voice actor, writer, and producer mostly known as one of the creators, writers, directors, and actors of the adult humored animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.... |
Awards and other distinctions
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
| Year | Film | Duties | Notes and Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 1992 in film The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards... |
The Dog The Dog (film) The Dog is a 1992 short film that Todd Field and Alex Vlacos created on the side while making Victor Nuñez’s Ruby in Paradise.As one of Field's earliest works, it is an experimental piece about a bible-toting fundamentalist wandering through the bikini clad bodies of Panama City, Florida.... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos | Short experimental film |
| Too Romantic Too Romantic Too Romantic is a 1992 dramatic short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It was his directorial debut. It is a dramatic piece about a fifteen-year-old boy taking a road trip with his recently widowed grandmother... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1993 1993 in film The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:... |
When I Was a Boy When I Was a Boy (film) When I Was a Boy is a 1993 short film created by Todd Field, Alex Vlacos and Matthew Modine. It is an experimental piece about a grown man reflecting on how he was reared by his mother and treated by others as a child. The piece premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival in front of Victor... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos & Matthew Modine | Premiered at Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... in front of Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... 's Grand Jury Prize winning Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... in which Field also starred. Exhibited at MoMA as part of the New Directors/New Films Series |
| The Tree The Tree (short film) The Tree is a 1993 short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a non-verbal dramatic piece following the life of a boy born at the turn of the century... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| Delivering Delivering (film) Delivering is a 1993 short film that Todd Field, while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory, adapted from the story of the same name by Andre Dubus. It is a dramatic piece that takes place on the day two brothers discover their mother has abandoned the family. This film is notable as it was the first... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1995 | Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex is a 1995 short film that Todd Field directed while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a dramatic piece about two eight-year-old children, a girl and boy who are left to their own devices in trying to sort out whether or not Alex's recently deceased mother is truly haunting... |
Director | AFI Second Year Thesis Project Winner Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... Special Jury Award, Winner College Emmy Best Film Award, Winner Aspen Short Fest Grand Prize |
Actor
| Year | Film | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 1987 in film -Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records.... |
Radio Days Radio Days Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:... |
Crooner | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
| The Allnighter The Allnighter (film) The Allnighter is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, released on May 1, 1987. The movie stars Susanna Hoffs, Dedee Pfeiffer, Joan Cusack and Pam Grier.-Background:... |
Bellhop | Tamar Hoffs | |
| Student Exchange Student Exchange Student Exchange is a 1987 television film directed by Mollie Miller.-Plot:Carole and Neil, two nerdy teenagers, get only perfect grades but have no social skills. When Carole learns that two foreign exchange students from France and Italy have gone to another school, they grab their chance and... |
Neil Barton/Adriano Fabrizzi | Molly Miller | |
| 1988 1988 in film -Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice... |
Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy | Private Anthony Glenn | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| Back to Back | Todd Brand | John Kincaide | |
| The End of Innocence | Richard | Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer.-Early life:... |
|
| 1989 1989 in film -Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million... |
Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy is a 1989 film that reenacts the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied endeavor to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The film is named after the nuclear weapons known by the code names "Fat Man" and "Little Boy". The code names can be taken for joking... |
Robert Rathbun Wilson | Roland Joffe Roland Joffé Roland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada... |
| Gross Anatomy Gross Anatomy (1989 film) Gross Anatomy is a 1989 American drama film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Matthew Modine and Daphne Zuniga. It was released by Touchstone Pictures.-Synopsis:... |
David Schreiner | Thom Eberhardt | |
| 1990 | Full Fathom Five Full Fathom Five (film) Full Fathom Five is an action film from 1990, written by Bart Davis and directed by Carl Franklin, starring Michael Moriarty, Maria Rangel, and Diego Bertie.-Synopsis:Full Fathom Five, based on the novel by... |
Johnson | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| 1991 | Queens Logic Queens Logic Queens Logic is a 1991 comedy from Seven Arts Pictures starring Kevin Bacon, Linda Fiorentino, Joe Mantegna, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Malkovich, Ken Olin, Chloe Webb and Tom Waits... |
Cecil | Steve Rash |
| 1993 | Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... |
Mike McCaslin | Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... |
| 1994 | Sleep With Me Sleep with Me Sleep With Me is a 1994 film starring Meg Tilly, Eric Stoltz and Craig Sheffer who play good friends who become involved in a love triangle, a relationship complicated by the marriage of Tilly's and Stoltz'es characters... |
Duane | Rory Kelly |
| 1996 1996 in film Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:... |
Twister | Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
| Walking and Talking Walking and Talking Walking and Talking is a 1996 independent film starring Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Todd Field, Liev Schreiber and Kevin Corrigan.Walking and Talking is a story about two women best friends and how they deal with their changing relationship as one prepares to get married and the other struggles... |
Frank | Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director. She has directed four feature films, most recently Please Give.-Career:... |
|
| 1999 1999 in film The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep... |
Broken Vessels Broken Vessels Broken Vessels is a 1998 medical drama film directed by Scott Ziehl and written by Ziehl along with David Baer and John McMahon. The film debuted at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and marked Ziehl's directorial debut. It stars Todd Field, Jason London, Roxana Zal, Susan Traylor, and... |
Jimmy Wazniack | Scott Ziehl |
| Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr... |
Nick Nightingale | Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career... |
|
| The Haunting The Haunting (1999 film) The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor... |
Todd Hackett | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
|
| 2002, 2003 | Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force , retitled Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 in 2011, is an American animated television series on Cartoon Network late night programing block, Adult Swim, as well as Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block and later G4 Canada's ADd block in Canada... |
Ol' Drippy | Matt Maiellaro Matt Maiellaro Matthew Gerard Maiellaro is the co-creator and writer of the cult television animated Adult Swim shows, Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 and Perfect Hair Forever, and creator of 12 Oz. Mouse... and Dave Willis Dave Willis David "Dave" Willis is an American voice actor, writer, and producer mostly known as one of the creators, writers, directors, and actors of the adult humored animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.... |
Awards and other distinctions
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
||||||
| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
||||||
Short films
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field (born February 24, 1964) is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.Background and personal life
Field was born in Pomona, CaliforniaPomona, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, where his family ran a poultry farm. When Field turned two his family moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where his father went to work as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian. At an early age he became interested in performing sleight-of-hand and later music. A budding jazz musician, at the age of sixteen Field became a member of the Big Band at Mount Hood Community College
Mount Hood Community College
Mt. Hood Community College is a public community college in Gresham, Oregon, United States, named after Mount Hood. Opened in 1966, MHCC enrolls nearly 26,000 students each year and offers classes at the main campus in Gresham, the MHCC Maywood Park Center, and evening education centers at area...
in Gresham, Oregon. Headed by Larry McVey, the band had become a proving-ground and regular stop for Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
and Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
when they were looking for new players. It was here Field played trombone alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award-nominee, Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
. Field graduated with his class from Centennial High School
Centennial High School (Gresham, Oregon)
Centennial High School is a public high school located in Gresham, Oregon, United States.-Academics:In 1989, Centennial High School was honored in the Blue Ribbon Schools Program, the highest honor a school can receive in the United States....
on Portland's eastside and briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University
is a public liberal arts college located in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1926, it was formerly known as Southern Oregon College and Southern Oregon State College . SOU offers criminology, natural sciences, including environmental science, Shakespearean studies and theatre arts programs...
) in Ashland
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
on a music scholarship, but left after his freshman year favoring a move to New York to study acting. Once there, he began performing with the Ark Theatre Company as both an actor and musician.
Field received his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the AFI Conservatory
AFI Conservatory
The AFI Conservatory is a division of the American Film Institute founded in 1969, located in Hollywood's Griffith Park. The school is the only existing Master of Fine Arts conservatory in advanced film education...
.
He married Serena Rathbun on July 25, 1986; they have four children, two of whom have appeared in Field's films.
Career
One of the film industry's more multifaceted members, having worked in varying capacities as an actor, director, producer, composer, and screenwriter, Field began making motion pictures in 1985 when he was cast by Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
. He went on to work with some of America's greatest film makers including Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez
Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter...
, and Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986...
. It was Franklin and Nunez (both AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
alumnists) who encouraged Field to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI, which he did in the fall of 1992. Since that time he has received the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award from the AFI, the Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award from the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, a Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance 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...
, and his short films have been exhibited at various venues overseas and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. To date, unadjusted box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
receipts for the films in which Field has participated exceed a billion dollars worldwide.
In the Bedroom
Field became one of Hollywood's hottest new writer/directors with the release of In the BedroomIn the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
, a film based on the short story Killings
Killings
Killings is a short tale written by Andre Dubus in 1979. In 2001 the story was adapted into Todd Field's film In the Bedroom. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei...
by author Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
. (Kubrick and Dubus were among Field's mentors; both died right before the production of In the Bedroom.) In the Bedroom was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
, his first nomination), Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, her sixth nomination), Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(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...
, her second nomination), and Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine
Rockland, Maine
Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,297. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination...
, a New England town in which Field resides—the house where he, his wife (Serena Rathbun), and their four children live was even used as the setting for one sequence.
Rathbun and Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
did a portion of the set designing and Field handled the camera himself on many of the shots. The result, critics said, was stunning: David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
wrote, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he’s guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
also praised the director: "Field has pulled off something here I thought no American filmmaker would ever manage again: he makes violence feel genuinely shocking."
For his work on In the Bedroom, Field was named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review, and his script was awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to win Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
, and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best First Film to Field. In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom
In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based...
received six AFI nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, three Golden Globe nominations, and five Academy Award
Academy 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...
nominations including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and two individually for Field both as Screenwriter and Producer. The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner
Franklin Schaffner
Franklin James Schaffner was an American film director best known for such films as Planet of the Apes , Patton , Papillon , and The Boys from Brazil .-Early life:...
Alumni Medal. With the exception of the AFI Life Achievement Award
AFI Life Achievement Award
The AFI Life Achievement Award was established by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute on February 26, 1973 to honor a single individual for his or her lifetime contribution to enriching American culture through motion pictures and television....
, the Schaffner Award is the highest honor an individual can achieve.
Little Children
Field followed In the Bedroom with Little ChildrenLittle Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including two for his actors: Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
(her fifth nomination, and with it a record for the youngest actor to be nominated for five Academy Awards) and Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
(his first nomination, and first leading role in over fifteen years). After having written, directed and produced just two feature films, Field had garnered five Academy Award nominations for his actors, and three for himself, personally. The film, based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival to similar accolades: In reviewing the film, A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote, "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Later in his end-of-year roundup "Best of 2006", Scott added: "The first time you see Todd Field's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel, you may remark on the director's impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast. Kate Winslet in particular. The second time, the film's lurid, crazy side is more apparent, and the intensity of the supporting performances — Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville — creep into the foreground. This movie, Mr. Field's second feature..., is a complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure."
Future work
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's novel Blood Meridian. During the process, Field took over the directing position of Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
, who was originally scheduled to direct. Scott himself stated that the film would be a tricky film and should be left as a novel.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Field is currently in the process of preparing his next film, an adaptation of the Boston Teran
Boston Teran
Boston Teran is an American author, notable for writing books such as God is a Bullet and The Creed of Violence. Boston Teran is a pseudonym.-List of works:*God Is A Bullet *Never Count Out The Dead...
novel The Creed of Violence with Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
in the lead role. The film is slated to be released in 2012.
Feature films
| Year | Film | Oscars | BAFTA | Golden Globe Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2001 2001 in film The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy... |
In the Bedroom In the Bedroom In the Bedroom is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Todd Field, and dedicated to Andre Dubus, whose short story Killings is the source material on which the screenplay, by Field and Robert Festinger, is based... |
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| 2006 2006 in film - Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006... |
Little Children Little Children (film) Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville... |
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Short films
| Year | Film | Duties | Notes and Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 1992 in film The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards... |
The Dog The Dog (film) The Dog is a 1992 short film that Todd Field and Alex Vlacos created on the side while making Victor Nuñez’s Ruby in Paradise.As one of Field's earliest works, it is an experimental piece about a bible-toting fundamentalist wandering through the bikini clad bodies of Panama City, Florida.... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos | Short experimental film |
| Too Romantic Too Romantic Too Romantic is a 1992 dramatic short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It was his directorial debut. It is a dramatic piece about a fifteen-year-old boy taking a road trip with his recently widowed grandmother... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1993 1993 in film The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:... |
When I Was a Boy When I Was a Boy (film) When I Was a Boy is a 1993 short film created by Todd Field, Alex Vlacos and Matthew Modine. It is an experimental piece about a grown man reflecting on how he was reared by his mother and treated by others as a child. The piece premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival in front of Victor... |
Co-Director with Alex Vlacos & Matthew Modine | Premiered at Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... in front of Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... 's Grand Jury Prize winning Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... in which Field also starred. Exhibited at MoMA as part of the New Directors/New Films Series |
| The Tree The Tree (short film) The Tree is a 1993 short film that Todd Field created while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a non-verbal dramatic piece following the life of a boy born at the turn of the century... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| Delivering Delivering (film) Delivering is a 1993 short film that Todd Field, while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory, adapted from the story of the same name by Andre Dubus. It is a dramatic piece that takes place on the day two brothers discover their mother has abandoned the family. This film is notable as it was the first... |
Writer/Director | AFI First Year Cycle Project | |
| 1995 | Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex Nonnie & Alex is a 1995 short film that Todd Field directed while a fellow at the AFI Conservatory. It is a dramatic piece about two eight-year-old children, a girl and boy who are left to their own devices in trying to sort out whether or not Alex's recently deceased mother is truly haunting... |
Director | AFI Second Year Thesis Project Winner Sundance Film Festival Sundance 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... Special Jury Award, Winner College Emmy Best Film Award, Winner Aspen Short Fest Grand Prize |
Actor
| Year | Film | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 1987 in film -Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records.... |
Radio Days Radio Days Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:... |
Crooner | Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema... |
| The Allnighter The Allnighter (film) The Allnighter is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, released on May 1, 1987. The movie stars Susanna Hoffs, Dedee Pfeiffer, Joan Cusack and Pam Grier.-Background:... |
Bellhop | Tamar Hoffs | |
| Student Exchange Student Exchange Student Exchange is a 1987 television film directed by Mollie Miller.-Plot:Carole and Neil, two nerdy teenagers, get only perfect grades but have no social skills. When Carole learns that two foreign exchange students from France and Italy have gone to another school, they grab their chance and... |
Neil Barton/Adriano Fabrizzi | Molly Miller | |
| 1988 1988 in film -Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice... |
Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy | Private Anthony Glenn | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| Back to Back | Todd Brand | John Kincaide | |
| The End of Innocence | Richard | Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon Dyan Cannon is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer.-Early life:... |
|
| 1989 1989 in film -Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million... |
Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man and Little Boy is a 1989 film that reenacts the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied endeavor to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The film is named after the nuclear weapons known by the code names "Fat Man" and "Little Boy". The code names can be taken for joking... |
Robert Rathbun Wilson | Roland Joffe Roland Joffé Roland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada... |
| Gross Anatomy Gross Anatomy (1989 film) Gross Anatomy is a 1989 American drama film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Matthew Modine and Daphne Zuniga. It was released by Touchstone Pictures.-Synopsis:... |
David Schreiner | Thom Eberhardt | |
| 1990 | Full Fathom Five Full Fathom Five (film) Full Fathom Five is an action film from 1990, written by Bart Davis and directed by Carl Franklin, starring Michael Moriarty, Maria Rangel, and Diego Bertie.-Synopsis:Full Fathom Five, based on the novel by... |
Johnson | Carl Franklin Carl Franklin Carl Franklin is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986... |
| 1991 | Queens Logic Queens Logic Queens Logic is a 1991 comedy from Seven Arts Pictures starring Kevin Bacon, Linda Fiorentino, Joe Mantegna, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Malkovich, Ken Olin, Chloe Webb and Tom Waits... |
Cecil | Steve Rash |
| 1993 | Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise Ruby in Paradise is a 1993 film written, directed, and edited by Victor Nuñez, and starring Ashley Judd, Todd Field, Bentley Mitchum, Allison Dean, and Dorothy Lyman. It is an homage to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.-Synopsis:... |
Mike McCaslin | Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez Victor Nuñez is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter... |
| 1994 | Sleep With Me Sleep with Me Sleep With Me is a 1994 film starring Meg Tilly, Eric Stoltz and Craig Sheffer who play good friends who become involved in a love triangle, a relationship complicated by the marriage of Tilly's and Stoltz'es characters... |
Duane | Rory Kelly |
| 1996 1996 in film Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:... |
Twister | Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
| Walking and Talking Walking and Talking Walking and Talking is a 1996 independent film starring Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Todd Field, Liev Schreiber and Kevin Corrigan.Walking and Talking is a story about two women best friends and how they deal with their changing relationship as one prepares to get married and the other struggles... |
Frank | Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director. She has directed four feature films, most recently Please Give.-Career:... |
|
| 1999 1999 in film The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep... |
Broken Vessels Broken Vessels Broken Vessels is a 1998 medical drama film directed by Scott Ziehl and written by Ziehl along with David Baer and John McMahon. The film debuted at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and marked Ziehl's directorial debut. It stars Todd Field, Jason London, Roxana Zal, Susan Traylor, and... |
Jimmy Wazniack | Scott Ziehl |
| Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr... |
Nick Nightingale | Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career... |
|
| The Haunting The Haunting (1999 film) The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor... |
Todd Hackett | Jan de Bont Jan de Bont Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan... |
|
| 2002, 2003 | Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force Aqua Teen Hunger Force , retitled Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 in 2011, is an American animated television series on Cartoon Network late night programing block, Adult Swim, as well as Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block and later G4 Canada's ADd block in Canada... |
Ol' Drippy | Matt Maiellaro Matt Maiellaro Matthew Gerard Maiellaro is the co-creator and writer of the cult television animated Adult Swim shows, Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 and Perfect Hair Forever, and creator of 12 Oz. Mouse... and Dave Willis Dave Willis David "Dave" Willis is an American voice actor, writer, and producer mostly known as one of the creators, writers, directors, and actors of the adult humored animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.... |
Awards and other distinctions
|-! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Board of Review
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Board of Review
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | New York Film Critics Circle
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Chicago Film Critics Association
Chicago Film Critics Association
The Chicago Film Critics Association is an American film critic association.-Members:Current members include:*Sarah Knight Adamson*Zbigniew Banas*Shelley Cameron*Dave Canfield*Vittorio Carli*Erik Childress*Camerin Courtney*Bonnie DeShong...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Golden Satellite Awards
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Golden Satellite Awards
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | 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...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Montréal World Film Festival
Montreal World Film Festival
The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | San Francisco Film Critics Circle
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle was founded in 2002 as an organization of film journalists and critics from San Francisco, California based publications....
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | San Francisco Film Critics Circle
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle was founded in 2002 as an organization of film journalists and critics from San Francisco, California based publications....
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! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Iowa Film Critics
Iowa Film Critics
The Iowa Film Critics is an organization of film reviewers from publications based in the U.S. state of Iowa.Each year, the IFC meets to vote on their Iowa Film Critics Awards for films released in the same or the previous calendar year....
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External links
WebPublications
- Delicately Dissecting the Quiet Life – 18 November 2001, The New York Times
- 'In the Bedroom' Without Frills – 9 August 2002, The New York Times
- The Best DVD's of 2002 – 3 January 2003, The New York Times
- Acting all grown up in a land of `Children’ – 21 January 2007, Los Angeles Times
- Field on Bergman – 1 August 2007, Los Angeles Times
Academic Papers
Audio
- Chicago Public Radio's Film Spotting Interview (mp3) 28 October 2006
- Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment KCRW 11 October 2006
- Renee Montagne NPR Morning Edition - DVD Commentaries, 26 February 2003
- Scott Horsley NPR Morning Edition - DVD Sales Challenge Video-Rental Business, 25 February 2003
- Warren Olney Interview KCRW 15 March 2002
Video
