Scots filmmaker David Mackenzie celebrates four Oscar nominations
PROFILE
SCOTTISH film director David Mackenzie doesn’t like to make the same film twice. A glance at his CV underlines this, as well as testifying to his drive, versatility and increasing range.
His films have included the Edinburgh-set Hallam Foe which, said one critic, carried echoes of Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window; Perfect Sense, described by Mark Kermode as an “understated apocalypse parable”; Starred Up, a powerful, brutal prison drama; and his most recent, Hell Or High Water – a spellbinding heist thriller, set in West Texas and starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Gil Birmingham – which has set him front and centre in the world of entertainment thanks to the multiple Oscar nominations it has just received.
Hell Or High Water has real emotional depth and the spirit of some of the great American movies from the 1970s. It also boasts four complex main characters, and has been showered with critical praise.
Last week, the film attracted no fewer than four Oscar nominations – Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Bridges, film editing (for Jake Roberts, who has often worked with Mackenzie), and Original Screenplay, for Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote the 2015 drugs-cartel thriller, Sicario.
The film finds itself competing for Best Picture with La La Land, Manchester By The Sea, Arrival and Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge.
Mackenzie was lavishly praised on Twitter in the wake of the Oscar announcements. Ian Rankin retweeted an enthusiastic message from Scotsborn film producer Iain Smith: “Big congratulations to Glasgow’s very own @davidhmackenzie for winning 4 Oscar nominations for ‘Hell or High Water’ including Best Film.”
Bridges, who plays a Texas Ranger in pursuit of bank-robbing brothers (Pine and Foster) himself tweeted: “Really dug playing with Gil, Chris and Ben & being directed by the talented David Mackenzie.”
There were congratulations, too, from his alma mater, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee.
Mackenzie, now 50, and his brother Alastair, the film and TV actor, were born to retired Rear-Admiral John Mackenzie and his wife Ursula (they also have a sister, Rachel). Perth-born Mackenzie Senior had a remarkable career in the Royal Navy (his own mother, Alison, was part of the family that owned the Jenners department store in Edinburgh).
John and Ursula died within the space of a few months, the year before last. At the end of Hell Or High Water, just before the credits roll, we read: “This film is dedicated to David John Mackenzie (1929-2015) and Ursula Sybil Mackenzie (1940-2015).”
“My father was very much a naval man and he was quite confused by our career choices,” David told the Irish Times in September, referring to the brothers’ decision to go into the arts.
Mackenzie studied photography at Duncan of Jordanstone and later worked in a repertory cinema, where he watched films constantly. He recalls having a “revelation” while watching Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, while his main inspiration was Danish cinema, and the Dogme 95 movement in particular.
In 1996, he, Alastair and Gillian Berrie founded the Glasgow-based film production company Sigma Films. David made a number of award-win- ning shorts and, in 2001, Sigma produced his feature debut The Last Great Wilderness (which starred Alastair) and later developed and associate-produced his second feature, Young Adam, which starred Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan. The film premiered at Cannes in 2003 and earned several awards and nominations.
Mackenzie’s later films included Asylum (starring Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen), the awards/nominations-laden Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell), and Spread (Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche).
Starred Up, which had supple, brilliant performances from Jack O’Connell and Ben Mendelsohn as a son and father who find themselves in the same prison, was described more than once as an instant classic.
Hell Or High Water fully deserves its Oscar nominations, the awards for which will be presented on February 26. Mackenzie is now engaged on two intriguing projects for US television – James Ellroy’s Gemstone, and Damnation, said to be an “epic saga of the secret history of the 1930s American heartland”.
Creative Scotland supports Sigma through its screen funding and has backed Mackenzie’s Starred Up, Perfect Sense, You Instead, Hallam Foe, Young Adam and The Last Great Wilderness.
Natalie Usher, director of screen at Creative Scotland, congratulating him on the “fantastic achievement” of Hell Or High Water, said: “We are proud to have supported David’s feature career and delighted to see this Scottish filmmaker recognised at the highest level.”
Allan Hunter, co-director of the Glasgow Film Festival, said he was “thrilled to bits” by Hell Or High Water’s Oscar nominations. “In recent years he seems to be getting better and better,” he added. “Hell Or High Water was one of my favourite films from last year. It was beautifully shot and had such a sense of space and great performances. I thought it was an amazing piece of story-telling.
“You felt with Starred Up, and now this, that he’s really hitting his stride at the moment. I’m slightly disappointed he didn’t get a Best Director nomination, but it’s a pretty competitive field out there. Then again, Martin Scorsese [Silence] and Clint Eastwood [Sully] didn’t get Best Director nominations, either.”
My father John was very much a naval man, and he was quite confused by my career choice. This film is dedicated to him and my mother, Ursula