The UCLA Film and Television Archive will present a retrospective on the work of filmmaker Richard Brooks from Friday through May 25. A screening of the film “In Cold Blood” will be included in the program.
According to Douglass K. Daniel, author of “Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks,” you don’t handle Richard Brooks, he handles you.
Emerging during Hollywood’s Golden Age, Brooks had an industry reputation for being a tough filmmaker, and because of it, he was able to work unburdened by the demands of the greater studio system.
To commemorate the controversial work that came out of Brooks’ autonomy, the UCLA Film & Television Archive is now presenting a two-month-long program at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater featuring a collection of Brooks’ films. The program begins Friday and continues through May 25.
Shannon Kelley, head of public programs for the UCLA Film & Television Archive, arranged the program and said the array of films is meant to expose Brooks’ artistic growth, and his evolution from just a writer into a writer, director and producer.
“Brooks is very industrious, a self-made artist, and audiences can make up their own mind about him,” Kelley said. “We know his name and his credits, but maybe we haven’t received a whole set of ideas about what he represents.”
According to Daniel, Brooks became a part of the small group of movie directors who directed most of their own screenplays. He rarely collaborated with others and had firm control over all of his work.
Although Kelley said Brooks’ hard-hitting quality is still infamous, his work has become slightly off the radar over the years, particularly in comparison to some of his contemporaries, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra.
“Because Brooks had popular success during his day, he wasn’t a person critics wanted to rediscover later,” Kelley said. “He lost attention, but event attendees can focus on this set of Brooks’ films and develop a sense of where this guy fits into American filmmaking.”
Clifford Galiher, a first-year graduate student in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s cinema and media studies program, said he is excited for the event’s potential to reinstate Brooks’ authority in the film industry and breathe some life back into his works.
“I’m so glad the Film & Television Archive is paying Richard Brooks this tribute. … He was one of the incredibly talented, low-profile and underrepresented filmmakers who have always glued Hollywood together,” Galiher said.
According to Daniel, Brooks was also known at the peak of his career for being a man of many genres. He did not limit himself, making both westerns such as “Bite the Bullet” and deep-seated dramas such as “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.”
But despite Brooks’ varying aesthetic and stylistic choices, Kelley said his films incorporated timeless themes that both unified his films and give his work relevancy today.
“A lot of the movies he made have held on because of his instincts about stories,” Kelley said. “He discusses the justice system, public education ““ topics we are still debating about today.”
Many of Brooks’ films also deal with psychologically complex characters who must face something that challenges their moral code. Daniel said Brooks identifies situations, both in contemporary life and public issues, that lend themselves to an interesting dramatization, and thus renders those dramas in an interesting way.
“I think the internal struggle that Brooks depicts is a time-honored theme in any type of drama,” Daniel said.
Daniel will be a featured special guest of the program April 23. He will introduce the Oscar-winning film “Elmer Gantry” and will sign copies of his new biography on Brooks.
Additionally, a second special guest, actor Scott Wilson, will present the film “In Cold Blood” and discuss his personal and professional experience working with Brooks.
According to Daniel, who spoke with Wilson and many other actors who worked closely with Brooks, the filmmaker was tough on his actors, but the challenge paid off.
“Brooks could be a heart of holy terror when it came to dealing with his actors, but they all pretty much agreed that the effort was well worth it,” Daniel said.