Taylor Hackford: An Appreciation of a Classy, Old-School Hollywood Entertainment Merchant
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic The list of Oscar-winning directors for short films who have gone on to major careers in the feature-length realm is shorter than you might imagine.
Andrea Arnold, Martin McDonagh and Claude Berri achieved arthouse success; David Frankel made multiplex hits like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Marley & Me.” But perhaps only Taylor Hackford, a winner in 1979 for an affecting little mockumentary titled “Teenage Father,” became a full-scale Hollywood brand — a name associated with a certain temperature of sleek studio gloss and versatile genre smarts.
In an industry increasingly given over to auteur reverence, Hackford has instead consistently proven the essential value of the distinguished craftsman — the kind that keeps the industry running, even if the status doesn’t earn you as many glittering prizes or prestigious festival berths.
Consider the Festival Lumière’s tribute to Hackford a welcome exception. The four films selected by the festival to represent the director’s oeuvre — “White Nights” (1985), “Blood In Blood Out” (1993), “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997) and “Ray” (2004) — aptly point to the range and scope of a consistently mainstream career that has always veered between populism and prestige, occasionally binding the two.
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