JOHN HURT A LIFE OF ACHIEVEMENT
John Hurt is one of Britain's best known, critically acclaimed
and most versatile actors in film, on television and on
stage. His voice is one of the most distinctive in cinema.
He has made a significant contribution to the cinema of
Ireland, his adopted home. He is a fitting subject for our
tribute programme. more>
| John Hurt Screening
Schedule |
| Feature Films |
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Born in 1940, John Hurt attended schools
in Kent and Lincoln. He was a stagehand with the Lincoln
Repertory and studied Art at St Martin's School, London
before winning a scholarship to RADA.
He made his West End debut in 1962 and went on to take
the 1963 Critics' Award for Most Promising Actor in Harold
Pinter's The Dwarfs. For the stage, John has also appeared
in Pinter's The Caretaker, O'Casey's Shadow of a Gunman,
Stoppard's Travesties for the RSC, Turgenev's A Month in
The Country. The year 2000 saw his greatly acclaimed performance
in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape in London's West End.
The importance of Hurt's impressive body of television
work cannot be understated. It began in 1961 and has included
such notable roles as Caligula in I, Claudius and Raskolnikov
in Crime and Punishment and, most memorably, as flamboyant
homos exual, Quentin Crisp in the autobiographical The Naked
Civil Servant (for which he received a Best Actor Emmy and
a BAFTA Best Television Actor Award). This was broadcast
at a time when homosexuality was a punishable offence in
Great Britain and caused no little amount of controversy
on both sides of the Atlantic. Crisp famously referred to
Hurt as 'my representative here on Earth'.
In 1990 he played the central role of Chris Mullen MP,
delivering a committed performance in the British television
classic, Who Bombed Birmingham? The film won a BAFTA special
award and contributed to the release of the Birmingham Six.
In 1991 he played Alfred, one of a trio of disabled men
from the North of England who go on pilgrimage to Mayo,
in Journey To Knock . It won the New York Television Festival
gold medals for best drama and best screenplay. and the
Reims European Television Festival award for Best Drama.
Having achieved international recognition with his vibrant
performance in Fred Zinnemann's 1966 classic, A Man For
All Seasons, he has gone on to play such defining film roles
as Max in Midnight Express (1978) and as John Merrick in
The Elephant Man (1980) that thrust him into the international
spotlight with Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor
and Best Actor, respectively. And of course, there is that
most memorable scene in Alien!
His other film work includes a trio of roles in 1984, which
rewarded him with the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor
for that year - 1984, The Hit and Champions.
In Ireland he has appeared in Jim Sheridan's The Field
(1990), played John Boorman's alter ego in I Dreamt I Woke
Up (1991), he took the lead role in Night Train in 1998.
In 1999 he filmed Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape directed by
Atom Egoyan as part of the ambitious 'Beckett on Film' project.
He reunited with Boorman for the short film Two Nudes Bathing
(1995) which was critically acclaimed in the 'Un Certain
Regard' category at Cannes and for which he received a Cable
Ace Award and last year he appeared in Irish short, Meeting
Che Guevara And The Man From Maybury Hill.
Last year, John won the Variety Club Award for Outstanding
Performance in a Stage Play, alongside Penelope Wilton for
their performance in Brian Friel's Afterplay and most recently
he provided the narration for Lars Von Trier's Dogville.
He also contributes to the Irish documentary, The Twilight
Hour, which appears in this year's programme.
We are honoured that John Hurt has agreed to be the recipient
of Cork Film Festival's inaugural 'Lifetime Achievement
Award'. We present a selection of his extensive work for
film and TV including his work in Irish cinema.
John Hurt will participate in a Public Interview with Irish
Times film critic, Michael Dwyer on Saturday 18th at 2.00pm
in the Lecture Theatre of the Crawford Gallery in Emmet
Place.
