With the death of director Norman Jewison at the age of 97, cinema loses one of its great artisans. Indeed, we owe the filmmaker several classics of very varied genres, such as the socio-police drama In the Heat of the Night (In the heat of the Night), sentimental suspense The Thomas Crown Affair (The Thomas Crow Affairn), the musical drama Fiddler on the Roof (Fiddler on the Roof), or the romantic comedy Moonstruck (Moonlight). His films have won a total of twelve Academy Awards, and he himself was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999.
Norman Jewison was born in Toronto in 1926 to parents who owned a general store. Enlisted in the navy, he served during the Second World War, in 1944-1945. At the end of the conflict, he lived for a time in the South of the United States, where segregation left its mark on him: he would remember this around twenty years later when making In the Heat of the Nightwhere a black investigator from “the north” (Sidney Poitier) must team up with a racist police officer from the south (Rod Steiger) to solve a murder.
It is a pivotal film for many reasons: one of the first major Hollywood productions to openly deal with racism, the first American film where a black actor plays an investigator, the first studio film to use lighting adapted to the pigmentation of a black performer…
In the Heat of the Night won five Oscars, including those for best film and best actor (Steiger). But before getting there, Norman Jewison took his classes, literally, enrolling at the University of Toronto in 1949.
After a few years spent in London where he worked for the BBC as an intermittent scriptwriter, he returned to Canada in 1952 and was hired by what would become the CBC.
In 1958, the American channel NBC recruited him: direction, New York, where he produced various variety shows, including one with Judy Garland in which Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin participated. Impressed, their friend Tony Curtis recommended Norman Jewison to direct the comedy 40 Pounds of Trouble (Troubles galore), in 1962.
Three other comedies follow, including two quite popular with Doris Day: The Thrill of it All (The spice of life) And Send Me No Flowers (Don’t send me flowers).
The star ball
However, it is with the film The Cincinnati Kid (The Kid from Cincinnati), where Steve McQueen plays a poker ace, which Norman Jewison really got noticed, in 1965. The following year, the satirical comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (The Russians are coming), against the backdrop of the Cold War, achieved a success as enormous as it was unexpected.
Which allows the director to choose a more ambitious project as the next film: In the Heat of the Night, in 1967. The seriousness of the subject does not frighten the public, far from it, and the box office resonates even louder. In 1968, Norman Jewison found Steve McQueen, as a bank-robbing businessman, opposite Faye Dunaway, in The Thomas Crown Affair. The song “The Windmills of Your Mind” won an Oscar.
Throughout his career, Jewison constantly changed register: he adapted two big Broadway musical hits in quick succession, Fiddler on the Roof And Jesus Christ Superstarcontinues with an anticipation science fiction that has become cult, Rollerballcontinues with a union drama, FISTthen a legal drama, …And Justice for All (Justice for all), another romantic comedy, Best Friends (Best friends)…
And the stars parade: James Caan, Sylvester Stallone, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Goldie Hawn…
In 1984-1985, he successively produced two powerful adaptations of plays: A Soldier’s Storyon racism in the army, with a very young Denzel Washington in support, and above all Agnes of God (Agnes of God), about an infanticide that occurred in a convent, with Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly, and filmed in Montreal. Sven Nykvist, regular collaborator of Ingmar Bergman, signs the magnificent winter photo direction of this latest film.
After a two-year hiatus, Norman Jewison returns with another success whose scale takes the industry by surprise: the romantic comedy Moonstruck, where Cher plays an Italian-New York accountant who despite herself falls in love with her fiancé’s brother: a fiery baker played by Nicolas Cage. A perfect film in every way.
Cher won best actress at the Oscars, and Olympia Dukakis, who plays her mother, best supporting actress. Without forgetting John Patrick Shanley, who leaves with the Oscar for the original screenplay: “Snap out of it!” » (“Get out of love!”).
On X, Cher wrote on Monday: “Thank you for one of the greatest, happy and most enjoyable experiences of my life. Without you, I wouldn’t have my handsome golden man. Norman, you made Moonstruck the great film that people admire. »
Appreciate everything
Nothing as memorable as Moonstruck does not occur afterwards, but In Country (A hero like so many others), where Bruce Willis plays a traumatized Vietnam veteran, and The Hurricane (Hurricane), where Denzel Washington becomes the boxer Rubin “the Hurricane” Carter, stand out in quality.
Also note that as a producer, Norman Jewison was the one who gave his first chance to Hal Ashby, future director of Harold and Maude (Harold and Maude), helping to finance social satire The Landlordin 1970 (social considerations are a constant at Jewison).
Alongside his dazzling success in Hollywood, Norman Jewison has contributed enormously to the development of Canadian cinema. In 1986, he founded the Canadian Center for Advanced Film Studies, renamed the Canadian Film Centre. Many young Canadian filmmakers develop and finance their first film there.
Although he was no longer directing, Norman Jewison remained very active, notably as a regular attendee of the Toronto International Film Festival, which named an award in his honor. In his memoirs, This Terrible Business Has Been Good to MeJewison wrote in 2005:
“It’s not that I’m afraid of death; in fact, it’s a subject that has always fascinated me. I just hate being old. So I decided not to support the idea. No confusion, no lamentations. No difficulty remembering. No afternoon naps. Just continue to work, laugh, drink and enjoy every smell, sound, taste and touch you can experience. »