Between 1980 and 2022, William Hurt, who disappeared on Sunday March 13 in Portland, shot in around seventy feature films. Here are five of the most notable.
“The Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1985) by Héctor Babenco
Adaptation of the eponymous novel by Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman is an American-Brazilian film directed by Argentinian-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco. It depicts a camera between two detainees, played by William Hurt and Raúl Julia, during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Hurt’s performance earned him the best actor award at Cannes in the spring of 1985, then the Best Actor Oscar in 1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5M8nuYPKeM
“Children of Silence” (1986) by Randa Haines
Adaptation of a play by Mark Medoff, the film The Children of Silence describes the encounter, in a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, between a teacher specializing in this disability – played by William Hurt – and a young deaf woman played by Marlee Martin. The latter will be the first deaf actress to win the Oscar for best actress.
“A Couch in New York” (1996) by Chantal Akerman
Directed and co-written by Brussels-born filmmaker Chantal Akerman, A Couch in New York (Franco-Belgian-German film) features William Hurt and the French actress Juliette Binoche in a romantic comedy against the backdrop of an exchange of apartments and multiple misunderstandings.
(Original version in English without subtitles)
“A History of Violence” (2005) by David Cronenberg
In this adaptation of the eponymous graphic novel by John Wagner, William Hurt rubs shoulders with Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris and Maria Bello. The film tells the story of a man (played by Mortensen), a quiet citizen of a small town in Indiana, caught up in a disturbing past. Hurt will receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor (although he is seen very little in the trailer below). Distinguished by various film festivals and academies, A History of Violence will receive the César for best foreign film in 2006.
“I’m angry at his absence” (2012) by Sandrine Bonnaire
For her first fiction film as a director, Sandrine Bonnaire has hired William Hurt, who was her companion in the 90s (and with whom she had a child), Alexandra Lamy and Augustin Legrand for the main roles. In this film inspired by personal memories (that of a man who was linked to his mother), Sandrine Bonnaire describes the reunion after ten years without seeing each other again, in an increasingly worrying climate, of a man and a woman who share the loss of a child.