Alan Rudolph
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Alan Steven Rudolph (born December 18, 1943) is an American film director and screenwriter.
Early life
Rudolph was born in Los Angeles, the son of Oscar Rudolph (1911–1991), a television director and actor.
He became interested in film and was a protégé of director Robert Altman. Rudolph worked as an assistant director on Altman's film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and later on his original movie Nashville.
Career
Rudolph's films focus upon isolated and eccentric characters and their relationships, and frequently are ensemble pieces featuring prominent romanticism and fantasy. He has written almost all of his films, and repeatedly has worked with actors Keith Carradine and Geneviève Bujold, and composer Mark Isham (see List of noted film director and composer collaborations).
Director Rudolph came to prominence with Choose Me (1984), the story of the sexual relationships among a handful of lonely, but charming, people – an ex-prostitute bar owner (Lesley Ann Warren), an emotionally repressed radio talk show hostess (Bujold), and a disarmingly honest madman (Carradine). Trouble in Mind (1985) featured Kris Kristofferson as well as Bujold, Carradine and John Waters icon Divine. The film was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.
The Moderns (1988) was a love story, set in 1926 Paris, about an expatriate American artist (Carradine) re-igniting his love for his wife (Linda Fiorentino), despite her marriage with a sinister, philistine art collector played by John Lone. In 1990, Rudolph wrote and directed the private eye love story Love at Large, which was filmed in Portland, Oregon.
After the thriller Mortal Thoughts (1991) starring Demi Moore, Equinox (1992) starred Matthew Modine as a pair of separated twins, and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) was a loving recreation of the Algonquin Round Table and a sympathetic biopic of Dorothy Parker, with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the title role. Breakfast of Champions (1999) was an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's metafictional novel, with Albert Finney as the wildly prolific but terminally under-appreciated science fiction writer Kilgore Trout. The film was entered into the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.
In April 2008, Rudolph presented a solo show of paintings at Gallery Fraga, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Films as director
- Premonition (1972)
- Nightmare Circus (1974, as "Gerald Cormier")
- Welcome to L.A. (1976) (also writer)
- Remember My Name (1978) (also writer)
- Roadie (1980) (also story)
- Endangered Species (1982)
- Return Engagement (1983)
- Songwriter (1984)
- Choose Me (1984) (also writer)
- Trouble in Mind (1985) (also writer)
- Made in Heaven (1987)
- The Moderns (1988) (also writer)
- Love at Large (1990) (also writer)
- Mortal Thoughts (1991)
- Equinox (1992) (also writer)
- Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) (also writer)
- Afterglow (1997) (also writer)
- Breakfast of Champions (1999) (also writer)
- Trixie (2000) (also writer)
- Investigating Sex (2001) (also writer)
- The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002)
- Ray Meets Helen (2017)
