Ridley Scott
Born 30 November 1937 South Shields Durham
Links
IMDB - for a comprehensive filmography and some external links
Wikipedia - for the usual sort of Wikipedia article - biography, filmography, some links ...
You Tube - the choice is massive - interviews, trailers, shorts, commercials ...
Ridley Scott interviews - a Google Book of interviews, edited by Laurence F. Knapp and Andrea F. Kulas. The whole book is not there, though it looks as though most of it is.
Searchlab Lecture - Fox Searchlight have a series of lectures by some of their directors. This one is in three parts and is video in which Scott talks about his career, influences, techniques
Wired - a long interview with Ted Greenwald on the occasion of the release of The Final Cut in which Scott talks about how he works and about the making of Blade Runner. The interview can also be downloaded as audio.
“The fundamental of anything as a director is material, material, material - script, script, script - once you have the script everything else is straightforward.”
“I used to agonize over what to do next, but now I make a movie a year”
“But every time you do a movie, in fact, the more experience you get, you can almost say, the less you know. Because the more you know, the more can go wrong. So that can also make you more insecure”
“I've got a good eye, and I don't know what a good eye means, but I've got a good eye, I think. I can align and see way beforehand, imagine way beforehand, what's going to be. That's good, that's very useful. Because some people don't have that, they have other talents. I've had to evolve my capabilities in developing material.”
The last two quotes are from the Wired interview
Selected Filmography
Boy and Bicycle (1965)
The Duellists (1977)
Alien (1979)
Blade Runner (1982)
1984 - the Apple Macintosh ad
Legend (1985)
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
Thelma and Louise (1991)
GI Jane (1997)
Gladiator (2000)
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Matchstick Men (2003)
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
American Gangster (2007)
Robin Hood (2010)
About
Now honoured as Sir, Ridley, Scott was born into a wandering Army family, which finally settled in Teeside after WW2. He attended West Hartlepool College of Art where he graduated in design (always a feature of his films) and then went on to the Royal College of Art, where he helped establish a film department. He began his career at the BBC, moving through set designer to director, until he eventually moved into commercials with his brother Tony. He has made many very famous ads, the most famous of which is perhaps the 1983 Apple ad entitled 1984. Ridley and Tony’s company, (they bought Shepparton Studios in 1995) has made a plethora of films. Scott’s first feature film was the striking The Duellists, followed by Alien - and with a start like that he has never looked back. His output is prolific, and never less than stylish. At his worst style wins out over substance, at his best - Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator he is riveting. His films are never boring whatever else you might say about them. Blade Runner and Alien were seminal films whose effect on subsequent science fiction films cannot be underestimated. With Gladiator, he single-handedly revived the swords and sandals genre. Scott prefers to work with actors with a solid theatrical background, and often works with the same actors and crew.