Michael Apted obit

James Bond and 7-Up director Michael Apted dies age 79

 

He was not on the list.

Michael Apted, the director behind James Bond film The World is Not Enough, has died aged 79.

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker was best known for directing the 1999 Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan and ITV’s Up series, which documented the lives of 14 people every seven years.

Apted began his TV career working on Up, which aired documentaries every seven years from 1964 until 2019, when a special episode of the show, 63 Up, was released.

He went on to direct episodes of Coronation Street and The Dustbinmen before breaking into film with Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, Nell, The World is Not Enough and more recently, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

His more recent TV work included directing episodes of TV series including Masters of Sex, Ray Donavan and Bloodline.

A number of Apted’s colleagues paid tribute to the director this morning, including Narnia star Ben Barnes.

“We all doted on Michael Apted as he directed, ‘The Voyage of The Dawn Treader,'” Barnes wrote in a tweet. “He was not only a brilliant director but an extremely charming, funny, straight-shooting, kind and thoughtful man. I shall miss him.”

James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said on Twitter that Apted was “beloved by all those who worked with him”, writing: “He was a director of enormous talent and range and unique in his ability to move effortlessly and successfully between all these genres.”

 

“We loved working with him on The World is Not Enough and send our love and support to his friends, family and colleagues,” they added.

Garbage, the band who performed the Bond theme for The World is Not Enough, described Apted on Twitter as a “delightful, charming soul”, adding: “Thank you for sprinkling us with some of your stardust.”

He began his career in television as a six-months trainee at Granada Television in Manchester, where he worked as a researcher. One of his first projects at Granada would become his best known: the Up series, which began in 1964 as a profile of 14 seven-year-old children for the current affairs series World in Action. As a researcher and assistant to Canadian director Paul Almond, Apted was involved in selecting the children, who came from a variety of backgrounds and classes. Though originally conceived as a one-off documentary, the series has become an institution. When it was suggested that they revisit the subjects at ages fourteen and twenty one, Apted accepted the offer to direct and directed every subsequent episode in the series. It explores Apted's thesis that the British class system remains largely in place. It studies the participants based on the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man", looking at how they develop during their lives, compared to when they were seven. The series looks at the lives of these people over the years; the latest installment, 63 Up, was produced in 2019. It won a Peabody Award in 2012 "for its creator’s patience and its subjects' humanity."

During his seven-year period of working at Granada, Apted also directed a number of episodes of Coronation Street, then written by Jack Rosenthal, among others. Apted and Rosenthal later collaborated on a number of popular television and film projects, including the pilot episodes for The Dustbinmen and The Lovers. They worked together again in 1982 for the TV movie P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang, the first film commissioned by Britain's Channel 4. In 1976 Apted directed a play in the Granada TV series Laurence Olivier Presents. The episode was The Collection by Harold Pinter. The play starred Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren.

Apted used his idea from the Up series a second time in Married in America and Married in America 2. The idea was to interview nine married couples every two years over a ten year period to tell a more complete story of their marriages. In 2005, he directed the first three episodes of the TV series Rome.

For his work in television, Apted won several British Academy Awards, including two Flaherty Documentary Awards for his work on 28 Up and 35 Up and a BAFTA for Best Dramatic Director for the single play Kisses at Fifty in 1974.

 

    Coronation Street (1967), 24 episodes

    Haunted (1967)

    The Shooting War (1967)

    There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah (1968) – written by Jack Rosenthal

    Your Name’s Not God, It’s Edgar (1968) writen by Jack Rosenthal

    The Dustbinmen (1969)

    Big Breadwinner Hog (1969)

    Parkin's Patch (1969–70), 8 episodes

    The Lovers (1970)

    Another Sunday and Sweet F.A. (1970) – written by Jack Rosenthal

    Follyfoot (1971, 1972), "Moonstone" and "Poor Bald Head" episodes

    Shades of Greene (1975), "The Destructors" episode

    The Collection (1976) – written by Harold Pinter and starring Laurence Olivier

    Play for Today (1972–77), 6 episodes

    P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang (1982)

    My Life and Times (1991), 2 episodes

    Crossroads (1992), co-director

    New York News (1995), 1 episode

    Always Outnumbered (1998) – written by Walter Mosley and starring Laurence Fishburne

    Married in America (2002–06)

    Rome (2005), 3 episodes

    What About Brian (2006), 1 episode

    Hallelujah (2011)

    Masters of Sex (2013–16), 2 episodes

    Ray Donovan (2013–16), 2 episodes

    Reckless (2014), co-director

    Bloodline (2017), "Part 30" episode

Film

Apted made his first feature film in 1972, The Triple Echo, starring Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, and he directed two films for David Puttnam. The Triple Echo was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. He alternated this work with working on the TV series Play for Today. He directed six plays including Stronger than the Sun, written by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Francesca Annis as a young woman who places her life in danger to expose a crime, a theme Apted returned to several times.

In 1979 he directed the Hollywood-financed Agatha, featuring Vanessa Redgrave. The majority of Apted's feature films since then were based around a female protagonist. He went to the United States in 1980, where he directed Coal Miner's Daughter, which received seven Academy Award nominations, winning best actress for Sissy Spacek. Both Spacek and Loretta Lynn, the subject of the film, have said that they believe Apted's outsider point of view was crucial to the movie's success in securing the participation of Appalachian residents and to the avoidance of stereotypes that previously had marred portrayals of mountain culture. In 2019, Coal Miner's Daughter was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Apted also made several films with a strong social message or that deal with an ethical dilemma. In 1983 he directed Gorky Park, a political thriller based on the novel by Martin Cruz Smith, that deals with police corruption in the former Soviet Union. Class Action deals with a corporate whistleblower, and Extreme Measures is about medical ethics. Class Action was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.

In 1994, he directed Nell, which received three Golden Globe Award nominations and one Academy Award nomination.

In 1999, Apted directed the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

    The Triple Echo (1972)

    Stardust (1974)

    Trick or Treat (1975) (unfinished)

    The Squeeze (1977)

    Agatha (1979)

    Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

    Continental Divide (1981)

    Gorky Park (1983)

    Firstborn (1984)

    Bring on the Night (1985)

    Critical Condition (1987)

    Gorillas in the Mist (1988)

    Class Action (1991)

    Thunderheart (1992)

    Incident at Oglala (1992)

    Blink (1993)

    Moving the Mountain (1994)

    Nell (1994)

    Extreme Measures (1996)

    The World Is Not Enough (1999)

    Me & Isaac Newton (1999)

    Enigma (2001)

    Enough (2002)

    Amazing Grace (2006)

    The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

    Chasing Mavericks (2012)

    Unlocked (2017)

 

Documentary

In addition to feature films, Apted continued directing documentaries, including Bring on the Night, a feature-length concert film about the making of Sting's first solo album. He directed the documentary The Long Way Home, which was released in 1989. It chronicled the UK, US and USSR adventures of Boris Grebenshchikov, the first Soviet underground musician allowed to record in the West.

Before the making of Thunderheart, Apted made the documentary Incident at Oglala about Leonard Peltier. Incident at Oglala then informed Thunderheart in the casting of actors for the fiction film.

In 1997, he explored the creative process in Inspirations through candid discussion with seven artists from diverse media, including David Bowie, Louise Lecavalier and Roy Lichtenstein among others.

In a departure from his earlier work, from 1992 to 1994, Apted ventured into China's rapidly changing popular culture. In a project backed by Trudie Styler, Apted directed Moving the Mountain, a feature documentary which probed the origins of the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square and the consequences of the movement in the lives of several of the movement's student leaders.

In 2006, Apted co-directed The Official Film of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, narrated by Pierce Brosnan.

Apted was the collaborator and subject of the documentary: Michael Apted – Visions on Film, by artist and filmmaker Melinda Camber Porter.