R.I.P. Norman Jewison

[Reza]

Jewison's best film was the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night but also memorable was his followup film, The Thomas Crown Affair.

R.I.P.

[Mister Tee]

My first exposure to him was The Thrill of It All, which I saw at a drive-in when I was 11 years old. I actually enjoyed the film (still do, mostly product of childhood nostalgia), and I'd say it's more representative of Jewison's overall career than his sometime reputation as an "important" director. He was close to an anti-auteur: adding no particular flavor of his own to any project he took on. He hit paydirt with In the Heat of the Night, did a solid job transferring Fiddler to the screen, and surprised many of us (maybe even himself) by striking a perfect comic tone for Moonstruck.

But in among all of that were a ton of mediocrities. I saw The Russians Are Coming when I was 14, and it was the first time I'd really understood a film could be massively over-rated by critics; I found it painfully unfunny, and sloppily sentimental in the end. The latter was true of much of his work, including A Soldier's Story, Agnes of God, and The Hurricane. He was, for the most part, a studio journeyman, who, at peak, made what's now disparaged as Oscar bait. Which is better than F.I.S.T., Jesus Christ Superstar, or Rollerball, but still...an exceedingly minor figure, whose reputation is boosted by a very few films.

[Big Magilla]

He made a few stinkers, but on the whole, he was a topflight journeyman director who made a few genuine treasures of which In the Heat of the Night was at the top.

Close behind were The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, Fiddler on the Roof, and Moonstruck.

I also very much liked The Cincinnati Kid, Gaily, Gaily, A Soldier's Story, Agnes of God,and In Country.

My least favorite film of his was ...And Justice for All.

[danfrank]

He directed (and produced) a lot of prominent films over a couple of decades. His apex was early with In the Heat of the Night, still very watchable almost 6 decades later. He had some pretty good, entertaining films (like Fiddler and Moonstruck) and some lousy/corny ones, like The Hurricane. He was diverse in subject matter, following up Jesus Christ Superstar (not a good translation) with Rollerball (probably forgotten today, but very popular in its time). He gets some credit for being a white guy who created some films with prominent black roles.

R.I.P.

[Sabin]

To be honest, I thought he'd already passed.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235803603/

His career was just about over by the time he won his Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars, the same year he made The Hurricane, a film I'd very much disliked. He had one more in him (The Statement) but no idea what he's been up to the last two decades. Looking forward to other people's thoughts, but it seems like a career with a few high points that resemble the work of more a canny producer than director with all the right ingredients coming together.