Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
☼ Né le 23 avril 1959, à Royal Oak, Michigan, USA
Biographie
Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi
first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly
humorous, low-budget horror film,
The Evil Dead (1981)
. From his
childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was
ten-years-old, he was out making movies with an 8mm camera. He was a
devoted fan of The Three Stooges
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, so
much of Raimi's film work in his teens, with good friends
Bruce Campbell
and
Rob Tapert
, was slapstick comedy
based around what they had observed from "Stooges" movies. Among the three of them, they wrote, directed, produced and edited a
short horror movie titled
Within the Woods (1978)
, which
was then shown to prospective investors to raise the money necessary to
film The Evil Dead (1981)
. It met
with lukewarm interest in the U.S. with local distributors, so Raimi
took the film to Europe, where it was much more warmly received. After
it started gaining positive reviews and, more importantly, ticket sales
upon its release in Europe, U.S. distributors showed renewed interest,
and "Evil Dead" was eventually released stateside to strong box office
returns. His next directorial effort was
Crimewave (1985)
, a quirky,
cartoon-like effort that failed to catch fire with audiences. However,
he bounced back with
Evil Dead II (1987)
, a racier and
more humorous remake/sequel to the original "Dead" that did even better
at the box office. Raimi was then given his biggest budget to date to
shoot Darkman (1990)
, a comic book-style
fantasy about a scarred avenger. The film did moderate business, but
Raimi's strong visual style was evident throughout the film via
inventive and startling camera work that caught the attention of
numerous critics. The third chapter in the Evil Dead story beckoned, and Raimi once again
directed buddy Campbell as the gritty hero "Ash", in the Gothic horror
Army of Darkness (1992)
. Raimi
surprised fans when he took a turn away from the fantasy genre and
directed Gene Hackman
and
Sharon Stone
in the sexy western,
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
;
four years later, he took the directorial reins on
A Simple Plan (1998)
, a crime
thriller about stolen money, starring
Bill Paxton
and
Bridget Fonda
. In early 1999, he directed
the baseball film,
For Love of the Game (1999)
,
and, in 2000, returned to the fantasy genre with a top-flight cast in
The Gift (2000)
. In 2002, Raimi was
given a real opportunity to demonstrate his dynamic visual style with
the big-budget film adaptation of the
Stan Lee
comic book superhero,
Spider-Man (2002)
, and fans were not
disappointed. The movie was strong in both script and effects, and was
a runaway success at the box office. Of course, Raimi returned for the
sequel, Spider-Man 2 (2004)
, which
surpassed the original in box-office takings.
Dans le rôle de réalisateur
Spider-Man (06/09/2005)
Sam Raimi était un réalisateur qui promettait. L’auteur d’ « Un plan simple » m’avait ravit, l’histoire de corruption et trahison dans cette froide petite ville américaine augurait le meilleur. Le froid communiqué m’est resté dans ce nouveau film, mais un froid indolore, indifférent, une couverture givrée qui endort et non qui pousse à se remuer. Un […]