Philip Saville

Philip Saville (sometimes credited as Philip Savile, born 28 October 1930, London) is a British television director and screenwriter whose career dates to the late 1950s. The British Film Institute's Screenonline website has described Saville as "one of Britain's most prolific and pioneering television and film directors".[1]

Career

He began his working life as an actor. During the 1960s he directed television plays, such as Harold Pinter's A Night Out (1960) for ABC's Armchair Theatre anthology series. He directed over 40 plays for Armchair Theatre and helped pioneer the innovative visual style it became known for, including rapid and intricate camera movements during the often live productions.[1] He also directed Madhouse on Castle Street (1963) for the BBC. The (now lost) production was the first acting appearance of the folk singer Bob Dylan, whom Saville had flown over specifically to take part in the play.

In 1964, Saville's production of Hamlet at Elsinore for the BBC pioneered the use of videotape for location recording instead of film.[1]

Other significant programmes on which Saville worked include Out of the Unknown (1965) and the Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) for which Saville received a BAFTA to add to his earlier BAFTA for Hamlet at Elsinore (1964), and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986).

For the cinema, Saville directed The Fruit Machine (1988, released as Wonderland in the US), Metroland (1997) and The Gospel of John (2003).

He also directed a masterclass studio in London specializing in dramatic improvisation.[2] Saville's documentary on Harold Pinter Pinter's Progress (2009) for Sundance international television channels and UK's Sky Arts features numerous interviews with associates of the Nobel Prize–winning playwright.

Personal life

Saville was married to the actress, film and theatre director Jane Arden with whom he had two sons, Sebastian and Dominic.

In the 1960s, Saville, while married, had an affair with the artist Pauline Boty, whom he had met towards the end of her student days and who had worked for him.[3] (Their affair is said to have inspired the movie Darling.)[4]

A relationship with Diana Rigg[5] contributed significantly to the celebrity-centred London life in the later nineteen-sixties.

Filmography

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wake, Oliver. "Saville, Philip (1930-)". Screenonline. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  2. See The Philip Saville Studio
  3. Sabine Durrant "The Darling of Her Generation", The Independent on Sunday, 7 March 1993
  4. Boty auditioned for the role that went to Julie Christie. See Bill Smith, "The Only Blonde in the World," Latest Art, February 2006, p.1
  5. Miss Peelpants (7 Feb 2011). "Diana Rigg and Philip Saville http://emmapeelpants.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/diana-rigg-and-philip-saville/". External link in |title= (help);

External links

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