David Marcus Thompson (born 18 July 1950 in Hackney,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) is a British film and television producer, and the editor of several books about film directors.

Overview

Thompson worked for the BBC from 1978 as a film programmer and documentary maker.Researchers' Tales
, BFI (Library) website In 1981 he filmed ''

Woza Albert! ''Woza Albert!'' ("Come Albert!") is a satirical South African political play written by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon in 1981. The play is a two-man show that contains 26 vignettes. The play imagines the second coming of Jesus C ...

''. He was the founding head of

BBC Films BBC Film (formerly BBC Films) is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It was founded on 18 June 1990, and has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including ''Truly, Madly, Deeply'', '' Alan Part ...

. Up until 2007, BBC Films was run and funded as a private company, with its own offices in Mortimer Street around the corner from

Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The main ...

, while still under the full control of the BBC. In 2007, a re-structure of the division saw it re-integrated into the main BBC Fiction department of BBC Vision, under the control of

Jane Tranter Jane Tranter (born 17 March 1963) is an English television executive who was the executive vice-president of programming and production at BBC Worldwide's Los Angeles base from 2009 until 2015. From 2006 to 2008, she was the BBC's controller of ...

. As a result, it moved out of its independent offices into Television Centre and David Thompson, previously head of

, left to start his own film production company, Origin Pictures. The films he has produced for Origin Pictures include '' The Awakening'', ''

An Education ''An Education'' is a 2009 coming-of-age drama film based on a memoir of the same name by British journalist Lynn Barber. The film was directed by Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby. It stars Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a bright schoolgi ...

'', and ''

The Sense of an Ending ''The Sense of an Ending'' is a 2011 novel written by British author Julian Barnes. The book is Barnes's eleventh novel written under his own name (he has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh) and was released on 4 Augus ...

''. He has continued to executive-produce films for the BBC, including ''

The History Boys ''The History Boys'' is a play by British playwright Alan Bennett. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre in London on 18 May 2004. Its Broadway debut was on 23 April 2006 at the Broadhurst Theatre where 185 performances were staged be ...

'' (2006) and the remake of ''

Brideshead Revisited ''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...

'' (2008). David Thompson's two-part BBC documentary on the films of

Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent film, silent era to the end of the 1960s. ...

in 1993 led to him editing an anthology of the director's letters for

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

, ''Jean Renoir: Letters'' (1994, with Lorraine LoBianco). For the same publisher, he has also edited ''Levinson on Levinson'' (1992),''Scorsese on Scorsese'' (1996, with Ian Cristie), and ''Altman on Altman'' (2006).

References

External links

* * 1950 births Living people BBC people British television producers Film producers from London People from Hackney Central {{UK-tv-bio-stub