Joseph Ezekiel Strick (July 6, 1923 – June 1, 2010, aged 86) was an American director, producer and screenwriter.

Life and career

Born in the Pittsburgh area town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Strick briefly attended UCLA, then enrolled in the U.S. Army during World War II. In the Army, he served as a cameraman in the Army Air Forces.Dennis McLella
"Joseph Strick dies at 86; independent filmmaker brought 'Ulysses' to big screen"
''Los Angeles Times'', 4 June 2010 In 1948, he and

Irving Lerner Irving Lerner (March 7, 1909, New York City – December 25, 1976, Los Angeles) was an American filmmaker. Biography Before becoming a filmmaker, Lerner was a research editor for Columbia University's Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, getting h ...

produced '' Muscle Beach''. For several years in the 1950s, Lerner, Strick, Ben Maddow, and Sidney Meyers worked part-time on the experimental documentary ''

The Savage Eye ''The Savage Eye'' is a 1959 "dramatized documentary" film that superposes a dramatic narration of the life of a divorced woman with documentary camera footage of Los Angeles. The film was written, produced, directed, and edited by Ben Maddow, Sid ...

'' (1959).Benjamin T Jackson "The Savage Eye", ''Film Quarterly'', 13:4, Summer 1960, pp. 53-57 Strick was also a successful businessman, founding Electrosolids Corp (1956), Computron Corp. (1958), Physical Sciences Corp (1958), and Holosonics Corp. (1960). In 1977 he invented the usage of six-axis motion simulators as entertainment systems and applied it to new machines used now in Disney theme parks as "Star Tours." In the 1960s, during his first marriage, Strick commissioned what was the only house designed by

Oscar Niemeyer Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was ...

in North America. The marriage ended in divorce before construction was completed, and Strick never occupied the house, located on the edge of

Santa Monica Canyon The western border of Santa Monica, California, is the 3-mile (4.8 km) stretch of Santa Monica Bay. On its other sides, the city is bordered by various districts of Los Angeles: the northwestern border is Pacific Palisades, the eastern border ...

. ''The Savage Eye'' won the BAFTA Flaherty Documentary Award and was hailed as part of an "American New Wave" alongside the work of Shirley Clarke and John Cassavetes. In 1970, he won an

Academy Award for Best Documentary The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. They have since been besto ...

for his movie ''

Interviews with My Lai Veterans ''Interviews with My Lai Veterans'' is a 1970 American short documentary film directed by Joseph Strick featuring firsthand accounts of the My Lai Massacre. It won an Oscar at the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971 for Best Documentary (Short Subject ...

''. His better known ventures include a

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's ''

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

'' and '' A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' as well as ''

Never Cry Wolf ''Never Cry Wolf'' is an account of the author's experience observing wolves in subarctic Canada by Farley Mowat, first published in 1963 by McClelland and Stewart. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1983. It has been credited for dra ...

'' (1983). He also directed ''

Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward ...

'', based on the novel by Henry Miller. In Britain, he directed at the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

(1964) and the National Theatre (2003). Joseph Strick's career led him to share his time in Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris. He died in a Paris hospital of congestive heart failure. The moving image collection of Joseph Strick is held at the Academy Film Archive. The collection consists of over one hundred items, including negative and print materials. The Academy Film Archive has preserved several of Strick's films, including ''The Savage Eye'' and ''Muscle Beach''.

References

*Margot Norris, ''Ulysses'' (University of Cork Press, 2004) *Bosley Crowther, ''The Great Films'' (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967), pages 247-250 *William Wulf, ''Landmark Films'' (Paddington Press, 1979) pages 278-290 *Michael Webb, ''A Modernist Paradise'' (Rizzoli, 2004)

External links

*
'Portrait of Joe as a Young Director'
documentary of Joe talking about 'Ulysses' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'
The Hecklers
1966, BBC Documentary on British elections and 'heckling' with introduction by Strick. {{DEFAULTSORT:Strick, Joseph 1923 births 2010 deaths American documentary filmmakers American male screenwriters People from Braddock, Pennsylvania United States Air Force airmen Film directors from Pennsylvania Screenwriters from Pennsylvania United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Deaths from congestive heart failure