James Marsh (born 30 April 1963) is a British film and documentary director best known for his work on '' Man on Wire'', which won the 2008

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 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 Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. The ...

, and '' The Theory of Everything'', the multi-award-winning biopic of physicist

Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...

released in 2014.

Early life

Marsh was born in

Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

and raised in Sennen, a Cornish village, and

Woolwich Woolwich () is a town in South London, southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was mainta ...

, a district in southeast

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. In Woolwich, he lived in a "miserable council flat" with his family. Marsh won a scholarship to the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. As an undergraduate, he studied at

St Catherine's College, Oxford St Catherine's College (colloquially called St Catz or Catz) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. In 1974, it was also one of the first men's colleges to admit women. It has 528 un ...

and graduated with a degree in English.

Career

Marsh began his early career in directing with several documentaries made for the BBC. His first TV documentary was the 90-minute ''Troubleman – The Last Years of Marvin Gaye'', and was followed by the 26-minute 1990 documentary ''The Animator of Prague'' starring

Jan Švankmajer Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934) is a Czech retired film director, animator, writer, playwright and artist. He draws and makes free graphics, collage, ceramics, tactile objects and asse ...

and his works. Later came ''The Burger and the King: The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley'', which was made in 1995 and released in 1996, and the Welsh musician

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...

, which was made in 1998 and released in 1999. His relationship continued with the BBC as a director and producer for three ''Arena'' series episodes, including the celebrated film '' Wisconsin Death Trip'' (1999). In 2005 he directed the film '' The King'' which was screened in the

Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...

section at the

2005 Cannes Film Festival The 58th Cannes Film Festival took place from 11 May and ran until 22 May 2005. Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica served as jury president for the main competition. Cécile de France hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Belgian filmmakers D ...

. In 2008 he made the documentary '' Man on Wire'', about

Philippe Petit Philippe Petit (; born 13 August 1949) is a French highwire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized highwire walks between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twi ...

's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Marsh based ''Man on Wire'', in part, on Philippe Petit’s memoir ''To Reach the Clouds''. ''Man on Wire'' won the

at the 81st annual Oscars, the

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

Award for Best British film, the

Independent Spirit Award The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in ...

, and many others. The film, called "exhilarating", has had a hugely positive audience response and was among the Top Ten Films of 2008 on many critics' lists. In 2009, he directed the "1980" episode of '' Red Riding'', which aired on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

in the UK. He also directed '' Project Nim'' in 2010, which is based on the book ''Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human'' by Elizabeth Hess. It is a documentary about the landmark study conducted by Herbert S. Terrace on the subject of

great ape language Great ape language research historically involved attempts to teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans to communicate using imitative human speech, sign language, physical tokens and computerized lexigrams. These studies were con ...

acquisition and the subject of the study is a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky. Marsh watched different films to gain inspiration before making ''Project Nim''. He watched ''E.T.'', Frederick Wiseman's ''Primate'', and the Bresson film '' Au hasard Balthazar''. He gained the most information from ''Au hasard Balthazar,'' a fictional account of a donkey as it passes through various human owners. The structure of ''Project Nim'' reflects a lot from this film as we see the drama of the human world through the eyes of the chimpanzee. In 2012, he directed '' Shadow Dancer'', a joint Irish/UK production about the Irish republican movement, which was filmed in Dublin and London. The film features

Clive Owen Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series '' Chancer'' from 1990 to 1991. He received critical acclaim for his work in the film '' Close ...

Andrea Riseborough Andrea Louise Riseborough (born 20 November 1981) is an English actress. She made her film debut with a small part in ''Venus'' (2006), and has since appeared in more prominent roles in '' Brighton Rock'' (2010), '' W.E.'' (2011), '' Shadow Dan ...

Gillian Anderson Gillian Leigh Anderson ( ; born August 9, 1968) is an American actress, writer, and activist. She is best known for her roles as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the sci-fi series ''The X-Files'' (1993–2002; 2016–2018), Lily Bart in the dr ...

Domhnall Gleeson Domhnall Gleeson (; born 12 May 1983) is an Irish actor and screenwriter. The son of actor Brendan Gleeson, he studied media arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He began his career by directing and writing several short films, and garne ...

and

Aidan Gillen Aidan Murphy (born 1967 or 1968), better known as Aidan Gillen (), is an Irish actor. He is known for his roles as Stuart Alan Jones in ''Queer as Folk (British TV series), Queer as Folk'' (1999–2000); Tommy Carcetti in ''The Wire'' (2004–20 ...

. Marsh directed '' The Theory of Everything'' released in 2014, a biopic on

starring

Eddie Redmayne Edward John David Redmayne OBE (; born 6 January 1982) is an English actor. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Tony Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Olivier Awards. Redmayne began his professional ac ...

and Felicity Jones. Marsh received a nomination for the

for Best Director and the film was nominated for five

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

including Best Picture.

Personal life

Marsh currently lives in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

with his two daughters and his wife.James Marsh talks about Red Riding and the Ripper
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Filmography

Film Miniseries Documentary film

Accolades

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marsh, James Living people 1963 births English film directors People from Truro Directors of Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Directors Guild of America Award winners English documentary filmmakers Alumni of St Catherine's College, Oxford English expatriates in Denmark People from Woolwich