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Private Screenings: Norman Jewison
Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 8 PM & 11 PM ET
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Norman Jewison is a director/producer who has touched the conscience of moviegoers
with such films as In the Heat of the Night (1967), A Soldier’s Story (1984) and
The Hurricane (1999); tapped into their sense of romance with Moonstruck
(1987); got them singing with such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973); turned them on with a memorable chess match in
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968); or used humor to get them thinking about détente
in the midst of the Cold War with The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are
Coming (1966). Turner Classic Movies’ Robert Osborne sits down with the 80-year-old
director to discuss his more than 50 years in film during a special edition of PRIVATE
SCREENINGS, shot in April before a live audience at the Sarasota Film Festival and
premiering on TCM Thursday, Sept. 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. It will be followed by
presentations of his films, including The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Moonstruck
and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.
Jewison speaks frankly during the one-hour interview about his long career, which began
in television with the BBC in London before he brought his talents to New York. During
his television years, he made a name for himself directing some of the top musical acts in
the business, most notably Judy Garland for a groundbreaking television special and later
a series. He made the transition to film and quickly made his mark with such movies as
The Cincinnati Kid before hitting the big time with the comedy hit The Russians
Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, which earned a Best Picture Oscar®
nomination. In PRIVATE SCREENINGS, he speaks about his difficulty getting the film
made, as well as the chance he had to take it behind the Iron Curtain for a screening in
the Soviet Union.
Veering away from comedy, Jewison tackled the difficult issue of racial relations with
In the Heat of the Night, his extraordinary look at a small-town sheriff (Rod Steiger)
working with a big-city African-American detective (Sidney Poitier). The film not only
earned the 1967 Oscar® for Best Picture but also scored wins for star Steiger,
screenwriter Sterling Silliphant and editor Hal Ashby. In talking about In the Heat of
the Night, Jewison relates a harrowing story of how the production was threatened by
racists while filming in rural Tennessee.
Jewison also explains what drove him to make his race-relations trilogy, which includes
In the Heat of the Night, A Soldier’s Story and The Hurricane.
“When I was a kid about 16 or 17 years old, I was in the Canadian Navy, and I hitchhiked
all through the South in uniform,” he says. “And I couldn’t figure out why you would ask
a black citizen to go and fight in a war defending his country, whatever the risk. Then he
comes back home and he can’t get a cup of coffee at Woolworth’s, or he couldn’t drink
out of a water fountain, or he had to sit in the back of the bus. I could never figure it out.
To me it didn’t make sense.”
After the success of In the Heat of the Night, Jewison began to utilize new
methods of filmmaking, including his use of split-screen images in the memorable heist
film The Thomas Crown Affair. He also made waves by assembling a mostly
European cast in Fiddler on the Roof rather than using the New York-accented
Broadway cast. But one of his most memorable achievements came in 1987, when he
created an enchanting, almost operatic look at passion and romance in
Moonstruck, which earned star Cher a Best Actress Oscar®.
Jewison’s extensive work has garnered much acclaim across the decades, including four
Oscar® nominations for himself as well as 46 nominations and 12 awards for his films.
In 1999, he received the Academy’s distinguished Irving Thalberg Award. He also has
received prestigious international honors from the Directors Guild of America, the
National Board Review and the AFI Awards, among others. Jewison’s native country,
Canada, named him an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982, a member of the Order of
Ontario in 1989 and the Companion to the Order of Canada (the country’s highest civilian
honor) in 1992. He told his life story in the compelling autobiography This Terrible
Business Has Been Good to Me.
Several times each year, PRIVATE SCREENINGS features hour-long interviews with some
of the most notable names of stage and screen. Past guests have included such
Hollywood luminaries as Angela Lansbury, Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Shirley
MacLaine, Ann Miller, Mickey Rooney, Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau
and Tony Curtis.
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for Feb. 27
Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio star in the TCM premiere of Titanic (1997), winner of 11 Oscars®. Other honored films being shown are Gold Diggers of 1935, Tom Jones (1963) and From Here to Eternity (1953).
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