R.I.P. Hugh Hudson, director of Chariots Of Fire
Hudson's other notable films include 1981 Oscar-nominated Tarzan film Greystoke, and infamous Al Pacino flop Revolution
Aux News Hugh Hudson
Hugh Hudson has died. The documentarian and director—best known for his 1981 Oscar winner Chariots Of Fire—directed a dozen or so feature-length movies across a long career (in addition to a number of award-winning commercials, created while working alongside other prominent up-and-coming British directors of the era like Ridley Scott), splitting his time between the words of feature and non-fiction film-making. Per THR, Hudson died in London today after a brief illness. He was 86.
Born in London in the 1930s, Hudson got into filmmaking in the 1960s, editing documentaries in Paris before setting out to create his own films. After working on shorts like A Is For Apple, though, Hudson moved into the world of commercial film-making, where he, alongside contemporaries like Alan Parker and Ridley and Tony Scott, cut his teeth—and paid his bills—by directing a number of well-received commercials. (Hudson would continue to work in the form from the 1980s onward, returning to it regularly; meanwhile, Parker also employed him as a second-unit director on 1978's Midnight Express.)
In 1981, Hudson returned to filmmaking in full, directing his first full-length documentary, racing doc Fangio: Una vita a 300 all’ora. He followed that dip into sports with another, even more celebrated one: Chariots Of Fire, a historical drama focused on a pair of British track runners competing in the 1924 Olympic Games. Directing from a script by Colin Welland—and employing a secret weapon in the form of an instant-classic synth-heavy soundtrack from his friend and colleague Vangelis—Hudson was heralded for making a relatable, funny, and very human film out of the story of runners Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson). The film was a crossover international success, ultimately scoring Hudson a Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards, and winning for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.
Hudson followed one success with another, throwing his new prestige into Greystoke, a serious attempt to bring the story of Tarzan to film. Taking over direction from Robert Towne (who co-wrote the script, but was forced to leave the project due to other commitments), Hudson and star Christopher Lambert managed to make a Tarzan movie that people actually took seriously, focused on the ways the character was split between the two worlds in which he’s forced to live. The film garnered another slate of Oscar noms.
Chariots and Greystoke mark the critical high points of Hudson’s career; his reputation was dinged—fairly or not—by his next feature, the Al Pacino Revolutionary War movie Revolution, which was raced into theaters uncompleted by the studio in hopes of scoring an Oscar push. (It didn’t get one; critics tore the film apart, and audiences refused to see it, losing some $28 million in the process.) Hudson, unhappy with leaving a job unfinished, returned to the movie in 2009, releasing a director’s cut that is generally held up as a far better example of what he and Pacino were trying to achieve.
Nevertheless, Hudson continued to direct features throughout the 1990s, including Lost Angels in 1989, My Life So Far in 1999, and I Dreamed Of Africa in 2000; although the first two were received with some warmth, the last—starring Kim Basinger as a 1970s Italian socialite who moves with her new husband to Kenya—was a notorious flop, essentially ending Hudson’s movie-making career. He would return to documentaries fully 12 years later for Rupture: My Broken Brain, a collaboration with his wife Maryam d’Abo, about the brain hemorrhage she suffered in 2007. Hudson’s final film was the Antonio Banderas feature Finding Altamira, which was released to mixed reviews in 2016.
19 Comments
Rest in peace Mr. Hudson.
Chariots of Fire shouldn’t have won the best picture (it was a pretty good slate of nominees, that year) but it has been unjustly forgotten. It’s a very solid prestige British film with some amazing performances (Ben Cross should have been bigger) and some very interesting touches. That intro of the cast running on the beach, set to Vangelis’ score, was one of the most arresting and original intros to a film like that. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan is even better and it is the best non-animated adaptation of Tarzan, by far.
Looking at the list of nominees that year right now. Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve watched Reds.
Reds is fucking awesome. Great, great film. Nicholson is so good as Eugene O’Neill. It’s such a more contained performance than so many of his others.
I liked it in that while it celebrated the Revolution itself, as did John Reed (Warren Beatty) it didn’t shy away from the fact that quite early on people like Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton) realized that despite the rhetoric of giving power to the people, Lenin’s government was rapidly turning into an authoritarian system as bad if not worse than under the Tsars.
Man, Beatty had to have some pull to get that movie financed! Can you imagine the pitch meeting at a studio??!
I think it ranks with Nicholson’s best.
Very weirdly, I watched about 45 minutes of it last night! And it’s still great. Diane Keaton has never been better.
Unfortunately, like a lot of Vangelis’ stuff, the theme got used in so many commercials later on that it is hard to take seriously although it is beautiful and majestic.
I remember I saw “Chariots of Fire” the evening of the day that John Belushi died. It literally put me to sleep.
REDS was such a remarkable epic that it’s hard for me not to disagree, but CHARIOTS holds a special place in my heart, and it has such good performances…Ian Holm’s, especially so.
I was visiting St. Andrews a few years ago and was delighted to learn that a 5K race was being held on the beach. Yes, that beach. Less excited to learn that no one else would be running in slow motion, but it was still a great experience.
Did they at least have the class to emit a Vangelis score as they ran?
Were Hall & Oates there, and were there eggs?
Chariots is a great, great film which is underrated in many ways but is well-made, great performances and is genuinely iconic.
Maybe I should watch the director’s edition of RevolutionI wonder if that is the version that is available streaming
There is a version of it on Tubi right now, and I cannot tell if it’s the original or the director’s cut. It was such a muddle that I didn’t make it past 15 minutes, so I hope it wasn’t the latter.Chariots of Fire though? Still holds up. Wonderful film.
The director’s cut of Revolution apparently has narration by Pacino added & oddly enough is shorter
Dang news… and it just dawned on me that Ian Holm (r.i.p.) was in both those gems.