Who was Peter Bogdanovich, New Hollywood filmmaker who died aged 82

The news that the filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich passed away this Thursday (6), at the age of 82, mark the beginning of the end of a generation that shaped Hollywood cinema as we know it today.

The screenwriter and director began his career in the late 1960s, and pioneered the wave known as Nova Hollywood, along with names like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

Bogdanovich’s death, from natural causes, resulting from Parkinson’s Disease, makes one think of his artistic legacy. The filmmaker was, of his class, the most nostalgic, and he always paid tribute to the history of cinema, while helping to revolutionize its language.

Initially a film critic and programmer at the New York Museum of Modern Art, he debuted as a director in 1968 with “Na Mira da Morte”. The suspense bore the marks of his movie-going interest, casting Boris Karloff (famous as a performer of Frankenstein’s Monster in the 1930s) as a decaying actor.

My heart is broken – my dear friend Peter is no longer with us in the physical form. I loved him and will miss him. What a wonderful artist. He’s left us with the gift of his incredible films and his insights on the filmmakers he so admired. I love you Peter. pic.twitter.com/6L1jWAGBOK

— Jeff Bridges (@TheJeffBridges) January 6, 2022

The success came in 1971, with “The Last Session of Cinema”. The drama, about the relationships of a group of young people in a seedy small town in Texas, launched the careers of actors Jeff Bridges (“Mad Heart”) and Ellen Burstyn (“The Exorcist”). On another level, the plot that revolved around the final showing of street cinema in the small town was a metaphor for the very relationship between memory and renewal that Bogdanovich proposed for art.

The filmmaker also released cult works such as “Paper Moon” in 1973, “Much Laughter and Much Joy” in 1981, and “Marks of Destiny” in 1985. While New Hollywood dared with crime and action epics, Bogdanovich turned to film history, paying homage to classic genres such as melodrama and screwball comedy, as well as referring to filmmakers such as John Ford and Howard Hanks.

He even became a personal friend of Orson Welles. With the creator of “Citizen Kane”, he published the biography “This is Orson Welles”. This partnership also reveals another important role Bogdanovich plays in preserving film history.

Upon his death in 1985, Welles left his last film unfinished. Bogdanovich (who works in the feature), took over the production and helped in its restoration for decades, until its release, in 2018, under the title “The Other Side of the Wind”.

In addition to his cinephile facet and his memorialistic affection, the filmmaker decisively influenced contemporary productions. Wes Anderson, director of “The Great Hotel Budapest” is an avowed fan, and in 2009 he released a medium-length documentary in which he interviews Bogdanovich.

Noah Baumbach, author of “Frances Ha” and “Story of a Marriage” also worked closely, inviting Bogdanovich to comment on his films as an extra on DVD releases. Quentin Tarantino and Rian Johnson are other names that have already taken inspiration from his work.

The filmmaker’s production became erratic from the 1990s onwards, seeing him more dedicated to critical and academic work, as well as the production of documentaries, such as “The Great Buster”, from 2018, by comedian Buster Keaton. His last fiction feature is the forgotten “Um Amor a Cada Esquina”, from 2014.

Bogdanovich was also frequently honored with invitations to participate in points as an actor. Appears in productions such as the series “Soprano Family” and the movie “It – Chapter Two”.

In his book-report “How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock’nn’Roll Generation Saved Hollywood,” Peter Biskind states that: “Bogdanovich had always acted as if his life were a movie in which inconvenient scenes could be re-shot or re-shot” . Now life, like your movies, can be preserved and honored.