menu
menu
Calendar

Newton Forum 2014: An Evening of Film & Conversation with Sir Alan Parker




Newton Forum 2014: An Evening of Film & Conversation with Sir Alan Parker
Events Parents


It is with great excitement that we can reveal that our upcoming Newton Forum is to concentrate on the creative arts. Newton Forum is an annual event at which we throw open the doors of the school to the outside world for an evening of entertainment and inspiration. With the generous support of the Newton Prep PTA we provide refreshments and conviviality to a wide-ranging audience of Newton Prep stakeholders: from parents, staff and pupils to local friends and supporters.

 

 

 

All parents throughout the school - and the pupils of Years 6, 7 and 8 - are therefore cordially invited on

Wednesday 12th November, from 7-8.30pm
(doors open 6.45pm: drinks and nibbles in the Dining Room)

in

The Auditorium

for

 “An Evening of Film and Conversation with Sir Alan Parker” 

 

We are lucky enough to have the talents of Sir Alan Parker (pictured, right, with his wife Lisa), the film director, Hollywood great and Newton parent, as our Newton Forum guest speaker.

 

All parents are, of course, invited to this very special FREE event, as are the children of Years 6, 7 and 8, so early booking is very much advised.

 

To apply for tickets, please RSVP to Susannah Frieze on 020 7720 4091 ext 235 or email:  [email protected]

 

"What a massive coup. He is one of my favourite directors, and Mississippi Burning is one of my top five films of all time. I am sure it will be brilliant." - Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College

 

A Brief Introduction to the Life & Works of Sir Alan Parker 


 "I try to avoid the obvious … You want the film to stay with people afterwards ... It just seems to me that the greatest crime is to make just another movie."

 

Born on an Islington housing estate during a German bombing raid in 1944, Sir Alan Parker left school at 18 and began his career in advertising because, he says, he saw a play about advertising and saw,  “there were millions of girls in it”. He said later, “I didn’t go to university and I really wanted to write, more than anything. I started off writing essays and bits and pieces, then in the evenings I would write ads, so it seemed like a logical move.” Over the next ten years, during which he created the famous UK Cinzano ads with Joan Collins and Leonard Rossiter, the then-dormant British film industry was essentially created out of the flourishing Briitsh commercials scene, led by Parker, David Puttnam and the Scott brothers.

 

Alan directed his first feature film in 1974: Bugsy Malone, an ever-popular musical pastiche of 1920s gangster films with a cast made up entirely of children. It was a strikingly different children’s film in an era dominated by Disney and saccharine family sagas. This set the bar for a career where each film he has made seems to have been chosen for its great distinction from the one before.

 

 

Bugsy Malone was followed by Midnight Express, a hard-hitting drugs true story set in a Turkish prison, then by Fame, an exhilarating celebration of the thrills and spills of kids trying to make it in the entertainment industry, then by Shoot the Moon, an intensely personal family drama.  Since then he has written and directed films as varied as Pink Floyd: The Wall, Mississippi Burning, Evita, Birdy and The Commitments where the only common denominator has been what one critic described as, “that elusive blend of strong story and elegant frame”.

 

 

Given his attendance at our Newton Forum it is ironic that the most famous riff from Pink Floyd: The Wall deals with education.... and not in too flattering a light! 

 

 

In an interview in 1994, Parker himself confirmed that his mission as a film-maker was to make at least one movie for each genre available. All told, his films have won an impressive bag of nineteen BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globes and ten Oscars. Alan himself was knighted in 2002 and was given BAFTA’s highest accolade in 2013 when he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship.

 

 

In addition, Parker is a novelist and accomplished cartoonist. His compendium of 20 years of his cartoons on the film industry, “Will Write and Direct for Food”, was published in 2005. His sons from his first marriage, Alexander and Jake, have also entered the family business: in 2003 they helped to compose the score for his film, The Life of David Gale. As a founding member of the Directors’ Guild of Great Britain, Alan has lectured at film schools around the world. Despite all this, he has said,

“I’m always afraid someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, “Back to North London you go.”

         

 







You may also be interested in...

Newton Forum 2014: An Evening of Film & Conversation with Sir Alan Parker