James Foley was not the most famous director of those who worked in Hollywood. And yet, his career is full of known titles in cinema and television. This filmmaker was a commission artisan who could adapt the top work of the playwright David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Rosstake care of the sequels of the best-seller sexual Fifty Gray Shadows or accompany Madonna in his video clips. Foley has died this Thursday at age 71 for brain cancer, his representative informs the specialized newspaper The Hollywood Reporter: “He died quiet as he slept.”
Despite having collaborated with Madonna, it was in 1986 when this New York director began to become a place in the cinema, when his second feature film, the violent Men face to facewith Sean Penn (precisely then a couple of the pop queen) and Christopher Walken, was chosen for the Berlin Film Festival. His debut on the camera had done it in 1984 with Reckless rebelsan institute romance between a biker football player and an animator, and that sexy side of his cinema would permeate the rest of his career.
The 1986 film also included another of Madonna’s successes: Live to Tellwhose video clip directed and produced. His relationship with the singer marked her career. I had already worked with her at the concert made cinema Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour and the video of Dress You Upto which they followed Pope Don’s Preach, The Look of Love and True Bluein addition to the movie Who is that girl? (1987). He was even godfather of the wedding between Madonna and Sean Penn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g333is7vpog
Foley chained numerous cinematographic projects, although it was his last projects that gave him the largest box office of his career, the sequels of Fifty Gray Shadows: Fifty darkest shadows (2017) and Fifty shadows released (2018), based on the book series of El James. His best work, however, was surely the adaptation of the theater Glengarry Glen Rossthe sordid and tangled real estate portrait, pure phenomenon of the nineties, with Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris.
Meanwhile, he wrote Until night, my love (1990), and directed Two bits (1995), Obsessive passion (1996), John Grisham’s adaptation with Gene Hackman Sealed camera (1996); The corruptor (1999), with Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg; Confidence (2003) and Seducing a stranger (2007), with Bruce Willis and Halle Berry. Jumped without fear of the action to the drama to Psychothriller during all nineties. In 2017 he explained to The Hollywood Reporter that what motivated him preaching was “not to adhere to any convention” and that he loved that “fluidity.”
Foley combined three types of audiovisual narratives, the video clip, the series and the cinema. On television he participated in Twin Peaks, BillionsWayward Pins, Hannibal and in 12 episodes of House of Cardswhich always kept him active in the industry.
“I have been up and down, left and right, always responding to what interested me at that time, regardless to direct your latest projects.
