CDA: Jeremy Thomas
My brother Howard alerted to me the death of movie producer Jeremy Thomas, age 77. He has an impressive and adventurous list of credits - - he produced Sexy Beast, the debut film of Jonathan Glazer, who went on to direct three "feel bad movies," Birth, Under the Skin, and The Zone of Interest (thanks to John Waters for the term "feel bad movie").
He produced a movie that I love more every time I think about it, Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive, the sweetest, tenderest vampire movie ever made. See it pronto if you haven't already.
He had long partnerships with David Cronenberg and Bernardo Bertolucci. It's a Bertolucci movie that will (sadly) be the lead film in his obits - - The Last Emperor, a movie I really hate. I said to my friend Alan years ago that The Last Emperor was the worst film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Alan said, "Clearly you haven't seen Oliver."
He had a finely tuned art film aesthetic which makes it rather intriguing that his father and uncle directed some of the randiest and (if I may say) idiotic English films of the mid century: his father directed the Doctor series (Doctor in Love, Doctor at Sea, Doctor in Trouble, etc) and his uncle directed all TWENTY EIGHT of the Carry On movies (Carry On Nurse, Carry On Constable, Carry On Cruising, etc). I watched about fifteen minutes of a Carry On movie and had to turn it off. It made Benny Hill look like Molière.
One important note: he is not to be confused with another Jeremy Thomas, a Welsh businessman who was briefly married to Drew Barrymore. And I mean brief - - according to Google, they divorced 19 to 30 days after the wedding. Some couples haven't even exchanged their unwanted wedding gifts in that time!
Here's Thomas doing one of my favorite YouTube activities, going into the Criterion Closet!
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