Research in progress, Jan 24, 2024
Jonathan Glazer Career Summary
Occupational Inheritance: No
Family: father cinephile
Social Class: London
Nationality: British; Jewish
Education: Nottingham Trent University, theater design
Training: first theater, music videos, TV trailers and film shorts
First Film: 2000 (“Sexy Beast”); age 35
First Oscar Nomination: Zone of Interest, 2023; age 58
Gap between First Film and First Nom: 23 years
Other Nominations:
Other awards: BAFTA, Cannes, Fipresci
Genre (specialties):
Breakthrough: Sexy Beast (first film)
Collaborators:
Last (Latest) Film: The Zone of Interest, 2023
Contract:
Career Output: Small (4 features in 23 years)
Career Span: 2000-present
Marriage:
Politics:
Retirement: NA
Death: NA
Jonathan Glazer, the English filmmaker and screenwriter, began his career in theatre before transitioning into film.
In 23 years, he has directed only 4 features: Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013), and The Zone of Interest (2023).
His work is characterized by depictions of flawed, desperate characters, explorations of alienation and loneliness, a bold visual style that utilizes an omniscient perspective, and dramatic use of music.
Glazer has been nominated for six BAFTA Awards, the Palme d’Or, and twice for both the Golden Lion and the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
For The Zone of Interest, he won both the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
He was nominated for the Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars at the 96th Academy Awards.
He has directed music videos for Radiohead, Massive Attack, Richard Ashcroft, and others. For his work, he received nominations for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction twice, consecutively for his work on Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” and Radiohead’s “Karma Police.”
He has also directed commercials for Kodak, Sony, Nike, Barclays, and Alexander McQueen, among others.
Jonathan Glazer was born into a Jewish family in London on March 26, 1965.
He attended school in Hadley, a district of the Borough of Barnet.
His father was a cinephile with whom he frequently watched David Lean movies.
After graduating with an emphasis in theatre design from Nottingham Trent University, Glazer began his career directing theatre and making film and TV trailers
In 1993, Glazer wrote and directed three short films of his own (“Mad”, “Pool”, and “Commission”), and joined Academy Commercials, a production company based in Central London. He has directed acclaimed campaigns for Guinness (Dreamer, Swimblack, and Surfer) and Stella Artois (Devil’s Island). Since the mid-1990s he has directed a number of significant music videos, and was named MTV Director of the Year 1997. He named his video for Radiohead’s 1996 single “Street Spirit” as a “turning point” in his work: “I knew when I finished that, because [Radiohead] found their own voices as an artist, at that point, I felt like I got close to whatever mine was, and I felt confident that I could do things that emoted, that had some kind of poetic as well as prosaic value. That for me was a key moment.”
In 2000, he directed his first feature, the critically acclaimed British gangster film Sexy Beast, starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley, the latter of whom received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod.
In 2004, he directed his second feature, Birth, starring Nicole Kidman.
In 2001, Glazer directed the “Odyssey” spot for Levi Strauss Jeans.
In 2006, he directed the second Sony BRAVIA TV ad, which took 10 days and 250 people to film. It was filmed at an estate in Glasgow, and featured paint exploding all over the tower blocks.
He was commissioned to make a TV ad for the new Motorola Red phone. The advertisement, showing two naked black bodies emerging from a lump of flesh rotating on a potter’s wheel, was due to air in September 2006 but was shelved by Motorola. The ad was to benefit several charities in Africa.
In 2013, he directed Under the Skin, a loose adaptation of Michel Faber’s science fiction novel of the same name starring Scarlett Johansson.
The film premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Fest and received a theatrical release in 2014, garnering critical acclaim.
It was named the best film of 2014 by numerous critics and publications.
Under the Skin is the subject of a 2019 book entitled Alien in the Mirror: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Glazer and Under the Skin by Maureen Foster, an in-depth analysis of the film scene-by-scene and behind-the-scenes.
The Zone of Interest premiered at the Cannes Film Fest in May 2023 to widespread critical acclaim.
The film won the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Prize.
Filmography
1994 Mad, Also producer and editor
1997 Commission
2019 The Fall
2020 Strasbourg 1518 TV short
First Light: Alexander McQueen Yes No
Feature film
2000 Sexy Beast Yes No
2004 Birth Yes Yes
2013 Under the Skin Yes Yes
2023 The Zone of Interest Yes Yes
Music videos
Year Title Artist Notes
1995 “Karmacoma” Massive Attack
“The Universal” Blur
1996 “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” Radiohead
“Virtual Insanity” Jamiroquai
1997 “Cosmic Girl” Cancelled
“Into My Arms” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
“Karma Police” Radiohead
1998 “Rabbit in Your Headlights” UNKLE ft. Thom Yorke
2000 “A Song for the Lovers” Richard Ashcroft
“Money to Burn” Cancelled
2006 “Live with Me” Massive Attack
2009 “Treat Me Like Your Mother” The Dead Weather
