Festivals - FCAD 2016 : Tribute to James Franco Director, actor & producer

By Mulder, Deauville, 28 july 2016

For James Franco, filming History means updating it, reading it anew. Guided by authors who have managed to weave reality out of fictional lifelines, he revisits his country’s past to account for the doubts of its present: he draws on Faulkner’s « Stream of Consciousness » to examine our attitude towards mourning in As I Lay Dying, or social decline in The Sound and the Fury. He also adapted John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, about the uprising of fruit-pickers in California in the 1930s, or Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, about a sick mind’s descent into hell in Tennessee in the 1950s. Yet James Franco has no trouble freeing himself from his literary mentors: in Sal, he rewrote and recounted the last days of late-lamented Sal Mineo, an openly gay American actor who was murdered in 1976; in Zeroville, he widened the angle to depict the decadent world of Hollywood at the same period.

Although James Franco achieved world fame as an actor by playing Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, he has never stopped exploring new horizons. More than an actor or a director, James Franco is now an accomplished and a complete artist.The Deauville American Film Festival pays tribute to him, in his presence. To mark the occasion, the Festival will screen the premiere of his new film as a director, In Dubious Battle.

James Franco is an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher and author. He began his career on Freaks and Geeks and received a Golden Globe Award for his performance in the biographical film James Dean. Notable film credits include Oz the Great and Powerful, Spring Breakers, Harry Osborn in the Spider Man trilogy, Milk, This is the End, Pineapple Express for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor and 127 Hours for which he received Academy Award, SAG and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor. He has directed and produced several features including Child of God, As I Lay Dying, Zeroville, Saturday Night and In Dubious Battle. His small screen credits include 11.22.63 and the highly anticipated upcoming show The Deuce. He made his Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men to rave reviews and directed the off-Broadway play The Long Shrift. He has been published several times in magazines and through his own books and teaches college courses at UCLA, USC and CAL Arts, and acting classes at Studio 4.

As director :
2005 - Fool's Gold
2005 - The Ape
2007 - Good Time Max (Addiction)
2011 - Sal
2011 - The Broken Tower
2013 - Child of God
2013 - As I Lay Dying (Tandis que j'agonise)
2014 - The Sound and the Fury
2016 - Zeroville
2016 - The Masterpiece
2016 - Bukowski
2016 - In dubious battle
2016 - The Disaster Artist
2017 - The Long Home

As actor (selective filmography):
1999 - Never Been Kissed 
2000 - Whatever It Takes 
2002 - Spider-Man
2002 - City by the Sea
2003 - The Company
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - The Great Raid
2006 - The Holiday
2007 - Spider-Man 3
2007 - Knocked Up (En cloque)
2007 - Interview
2007 - In the Valley of Elah 
2008 - Pineapple Express 
2008 - Nights in Rodanthe 
2008 - Milk 
2010 - Eat Pray Love
2010 - Date Night
2010 - 127 hours 
2011 - Your Highness
2011 - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2011 - The Green Hornet
2012 - The Color of Time (aka Tar)
2012 - Spring Breakers
2012 - The Iceman
2013 - This Is the End
2013 - Oz the Great and Powerful
2013 - Lovelace
2013 - Homefront
2014 - Veronica Mars
2014 - The Interview 
2014 - Good People
2015 - The Night Before

In Dubious Battle
In the California apple country, nine hundred migratory workers rise up "in dubious battle" against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—on the "courage never to submit or yield." Published in 1936, In Dubious Battle is considered the first major work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.
Cast: Selena Gomez, Bryan Cranston, James Franco, Vincent d'Onofrio, Ashley Greene, Josh Hutcherson

(Source : press release 07/28/2016)