Film director Peter Medak has passed away. Little-known today, he managed to direct 27 feature films between 1968 and 2018, along with numerous television projects, including The Wire and Breaking Bad, and many documentaries as well.
I believe he deserves a critical examination. He plainly loved film, and had daring. He directed a film that could not be made today, The Ruling Class (1972), a black comedy in which Peter O'Toole plays an English nobleman who thinks he is Jesus Christ. Later, he directed Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981), but there's no accounting for taste.
He directed one of the most effective of horror films, The Changeling (1980). He later specialized in crime dramas, creating the excellent The Krays (1990), Let Him Have It (1991), and Romeo Is Bleeding (1993). He got to do adaptations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and David Copperfield. Not too shabby!
Born in Budapest in 1937, Medak survived World War II and escaped West from Hungary during its 1956 Uprising. He worked his way in the industry from the bottom up. He was a magpie; he could seemingly tackle any genre thrown at him with grace and skill. He is worth a closer look.
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