Terry Zwigoff
| Terry Zwigoff | |
|---|---|
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Zwigoff in 2012
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| Born |
May 18, 1949 Appleton, Wisconsin |
| Alma mater | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Occupation | Director, producer |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Spouse(s) | Melissa Axelrod |
Terry Zwigoff (born May 18, 1949) is an American filmmaker whose work often deals with misfits, antiheroes, and themes of alienation.
Zwigoff was born in Appleton, Wisconsin to a Jewish family of dairy farmers. Raised in Chicago, Zwigoff moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and met cartoonist Robert Crumb, who shared his interest in pre-war American roots music. Zwigoff, who plays cello and mandolin, joined Crumb’s string band R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders with whom he recorded several records.
Zwigoff began his film career making documentary films, starting with 1985's Louie Bluie, a one-hour documentary about the blues and string band musician Howard Armstrong. Zwigoff had been inspired to locate and interview him after listening to a 30s recording, "State Street Rag", on which Armstrong played the mandolin.
Zwigoff worked on a documentary about R. Crumb and his two brothers for nine years, during which Zwigoff said he was “averaging an income of about $200 a month and living with back pain so intense that I spent three years with a loaded gun on the pillow next to my bed, trying to get up the nerve to kill myself.” He completed Crumb in 1994; the critically acclaimed film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the DGA award, the NY Film Critics Circle Award, the LA Film Critics Award, and the National Society of Film Critics Award. Additionally, critic Gene Siskel named Crumb the best film of 1995 as did over ten other major film critics. It appeared on over 150 Ten Best Lists of important critics. When Crumb failed to receive an Oscar nomination, there was an outcry from the media which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to revamp their documentary nomination process that previously had been dominated by the distributors of documentary films.
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