Vanessa Redgrave, son Carlo Gabriel Nero, and niece Jemma Redgrave: Revisiting Tony Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Vanessa Redgrave & son Carlo Gabriel Nero + niece Jemma Redgrave: ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ Academy screening
Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave, son Carlo Gabriel Nero, and niece Jemma Redgrave are pictured above prior to a special screening of The Charge of the Light Brigade.
The Tony Richardson-directed 1968 war drama was presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, May 21, at the Soho Hotel in London.
Vanessa Redgrave Oscar nominations
In films since the mid-1960s, Vanessa Redgrave won a (somewhat controversial) Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her performance in the title role of Fred Zinnemann’s Julia (1977), starring Jane Fonda as Lillian Hellman.
Throughout the decades, Redgrave earned five other Oscar nominations, four of which as Best Actress:
- Karel Reisz’s Morgan! (1966).
Winner: Elizabeth Taylor for Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. - Karel Reisz’s Isadora (1968), as dancer Isadora Duncan.
Winners: Katharine Hepburn for Anthony Harvey’s The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand for William Wyler’s Funny Girl. - Charles Jarrott’s Mary Queen of Scots (1971), in the title role.
Winner: Jane Fonda for Alan J. Pakula’s Klute. - James Ivory’s The Bostonians (1984).
Winner: Sally Field in Robert Benton’s Places of the Heart. - Best Supporting Actress for James Ivory’s Howards End (1992).
Winner: Marisa Tomei for Jonathan Lynn’s My Cousin Vinny.
Redgrave and siblings Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave are the children of actors Michael Redgrave (Dead of Night) and Rachel Kempson (Tom Jones).
Jemma Redgrave & Carlo Gabriel Nero
Jemma Redgrave is the daughter of Corin Redgrave. Her films credits, which date back to 1988, include Howards End, One Night Stand (1994), and Lassie (2005).
Carlo Gabriel Nero is Vanessa Redgrave’s son with Franco Nero, who has been featured in approximately 120 movies in the past five decades. Notable among the older Nero’s credits are Luis Buñuel’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee Tristana (1970) and Michael Anderson’s much reviled Pope Joan (1972), starring Liv Ullmann.
Prior to becoming Franco Nero’s companion in the mid-’60s, Redgrave had been married to director Tony Richardson. The couple were divorced in 1967, the year after Redgrave met Nero on the set of Joshua Logan’s musical Camelot.
Redgrave and Nero eventually went their separate ways, but would be reunited decades later. They were married at the end of 2006. The couple are featured in the latest Amanda Seyfried star vehicle, Letters to Juliet.
As found on the IMDb, Carlo Gabriel Nero has four screenplays to his credit, three of which he also directed:
- The Fever (2004); shared screenplay credit with Wallace Shawn.
Director: Carlo Gabriel Nero.
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave. Angelina Jolie. Geraldine James. Michael Moore. Joely Richardson. Kika Markham. Rade Serbedzija. - Uninvited (1999).
Director: Carlo Gabriel Nero.
Cast: Kevin Isola. Stephen Mendillo. Adam Hann-Byrd. Eli Wallach. Franco Nero. Vanessa Redgrave. - Il tocco – La sfida (1997); shared screenplay credit.
Director: Enrico Coletti.
Cast: Franco Nero. Ruth Gabriel. Thomas Kretschmann. - The short Larry’s Visit (1996).
Director: Carlo Gabriel Nero.
Cast: Charles Black. Pierce Cravens. Eli Wallach.
‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’: Two disparate versions
In 1936, Michael Curtiz directed Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in a rousing tale – inspired by an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem – about British nationals gallantly fighting backstabbing South Asian natives and their Russian allies in the Crimean War of the 1850s. Notwithstanding its unabashed pro-colonialist stance, simmering racism, and shameless disregard for history – not to mention similarities to Henry Hathaway’s The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) – this version was both a critical and a box office hit.
In 1968, Tony Richardson directed ex-wife Vanessa Redgrave, David Hemmings, Trevor Howard, and Harry Andrews in a “reboot” written by Charles Wood (original draft by John Osborne), who offered a more critical look at the British military establishment in a war that was a disaster for all concerned. Unlike its predecessor, this version turned out to be a critical disappointment and a costly box office flop.
Following the screening of The Charge of the Light Brigade, there was a panel discussion featuring Vanessa Redgrave and Charles Wood, in addition to the following:
- Two-time Oscar-winning costume designer John Mollo (Star Wars, 1977; Gandhi, 1982).
- Two-time Oscar-winning animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988; the short A Christmas Carol, 1971).
- Film historian Kevin Brownlow.
- Writer/moderator Mark Lawson.
Jemma Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave and son Carlo Nero photo: Simon Leibowitz / © A.M.P.A.S.
Ken Russell (right), the middle-aged enfant terrible of British cinema, and The Who documentary filmmaker Murray Lerner.
Documentarian Murray Lerner & Ken Russell: Tommy screening
Best Director Academy Award nominee Ken Russell (Women in Love, 1970) and Oscar-winning documentarian Murray Lerner (From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, 1980) pose for the camera before the 35th anniversary screening of Russell’s 1975 rock opera Tommy.
With music by The Who, and starring band member Roger Daltrey, Best Actress Oscar nominee Ann-Margret, and Oliver Reed – in addition to featuring the likes of Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Jack Nicholson, and Elton John – Tommy was presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, May 21, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
In the box office hit, Daltrey plays a deaf/mute/blind pinball-playing Jesus-like figure, whose followers eventually turn against him.
Murray Lerner also knows a thing or two about The Who. Below are the titles of a couple of his documentaries:
- Listening to You: The Who at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (1996).
- Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who (2007).
Photo of Tommy director Ken Russell and documentarian Murray Lerner: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.
Caleb Deschanel, Michael Wilkinson: Academy event ‘Illuminating the Future.’Oscar nominees Caleb Deschanel, Arthur Max: ‘Illuminating the Future’ presentation
Pictured above (from left to right) at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ event “Illuminating the Future: The Arrival of Solid State Lighting” are the following:
- Visual effects supervisor Bill Taylor (Blade Runner, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).
- Visual effects artist Jonathan Erland (Star Wars, Star Trek: The Motion Picture).
- Cinematographer Daryn Okada (Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Mean Girls, Baby Mama).
- Oscar-nominated production designer Arthur Max (Gladiator, Robin Hood).
- Set decorator Rosemary Brandenburg (Transformers, Public Enemies).
- Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff, The Passion of the Christ, The Black Stallion).
- Costume designer Michael Wilkinson (Terminator Salvation, TRON: Legacy).
- Make-up artist Robert Ryan (The Polar Express, Beowulf).
The Academy’s Science and Technology Council presentation took place on Saturday, May 22, ’10, at the Academy’s own Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
“Illuminating the Future” explored preliminary research findings on how the new technology of “solid state light” (SSL) may transform the color palette of filmmaking.
As explained in the Academy’s press release about SSL Technology, “rarely does a new type of light source come along with fundamentally different qualities and the potential to alter how movies are made and seen. … A goal of this project is to offer filmmakers clear information on how current solid state lighting technology differs from traditional lighting instruments, and how these differences will impact choices in production, particularly in the areas of cinematography, costume design, make-up and production design.”
Photo of Caleb Deschanel, Michael Wilkinson, Arthur Max, Robert Ryan, et al.: Greg Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) website.