Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan, CC (born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian director (of stage and film), writer, producer and former actor.^[1][2] Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica (1994), a film set primarily in and around the fictional Exotica strip club.^[3] Egoyan's most critically acclaimed film is the drama The Sweet Hereafter (1997),^[4] and his biggest commercial success is the erotic thriller Chloe (2009).^[5][6] Egoyan has been nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, both for The Sweet Hereafter. He also won several awards at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Genie Awards.

His work often explores themes of alienation and isolation, featuring characters whose interactions are mediated through technology, bureaucracy or other power structures. Egoyan's films often follow non-linear plot structures, in which events are placed out of sequence in order to elicit specific emotional reactions from the audience by withholding key information.^[1]

In 2008, Egoyan received the Dan David Prize for "Creative Rendering of the Past".^[7] Egoyan received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest royal honour in the performing arts, in 2015.^[8]

Early life

Egoyan was born Atom Yeghoyan (Western Armenian: Աթոմ Եղոյեան) in Cairo, Egypt, the son of Shushan (née Devletian) and Joseph Yeghoyan, artists who operated a furniture store.^[9] His parents were Armenian-Egyptians, and he was named Atom to mark the completion of Egypt's first nuclear reactor.^[10][11] In 1962, however, his parents left Egypt for Canada, where they settled in Victoria, British Columbia and changed their last name to Egoyan. Atom and his sister, Eve, now a concert pianist based in Toronto, were raised by their parents in British Columbia.

As a boy, Egoyan wished for assimilation into Canadian society and his struggle with his father led him to reject his family's Armenian culture. However, years later, when he attended the University of Toronto, he began to study Armenian history.^[12]

As a teenager, he became interested in reading and writing plays. Significant influences included Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Egoyan also attributes his future in the film industry to Ingmar Bergman's film Persona, which he viewed at age fourteen, according to an interview he had with journalist Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life.

It gave me an incredible respect for the medium and its possibilities. To me, Persona marries a pure form and a very profound vision with absolute conviction. It’s very inspiring. I felt that it was able to open a door that wasn’t there before.^[13]

He graduated from Trinity College at the University of Toronto. It was at Trinity College that Egoyan came into contact with Harold Nahabedian, the Armenian-Canadian Anglican Chaplain of Trinity College. In interviews Egoyan credited Nahabedian for introducing him to the language and history of his ethnic heritage. Egoyan also wrote for the University of Toronto's independent weekly, The Newspaper, during his time at the school.

Career

Egoyan has directed 15 full-length films, several television episodes, and a few shorter pieces. His early work was based on his own material. In 1984, his debut film "Next of Kin" world-premiered at the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg and won a major prize. His commercial breakthrough came with the film Exotica (1994). He received the Grand Prix (Belgian Film Critics Association) in Brussels. But it was Egoyan's first attempt at adapted material that resulted in his best-known work, The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

He also directed Sarabande featuring Khanjian, Lori Singer, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma's performance of Bach's Fourth Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, as part of the latter's Inspired by Bach film series for Sony Classical.

The film Ararat (2002) generated much publicity for Egoyan. After Henri Verneuil's French-language film Mayrig (1991), it was the first major motion picture to deal directly with the Armenian Genocide. Ararat later won the Best Picture prize at the Genie Awards. In 2004, Egoyan opened Camera Bar, a 50-seat cinema-lounge on Queen Street West in Toronto.

In 2005, Egoyan joined the Faculty of the Media and Communications division at European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts intensive summer seminars.^[1] Beginning in September 2006, Egoyan taught at the University of Toronto for three years.^[14] He joined the Faculty of Arts and Science as the Dean's Distinguished Visitor in theatre, film, music and visual studies. He currently teaches at Ryerson University.^[15] In 2006, he received the Master of Cinema Award of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg.

Later, he directed the erotic thriller Chloe (2009), theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. This film grossed $3 million in the United States theatrically and became one of the higher-grossing specialty films in the United States in 2010^[16] (according to Variety, "$3 million is the new $10 million" for specialty films' box office in 2010^[17]). Several months after the DVD/Blu-ray release of Chloe, Atom Egoyan said that Chloe had made more money than any of his previous films.^[5] The success of Chloe led Egoyan to receive many scripts of erotic thrillers.^[18]

In 2012, he directed a production of Martin Crimp's Cruel and Tender, starring Khanjian, at Canadian Stage in Toronto.^[19]

After the release of the West Memphis Three from 18 years in prison, Egoyan directed a movie about the case called Devil's Knot (2013) starring Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth, based on a book on the case, Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt. His last feature, "The Captive" (2014), starred Ryan Reynolds and was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.^[20]

His latest film, Remember, starred Christopher Plummer and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015 and was later released to theatres in limited release.^[21]

Personal life

Egoyan is now based in Toronto, where he lives with his wife Arsinée Khanjian, a trilingual (English, French and Armenian) Armenian-Canadian actress who appears in many of Egoyan's films, and their son, Arshile (named after the Armenian-American painter Arshile Gorky).

In 1999, Egoyan was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, it was later upgraded to Companion of the order in December 30, 2015, the highest grade of the honour.^[22]

Filmography

Feature films

TV films

• In This Corner (1985)
• Gross Misconduct (1993)
• Sarabande (1997)
• Krapp's Last Tape (2000)

Short films

• Howard in Particular (1979)
• After Grad with Dad (1980)
• Peep Show (1981)
• Open House (1982)
• Men: A Passion Playground (1985)
• Looking for Nothing (1988)
• Montreal Stories (Montréal vu par...) (1991)
  • segment: En passant (In Passing)
• A Portrait of Arshile (1995)
• The Line (2000)
• Diaspora (2001)
• Chacun son cinéma / To Each His Own Cinema (2007)
  • segment: Artaud Double Bill
• Venezia 70 Future Reload (2013)
  • segment: Butterfly
• Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (2014)
  • segment: L'Apparition (d'après René Magritte)

Documentary films

• Citadel (2003)

Bibliography

• Dear Sandra Atom Egoyan, Volumina (2007)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Atom Egoyan.

• Ego Film Arts – official website
• Atom Egoyan Faculty page at European Graduate School (Includes biography, filmography, photos and video lectures)
• Atom Egoyan at the Internet Movie Database
• Atom Egoyan at AllMovie
• Order of Canada citation
• CTV.ca Filmmaker Egoyan set to teach at U. of Toronto
• Discussion of Egoyan's film, Calendar by Ron Burnett
• Literature on Atom Egoyan