RSA Films has added award-winning theatre and film director John Crowley to its U.K./U.S. commercial roster. A versatile storyteller with a background in directing both Broadway and West End productions, Crowley also directs episodic television, commercials, and feature films.
His 2015 film Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan, received three Academy Award nominations and won the Best British Film BAFTA. BBC named Brooklyn as one of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century.
Crowley first received critical acclaim for his 2003 feature Intermission, following with Boy A (Andrew Garfield, Peter Mullan) for which he won the Best Director BAFTA. Additional feature credits include Is Anybody There? starring Michael Caine, and his most recent film, 2019’s The Goldfinch, adapted from the Donna Tartt novel by Peter Straughan, and starring Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, and Sarah Paulson.
Among Crowley’s commercial credits are ads for Formula 1, and Tesco’s 2013 Christmas campaign from agency W+K. Prior to joining RSA, Crowley was handled by London-based Tomboy Films.
“John’s features, commercials and theatre productions are all imbued with a sense of craft and nuance,” commented Kai Hsiung, RSA U.K. managing director. “He is a director we’ve long admired, and we’re really looking forward to exploring new narrative and commercial opportunities together.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More