Hal Ashby

Hal Ashby (1929, Ogden, Utah – 1988, Malibu, California), a representative of the New Hollywood generation, will be remembered for the movies he contributed in the 1970s to a key chapter in the history of post-classic American film. He gained recognition in the 1960s as an editor when The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) and In the Heat of the Night (1967) brought two Academy Award nominations. Then came the black comedy Harold and Maude (1971), the psychological drama The Last Detail (1973), the comedy Shampoo (1975), the biopic of folk singer Woody Guthrie Bound for Glory (1976), the drama Coming Home (1978), and the social satire Being There (1979), in which Peter Sellers shines brightly in one of his final roles. Although Ashby worked extensively in the last decade of his life, none of his final eight pictures made much of a splash worldwide.

MFF Karlovy Vary