British director Michael Apted has passed away at the age of 79. In a career spanning more than half a century, he has built up a broad body of work, from a James Bond film and biographical dramas to TV series and the documentary series Up.
In that groundbreaking series, Apted visited a group of 14 British children every seven years, starting at the age of seven, in 1963. The aim was to present a long-term cross-section of British society. The newest part was published in 2019, 63 Up.
“It was the most important thing I’ve ever done,” Apted once said in an interview. He intended to keep following the main characters “as long as I am not yet in the earth”.
To Hollywood
After work on some TV series such as Coronation Street Apted also made feature films from the 1970s onwards. He managed to get an Oscar for Sissy Spacek with the film Coal Miner’s Daughter, a film that has been nominated for six other Oscars.
Later also Sigourney Weaver (Gorillas in the Mist) and Jodie Foster (Nell) won the film awards under his guidance. He himself was not once nominated for an Academy Award.
Apted once said he could put more feeling into films starring women. “A female role brings more emotion into the story, whatever that story is.”
In addition to biographical films, Apted also ventured into thrillers such as Extreme Measures, with Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman, or Gorky Park, with William Hurt. In 1999 he directed Pierce Brosnan in the Bond movie The World is not Enough. In his later years he returned to television with episodes of Rome and Masters of Sex.