This Month in Filmmaking History – June 2021 Roundup

"Un Chien Andalou," or "An Andalusian Dog," premiered on this day in history in Paris in 1929. Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel wrote and produced the 17-minute silent film based on their dreams after having a conversation about them at a café. The pair wanted the film to be nonsensical, saying that nothing that could be explained as rational would be included. And nonsensical it was, but it ended up being hugely popular among the Parisian elite. This was the opposite of what Bunuel wanted. He said he was actually disappointed that the upper-class seemed to gravitate toward whatever was new, even though the violence depicted in the film should have gone against their convictions. The film paved the way for the pair to be officially accepted into the French surrealist movement.

Film experts consider "The Grand Illusion," written by Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir, to be one of French cinema's masterpieces. The war film premiered on this day in history in 1937 and followed a group of French prisoners of war plotting to escape. The film's themes include class, prejudice, and human relationships that transcend political politics and nationalism. "The Grand Illusion" is the first foreign-language film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Tom Schulman's "Dead Poets Society" premiered on this day in history in 1989, and Schulman went on to win the Academy Award that year for Best Original Screenplay. The film starred the late Robin Williams as an English teacher who inspires his students through poetry. Schulman wrote the screenplay based on his former teacher Samuel Pickering at Montgomery Bell Academy in Tennessee. Director Peter Weir received the original script from Disney's chairman at the time, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Weir fell in love with it and started casting the main characters just six weeks later.

One of the first films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, "Nanook of the North" premiered on this day in history in 1922. It is classified as a docudrama, with some events staged, but at the time, there was no concept of separating films into documentaries versus dramas. The silent film captures an Inuit family's lives in the Canadian arctic and their journey of survival. Robert J. Flaherty captured the footage over several years, only to have 30,000 feet of film burned by his cigarette. He returned to Canada and decided he'd focus on just one family while reshooting. While some of the footage was real, a lot of it was staged – including the Nanook's two wives, who were actually common-law wives of Flaherty, Nanook's hunting scenes, and the claim that Nanook died of starvation two years after filming, when in fact he likely died of tuberculosis. Still, critics felt it was a groundbreaking film because it captured the stories of people unknown to most, living in a very remote location.

"Raiders of the Los Art" became the highest-grossing film of 1981, after its premiere on June 12. While George Lucas and Philip Kaufman conceived the original story for the film, Lucas decided to instead focus his efforts on "Star Wars," so director Steven Spielberg picked up the project and hired screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan to fill in the gaps in the story. Many now consider the film to be one of the best action-adventure movies, and it's now a major franchise, with three movie sequels, theme park rides, video games, a TV series, toys, and more. Kasdan had only been working as a professional screenwriter for a month when he got the gig. He completed his first draft after five months of collaboration and writing.

Though it was one of the most expensive films produced at the time, "Toy Story 3" was also one of the most successful, holding the record for the highest-grossing animated film with more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. Michael Arndt wrote the screenplay, and the movie premiered on this day in history in 2010. Its journey to the screen went through at least two completely different scripts and a different Disney studio, as negotiations with Pixar had soured at that point. Later, Disney would announce it would buy Pixar, so the project moved back to that studio and continued, but with a completely new script. The original writers started from scratch by visiting the house where they first pitched "Toy Story" and came up with a new story over a weekend. It was assigned to Arndt to write. Instead of showing the script to the actors to get them back on board, the studio created a complete reel of the film using storyboards, and the actors all agreed to sign on after that.

The first in a series of three films, "The Bourne Identity" premiered on this day in history in 2002. Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron wrote the screenplay based on Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel. The story is about Jason Bourne's journey to discover his identity amid his amnesia episodes and a conspiracy within the CIA. Director Doug Liman spent two years getting the rights to the novel from Warner Brothers, a book he had read first while in high school. He spent another year developing the screenplay with Gilroy before Universal Pictures acquired the film rights and brought in Herron to rewrite the script. The film was a box-office success, earning $214 million against a $60 million budget and resulting in four more "Bourne" films.

"The Apartment" was a big winner at the Academy Awards in 1961, taking home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and more. The film premiered in June 1960. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond wrote the romantic comedy-drama screenplay about a man who tries to climb the corporate ladder by allowing his higher-ups to have extramarital affairs at his apartment. Wilder and Diamond got the idea from several real experiences, including a producer who shot an agent after learning he was sleeping with his wife at a low-level employee's apartment. Wilder had wanted to make a similar film in the 40s, but the Motion Picture Production Code disallowed depictions of adultery at the time.

Walon Green and Roy Sicker wrote the original story and screenplay for "The Wild Bunch," which was edited and readied for production by director Sam Peckinpah. While the final screenplay of the Western film was nominated for an Oscar, the film's editing made the movie a standout. Peckinpah used quick cuts from multiple angles and slow-motion shots to depict the chaos of the gunfights. The story depicted a more real version of the violence that occurred in the outlaw gunfighter era, and it was criticized for its brutal imagery. There have been rumors of a 21st-century remake of the film, including a version that includes Will Smith starring and producing. Another version includes Mel Gibson co-writing and directing. It's unclear if any of these versions are proceeding.

Screenwriter Robert Towne won a Best Screenplay Oscar for his script for "Chinatown," which debuted on this day in history in 1974. Considered by many to be one of the best films of all time, the neo-noir mystery film was inspired by the California Water Wars, a series of fights between Los Angeles and Eastern California ranchers over water rights. Before Towne started writing the script, he had been offered $175,000 to write a screenplay for "The Great Gatsby," but he felt he couldn't make it better than the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Instead, he asked for $25,000 to write "Chinatown." The original script was more than 180 pages. Director Roman Polanski and Towne eventually parted ways on the project over a disagreement about what should happen to the character Evelyn Mulwray, with Polanski getting his way by rewriting the final scene.

Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," which premiered on screen on this day in history in 1966. The film was an adaptation of the Broadway stage play, with a story centered on the complexities of marriage. Nearly all of the dialogue from the play remains in the film version, including some language that audiences considered shocking for the time that also went against standard moral guidelines for a film. But Lehman chose to keep the profanity and prevailed. The film was a big financial success. It is one of only two films ever to be nominated in every category it was eligible for at the Academy Awards (the other was "Cimarron").

Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples wrote the screenplay for the highly influential film "Blade Runner," directed by Ridley Scott. The science fiction film initially split critics, but the movie is now considered one of the best sci-fi films of all time for its production design, thematic complexity, and visuals. Many consider the special effects to be some of the best of all time, and the film is often given as an assignment in film school. While Fancher wrote the initial script, Scott felt it focused too much on environmental issues, and the two parted ways. Scott later hired Peoples, but Fancher came back to help with rewrites.