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James Rufus Agee (November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, poet, and film critic. Events 1095 - Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont Year 1909 ( MCMIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 1204 - Baldwin IX Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar) A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Screenwriters or scenarists are Scriptwriters who write the Screenplays from which Films and Television programs are made A journalist (also called a newspaperman) is a person who practices Journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events trends A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" The word critic comes from the Greek el κριτικός ( el-Latn kritikós) "able to discern" which in turn derives from the word In the 1940s he was one of the most influential film critics in the U. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949 Events and trends The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s which also leads the period to be S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. A Death in the Family is an Autobiographical novel by author James Agee, set in Knoxville Tennessee. The year 1957 in literature involved some significant events and new books The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism,

Contents

Biography

Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee at Highland Avenue and 15th Street (renamed James Agee Street in 1999) to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler, and had distant French and English ancestry on his father's side. When Agee was six, his father died in an automobile accident, and from the age of seven he and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in boarding schools.

The most influential of these was located near his mother's summer cottage two miles from Sewanee, Tennessee. Sewanee is an unincorporated town in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States, treated by the U Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys was run by Episcopal monks affiliated with the Order of the Holy Cross), and it was there that Agee's lifelong friendship with an Episcopal priest, Father James Harold Flye, began in 1919. St Andrew’s-Sewanee School is a private coeducational Episcopal, boarding and day college preparatory school serving 250+ students in grades six through This article deals with the Anglican Benedictine monastic community known as the Order of the Holy Cross As Agee's close friend and spiritual confidant, Flye was the recipient of many of Agee's most revealing letters.

Agee went to Knoxville High School for the 1924-1925 school year, then travelled with Father Flye to Europe in the summer, when Agee was sixteen. On their return, Agee moved to boarding school in New Hampshire, entering the class of 1928 at Phillips Exeter Academy. Phillips Exeter Academy (also called Exeter, Phillips Exeter or PEA) is a Co-educational independent Boarding school for grades 9–12 There he was president of The Lantern Club and editor of the Monthly where his first short stories, plays, poetry and articles were published. Despite barely passing many of his high school courses, Agee was admitted to Harvard University's class of 1932. He was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate and delivered the class ode at his commencement.

After graduation, he wrote for Fortune and Time magazines, although he is better known for his later film criticism in The Nation. Fortune is a Global Business Magazine published by Time Inc's Fortune|Money Group Time (trademarked in capitals as TIME) is a weekly American Newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and This article is about the US Publication. For other newspapers magazines and alternate uses by the same name see The Nation (disambiguation. He married Via Saunders on January 28, 1933; they divorced in 1938 and that same year he married Alma Mailman. In 1934, he published his only volume of poetry, Permit Me Voyage, with a foreword by Archibald MacLeish. Year 1934 ( MCMXXXIV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Archibald MacLeish ( May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982) was an American Poet, Writer and the Librarian

In the summer of 1936, Agee spent eight weeks on assignment for Fortune with photographer Walker Evans living among sharecroppers in Alabama. Year 1936 ( MCMXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. For the off-road and NASCAR driver see Walker Evans (racer. Walker Evans ( November 3, 1903 &ndash April 10, Alabama (formally the State of Alabama;) is a State located in the southern region of the United States of America. While Fortune didn't publish his article (he left the magazine in 1939), Agee turned the material into a book entitled, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a book with text by American writer James Agee and photographs by American photographer Walker Evans first published in It sold only 600 copies before being remaindered. Remaindered books are books that are no longer selling well and whose remaining unsold copies are being liquidated by the publisher at greatly reduced prices That same year, Alma moved to Mexico with their year-old son, Joel, to live with Communist writer Bodo Uhse. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Agee began living with Mia Fritsch in Greenwich Village, whom he married in 1946. Greenwich Village (ˌgrɛnɪtʃ ˈvɪlɪdʒ often simply called the Village, is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern Manhattan They had two daughters, Teresa and Andrea, and a son, John, who was eight months old when Agee died.

In 1942, Agee became the film critic for Time, and at one point reviewed up to six books per week, but left to become film critic for The Nation. In 1948, however, he quit both magazines to become a freelance writer. One of his assignments was a well received article for Life Magazine about the great silent movie comedians, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon, which has been credited for reviving Keaton's career. Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton ( October 4 1895 &ndash February 1 1966) was an Academy Award -winning American Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr ( April 20, 1893 &ndash March 8, 1971) was an American Film actor and producer Harry L Langdon ( June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944) was an American Comedian who appeared in Vaudeville, As a freelance in the 1950's, he continued to write magazine articles while working on movie scripts, often with photographer Helen Levitt. Helen Levitt (born 1913-08-31, Brooklyn New York) is an American photographer

Agee was an ardent champion of Charlie Chaplin's then extremely unpopular film Monsieur Verdoux (1947), which has since become a film classic. Monsieur Verdoux is a 1947 Black comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. He was also a great admirer of Laurence Olivier's Henry V and Hamlet, especially Henry V, for which he actually published three separate reviews, all of which have been printed in the collection Agee on Film. Laurence Kerr Olivier Baron Henry V is a 1944 film adaptation of William Shakespeare 's play of the same name. Hamlet is a British film adaptation of William Shakespeare 's play Hamlet, directed by and starring Sir Laurence Olivier.

In 1951 in Santa Barbara, Agee suffered the first two in a series of heart attacks, which ultimately claimed his life four years later at the age of 45. Year 1951 ( MCMLI) was a Common year starting on Monday. Events of 1951 January Santa Barbara is a city in Santa Barbara County California, United States. Myocardial infarction ( MI or AMI for acute myocardial infarction) also known as a heart attack, occurs when the blood supply He died on May 16, 1955 while in a taxi cab en route to a doctor's appointment -- coincidentally two days before the anniversary of his father's death. [1] He was buried on a farm he owned at Hillsdale, NY. Hillsdale is a Town in Columbia County, New York, United States.

Hollywood and The Night of the Hunter

Agee's career as a movie scriptwriter was curtailed by alcoholism, but he is nevertheless one of the credited screenwriters on two of the great films of the 1950s: The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). Alcoholism is a term with multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions The African Queen is a Drama film directed by John Huston and produced by Sam Spiegel (billed as "S The year 1951 in film involved some significant events Events Sweden - May Britt is scouted by Italian The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 Film noir, starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters, and the only film Charles Laughton The year 1955 in film involved some significant events Events November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls

Agee's contribution to Hunter is shrouded in controversy, and the claim has been raised that the published script was actually written by the film's director, Charles Laughton. Charles Laughton ( 1 July, 1899 &ndash 15 December, 1962) was an English Academy Award -winning stage and Reports that Agee's screenplay for Hunter was incoherent have been proved false by the 2004 discovery of his first draft, which although 293 pages in length and overwritten, is scene for scene the film Charles Laughton directed. The first draft is yet to be published, but it has been read by scholars - most notably Prof. Jeffrey Couchman of Columbia University, who published his findings in an essay, "Credit Where Credit Is Due. "

Also false are the reports that Agee was fired from the film. Laughton, whatever his displeasure at having to deal with such a large script with only five weeks before the start of principal photography, renewed Agee's contract and directed him to cut it in half, which Agee did. Later, apparently at Robert Mitchum's request, Agee visited the set to settle a dispute between the star and Laughton. Letters and documents located in the archive of Agee's agent Paul Kohner bear this out - they were brought to light by Laughton's biographer Simon Callow, whose BFI book about The Night of the Hunter sets this part of the record straight. Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English stage, Film and Television Actor .

Legacy

During his lifetime, Agee enjoyed only modest public recognition, but since his death his literary reputation has grown. In 1957 his novel, A Death in the Family (which was based on the events surrounding his father's death), was published posthumously and in 1958 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Agee's reviews and screenplays have been collected in Agee on Film, which has been controversial not only because of the allegations concerning The Night of the Hunter, but because one of the Time reviews included in the first volume (of the film Roxie Hart) was not written by Agee. [2]

Agee's book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, ignored on its original publication in 1941, has been placed among the greatest literary works of the 20th Century by the New York School of Journalism and the New York Public Library. The New York Public Library ( NYPL) is one of the leading public libraries of the world and is one of America's most significant Research libraries. Samuel Barber has set sections of "Descriptions of Elysium" from Permit Me Voyage to music, including the song "Sure On This Shining Night"; in addition, he set prose from the traditionally included "Knoxville" section of "A Death in the Family" in his work for soprano entitled "Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Samuel Osborne Barber II ( March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American Composer of Orchestral, Opera, Knoxville Summer of 1915 is a 1947 work for Voice and Orchestra by Samuel Barber. "

List of works

Published as

References

  1. ^ James Agee (1909-1955) Chronology of his Life and Work
  2. ^ According to a bound volume of the book in the library of Time magazine, corroborated by the style of the review itself, which is at variance with Agee's usual style.

External links

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