Boorman, John

   b. 1933

   Film director

   Boorman was head of documentaries at the BBC from 1960–4 before going on to direct his first feature, Catch Us If You Can (1965). His subsequent departure for the USA to direct Point Blank, a Hollywood-produced thriller with European sensibilities, was followed by trans-Atlantic projects involving dichotomous and mythic explorations of conflicted psychological, political and spiritual states of humanity. These included the surreal Leo the Last (1969), Zardoz (1973) and the allegorical quest narratives of Deliverance (1972), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Excalibur (1981) and The Emerald Forest (1985). The autobiographical Hope and Glory (1987) and the factually based Irish gangster film The General (1988) consolidated Boorman’s domestic (and international) reputation, celebrating an impassioned and determined directorial brilliance that has rarely wavered visually.

   Further reading

    Ciment, M. (1986) John Boorman, London: Faber.

   SATINDER CHOHAN