Biography
San Francisco-based documentarian Terry Zwigoff was well-known for his 1994 film "Crumb," a frankly intimate portrait of the legendary underground artist Robert Crumb and his extended family. The film was not only hailed by critics and dissected by pundits and psychologists for exposing an intensely dysfunctional family unit, it also won virtually every major award for documentaries in 1995, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival as well as citations from the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics and the Directors Guild of America. Its failure to earn an Oscar nomination caused an uproar and a demand for change in the way the Academy selected its documentary nominees. Zwigoff first won attention in 1985 for his documentary "Louie Bluie," a portrait of the little-known and highly eccentric blues musician and artist Howard Armstrong. He also directed a feature-length documentary on the history of Hawaiian music, "A Family Named Moe." "Crumb" was a commercial success and appeared on the Top 10 Films of 1994 lists of numerous critics, both mainstream and esoteric. The helmer, though, turned to fictional features in 2001 with "Ghost World," adapted from Daniel Clowes' comic book about two female teen misfits, played to perfection by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johanssen, and an aging, antisocial pop culture addict (Steve Buscemi) . Critics were quick to praise Zwigoff's visual approach to the material as well as its smart screenplay, which the director co-wrote with Clowes. The members of the Motion Picture Academy were also sufficiently impressed to nominate the film for the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award. For his follow-up, Zwigoff delivered the deliriously cynical holiday comedy "Bad Santa" (2003) starring Billy Bob Thornton as a dissipated, womanizing con man posing as a department store Santa. The subversive, anti-cheery film, with its R-rated brand of profane humor and its take-no-prisoners attitude, was decidely not for everyone but Zwigoff masterfully delivered both on comedy and pathos, refusing to employ any syrupy sweet sentiment.
