David Sutherland (filmmaker)
| David Sutherland | |
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Sutherland in 2004
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| Born | July 31, 1945 |
| Occupation | Documentary Filmmaker |
| Genre | Portraiture |
| Notable works | Kind Hearted Woman, Country Boys, The Farmer’s Wife |
| Years active | 1984 - present |
| Website | |
| davidsutherland |
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David Russell Sutherland (born July 31, 1945) is an American documentary filmmaker who has won over 100 international awards and citations for his films.
Sutherland earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Tufts University in 1967. He went on to study film at the University of Southern California (USC).
Sutherland began producing documentaries a decade after leaving USC. One of his earliest films, Down Around Here, which he began filming while working at his father's tire store in the 1970s, profiled a gritty diner that Sutherland frequented. Matt Ashare of The Phoenix called the film "a poignant and remarkably resonant sketch of Boston's rapidly fading past." Much of his early work focuses on art and artists, including Paul Cadmus and Jack Levine. Of Paul Cadmus: Enfant Terrible at 80, New York Times critic John O'Connor said, "Television has never been completely at ease in dealing with art and artists... Then, every once in a great while, a film comes along to demonstrate other possibilities, other approaches. One such production is Paul Cadmus: Enfant Terrible at 80...Mr. Cadmus has been served well by Mr. Sutherland... The intense close-up succeeds in illuminating something of the artistic process that, no matter the finished style, is always profoundly serious." A reviewer for The Boston Globe said of Sutherland's 1989 film Halftime: Five Yale Men at Midlife, "A relentlessly stunning film. With the possible exception of The Thin Blue Line, no documentary in recent memory delivers more psychological insight--or emotional wallop. The pacing is flawless, the editing superb."
According to the Baltimore Sun, Sutherland is "considered by those who know documentaries to be one of the nation's greatest practitioners of the form". His films have been cited for their "depth of intimacy and long-form commitment to the filmmaking process" with some productions taking as long as three years or more to film. Also notable is his unique audio style. For his most recent film, Kind Hearted Woman, Sutherland used up to six microphones at a time to produce over 300 hours of audio recordings, which he eventually edited down for the 5-hour film. Of the result, Brian Lowry of Variety said, "Those familiar with Sutherland’s work know he seeks out personal stories and follows them at an unhurried, almost-hypnotic pace, extracting intimate portraits through years of painstaking filming. He has done that and then some with [Kind Hearted Woman]." Mark Rogers of Slant Magazine called Kind Hearted Woman "one of the most compelling documentaries on modern Native American life to date."
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