Biography

Michael Winterbottom

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Michael took an English degree at Oxford, then trained in film at Bristol and London, breaking into television via the cutting room at Thames Television. He made his directorial debut with two documentaries on Ingmar Bergman. His production of Love Lies Bleeding won the Silver Award at the 1993 New York Television Festival and the four-part serial 'Family' has collected numerous awards at film and television festivals around the world. He also directed the opening story in the first series of the multi award-winning series Cracker.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5

Often has actors improvise, rather than work exclusively from the script
Films often have references (visual and/or spoken) to the works of Werner Herzog (Butterfly Kiss (1995), The Claim (2000), 24 Hour Party People (2002)) or Krzysztof Kieślowski (I Want You (1998), Wonderland (1999), Code 46 (2003)).
Films often deal with social and/or political concerns (Go Now (1995), Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), Wonderland (1999), In This World (2002)).
Because of the improvisational element of much of his work, his films often use hand-held (sometimes digital) photography with roughly edited jumps between scenes and locations (Butterfly Kiss (1995), Wonderland (1999), With or Without You (1999), The Claim (2000), 24 Hour Party People (2002), In This World (2002), 9 Songs (2004)).
Often has a sequence with the lead characters running or romantically playing on the beach. (Butterfly Kiss (1995), Jude (1996), I Want You (1998), With or Without You (1999), In This World (2002), 9 Songs (2004)).

Apparently, his first job on a film shoot was working as Lindsay Anderson's assistant in his early twenties, a position he described as "...basically holding cups of tea".
Was approached to direct Good Will Hunting (1997) for $1.5 million but declined.
He is a keen admirer of the New German Cinema, particularly the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders.
His former partner Sabrina Broadbent wrote a novel, "Descent", which "The Manchester Guardian" describes as "closely based on their life together. Or rather, not together, because the husband in the book is understood to be a workaholic film director who keeps disappearing in pursuit of interesting projects". ("A Winterbottom's Tale", February 1, 2004)
Has made three movies based on novels by Thomas Hardy: Jude (1996), based on "Jude the Obscure," The Claim (2000), re-setting "The Mayor of Casterbridge" from rustic England to a California mining town, and Trishna (2011), an update of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles.".

I don't particularly like the idea that there's an arc to the story and that therefore in this scene you have to convey this bit of information or emotion. I like more the feeling that, of course, there is a shape to the story, but that each scene should feel right, should be true at that moment, and that gradually you accumulate these moments of truth until you get enough of them together that it becomes a story that's interesting.
[on 9 Songs (2004)] Cinema has been extremely conservative and prudish. I wanted to go to the opposite extreme and show the relationship only through sex.
When I was at university, the film club always showed In the Realm of the Senses (1976) at the start of a new year to get people to join. It was full of explicit sex, yet you can buy it in HMV now.
Why can a writer engage in sexual imagery with no restrictions and yet a film author can't do the same?
[on his cinematic influences] The New German Cinema during my years in the [Oxford university] cinema club. Fassbinder [Rainer Werner Fassbinder], Wenders [Wim Wenders]. In shooting Butterfly Kiss (1995) I thought of their way of filming places that weren't cinematographic in and of themselves, of their sense of the atmosphere of a place. [from: "Michael Winterbottom: Interviews", 2010]