Thomas H. Ince

Resumen

Nacimiento
16 de noviembre de 1880 · Newport, Rhode Island, Estados Unidos
Defunción
19 de noviembre de 1924 · Beverly Hills, California, Estados Unidos (un insuficiencia cardíaca)
Nombre de nacimiento
Thomas Harper Ince

Biografía

Familiar

Cónyuge
Niños
Familiares

Trivia

Contrary to the portrait of him in The Cat's Meow (2001) as a washed-up producer lucky to make a film a year, in the year before his death in 1924 15 of his movies were released and, at the time of his death, he had nine more before the cameras that were completed posthumously.
Seeing a short film with Tsuru Aoki, a Japanese actress living in California, Ince realized the potential advantages of casting Asian players in Hollywood films. This was during a time when white actors wearing eye makeup were portraying Asians, due to the strong anti-Asian sentiment among the American public. This would remain the norm in American film for decades to come. When Aoki met Ince, she introduced him to another Japanese stage player, Sessue Hayakawa. Ince hired both Aoki and Hayakawa for a series of films that proved popular and gained even more notoriety when the Japanese couple fell in love and married as Ince stars. Some of the Aoki-Hayakawa films were Far Eastern stories, but others cast them as Native Americans.
After the death of Wallace Reid from drugs, Ince capitalized on the incident by casting Reid's widow in the anti-drug film Human Wreckage (1923), one of the first films to use psychedelic sets.
Inceville, located where Sunset Boulevard reaches the Pacific Ocean, is named for him. It was in Inceville that he established his first studio, before moving his studio to Culver City.
Made more than 150 films in 1913.

Citas

My first picture contained 53 scenes, and it was freely predicted that I would be fired for wasting so much time and film. Around the studio I was generally designated as "one of those New York guys that know all about the picture business". My salutatory was a comedy. I believe it was three days in the making.
Primarily the director must know life, but he must know too how to project life, not in narrative form, but by selected dramatic moments, each of which builds toward a definite crisis or climax that will bring a burst of emotional response from the audience . . . He is the personification of every character in his drama as he directs each scene, carrying the story development so closely in his consciousness that he is a dozen persons at once . . . But, above all else, a director must excel in coaxing, cajoling and spurring his actors to heights of artistry.
When the film was cut and assembled, I would turn my attention to stories and would work until midnight writing scenarios for the following day. With my wife's help, I managed to keep my production up to par . . . Life was fraught with many discouragements and anxieties for those who were engaged in the early motion picture industry. There were many disheartening problems and setbacks. Each step of the way had to be tries, mistakes in judgment and execution, the results of experimentation, had to be corrected, and new ideas tried out.
Personally, I count the years I spent on stage before I became a director and then a producer as the greatest single factor contributing toward whatever measure of success I have achieved.