- According to his official Instagram account, Davies died at his home on Saturday
- He began his career with autobiographical films such as The Long Day Closes
- Davies is considered one of the greatest English filmmakers today
Terence Davies, the English filmmaker who made several classic autobiographical films and literary adaptations including “The House Of Mirth” and “The Neon Bible,” has died aged 77.
Davies’ official Instagram account announced the news on Saturday, noting that he had died “peacefully at home” earlier in the day after a “short illness.”
Born in Liverpool in 1945, the director and screenwriter began his career – and quickly became known as one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers – with the autobiographical films Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992).
These intimate films were later followed by productions with big stars from the US and UK, including the controversial Gena Rowlands adaptation of The Neon Bible (1995) and the Gillian Anderson-hosted Edith Wharton adaptation The House Of Mirth (2000 ). and the romantic drama The Deep Blue Sea (2011), starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston.
Davies’ most recent feature film was 2021’s “Benediction,” which starred both Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi as English war poet Siegfried Sassoon.
The long day comes to an end: Terence Davies, the English filmmaker who made several classic autobiographical films and literary adaptations, including “The House Of Mirth” and “The Neon Bible,” has died at the age of 77; seen in 2016 in NYC
Saying goodbye: Davies’ official Instagram account announced that he died “peacefully at home” on Saturday after a “short illness.”
Modern Classics: Davies was known for several autobiographical films and literary adaptations. One of his most popular films was the 2011 romantic drama The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston
He has never directed a film set in the present.
“When I’m in the past, I feel safe because I understand that world,” the prolific filmmaker told The Guardian in 2022.
Davies was born into a large Catholic family in the months following the end of World War II. He left school at 16 and worked as a clerk for ten years before enrolling at Coventry Drama School.
His first film, a short film called Children, was written while he was in school and is autobiographical.
After the release of this film, he attended the National Film School, where he made another biographical film about the years he worked as a clerk, entitled Madonna and Child.
His third film, Death and Transfiguration, completed the so-called Terence Davies trilogy and centered on how he reflected on the possible circumstances of his death.
The films are about his memories of bullying at school, the cruelty of his psychotic father and coming to terms with his homosexuality.
Davies’ father died of cancer when he was seven and, as was the custom at the time, the body was displayed in the living room of his house for ten days.
“You could smell death. It was awful. “I had to sleep in the bed where he died. I still have these bad nightmares where someone comes into the room to kill me,” he said.
And he wasn’t content to just draw themes from his own life for his films. His next two films, “Distant Voices, Still Lives” (1988) and “The Long Day Closes” (1992), were also based on real events.
“The Long Day Closes” examined the years between the death of his abusive father and the start of his bullying at school, a time when he was “sick with happiness,” as the filmmaker said.
Catholicism, homosexuality, poetry and torture were Davies’ favorite subjects, but despite the seriousness of these subjects, he infused his films with humor.
“Humor is so beguiling,” Davies told the Guardian, “especially when it masks tragedy.”
In 1995, he adapted John Kennedy Toole’s novel The Neon Bible, starring Gena Rowlands, and received a BAFTA nomination for his effort.
In 2000, he adapted Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth, starring Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz.
In 2007, Davies returned to autobiographical filmmaking with the documentary Of Time and the City, which focused on the lost years of his youth.