Todd Field

2.1. Birth and upbringing

Field was born in Pomona, California, where his family operated a poultry farm. When he was two years old, his family relocated to Portland, Oregon. In Portland, his father worked as a salesman, and his mother became a school librarian.

2.2. Early interests and ventures

From a young age, Field developed a keen interest in performing, initially focusing on sleight-of-hand magic and later gravitating towards music. During his childhood in Portland, Field served as a batboy for the Portland Mavericks, an independent single-A minor league baseball team. The team was owned by Hollywood actor Bing Russell, and his son, future actor Kurt Russell, also played for the Mavericks during this period. It was in the Field family kitchen that Todd Field and Mavericks pitching coach Rob Nelson created the initial batch of what would become Big League Chew bubble gum. In 1980, Nelson and former New York Yankees all-star Jim Bouton successfully sold their idea to the Wrigley Company. Since its inception, over a billion pouches of Big League Chew have been sold globally.



A budding jazz musician, Field became a member of the Lab Band at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon, at the age of sixteen. Under the direction of Larry McVey, this band was a significant proving ground and a regular stop for renowned jazz artists like Stan Kenton and Mel Tormé who were seeking new talent. Field played the trombone in the band alongside his friend, trumpeter and future Grammy Award winner Chris Botti. Concurrently, he also worked as a non-union projectionist at a second-run movie theater, gaining early exposure to the film industry.

2.3. Education and acting beginnings

Field graduated from Centennial High School on Portland's east side. He briefly attended Southern Oregon State College (now Southern Oregon University) in Ashland on a music scholarship. However, he left after his freshman year to pursue acting studies in New York City with Robert X. Modica at his acclaimed Carnegie Hall Studio. Shortly thereafter, Field began performing with the Ark Theatre Company, contributing as both an actor and a musician.

2.4. AFI Conservatory

Field's acting career led him to connect with filmmakers Carl Franklin and Victor Nuñez, both alumni of the AFI. They encouraged him to enroll as a Directing Fellow at the AFI Conservatory, which he did in 1992. His thesis film, Nonnie & Alex, earned a Jury Prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Other short films he produced independently of his studies were showcased internationally and domestically at the Museum of Modern Art.

4.1. In the Bedroom

Field commenced his feature filmmaking career in 2001 with In the Bedroom, which he wrote and directed. The film was an adaptation of Andre Dubus's short story "Killings". Notably, both Stanley Kubrick and Andre Dubus, who were significant mentors to Field, passed away just prior to the production of In the Bedroom. The film was shot in Rockland, Maine, the New England town where Field resides with his family. His own home, shared with his wife Serena Rathbun and their four children, served as a setting for one of the film's sequences. Serena Rathbun and lead actress Sissy Spacek contributed to the set design, and Field himself operated the camera for many of the shots, reflecting his hands-on approach.



In the Bedroom premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it was met with widespread critical acclaim. Dennis Lim, writing for the Village Voice, praised the film as "a small miracle of patience and composure, so starkly removed from everything the festival had come to represent that it seemed almost to herald the overdue coming-of-age of American independent film." Upon its wider release, David Ansen of Newsweek remarked, "Todd Field exhibits a mastery of his craft many filmmakers never acquire in a lifetime. With one film he's guaranteed his future as a director. He has the magnificent obsession of the natural-born filmmaker." Anthony Quinn of The Independent lauded Field's ability to "make violence feel genuinely shocking," a rare achievement in American cinema.

For his work on In the Bedroom, Field received significant recognition, including being named Director of the Year by the National Board of Review and awarded Best Original Screenplay. The film was honored as Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle presented Field with the Best First Film award. It also received six American Film Institute Awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay. The film garnered three Golden Globe nominations and five Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor for Tom Wilkinson (his first nomination), Best Actress for Sissy Spacek (her sixth), Best Supporting Actress for Marisa Tomei (her second), and Best Adapted Screenplay for Field. The American Film Institute further honored Field with the Franklin Schaffner Alumni Medal, recognizing his exceptional creative talent and artistic achievements. In March 2023, New York magazine included In the Bedroom on its list of "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars," placing it alongside cinematic classics such as Citizen Kane and Sunset Boulevard.

4.2. Little Children

Following years of dedicated research for an unproduced biopic about the 19th-century stage actor Edwin Booth, titled Time Between Trains, Todd Field made his return to filmmaking with Little Children in 2006. Initially conceived as a miniseries, the film is an adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel of the same name and premiered at the 2006 New York Film Festival.

Little Children received three Academy Award nominations, including two for its actors: Kate Winslet (her fifth nomination, making her the youngest actor at the time to achieve five Oscar nominations) and Jackie Earle Haley (his first nomination and first major role in over 15 years). With only two feature films under his belt, Field had already amassed five Academy Award nominations for his actors and three for himself, underscoring his skill in eliciting powerful performances.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times, in his "Best of 2006" roundup, described the film as a "complicated blend of gothic, melodrama and sexual comedy, unerringly attuned to the varieties of human failure." He praised Field's "impressive control over the unruly source material and the emotional agility of the cast." Matt Mazur of the International Cinephile Society characterized the film as "subversive," designed to disorient the viewer with "seemingly non-connected imagery to suggest a tone and a mood of disquiet." Mazur drew comparisons between Field's technique and that of pioneering filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, D. W. Griffith, Georges Méliès, and Edwin S. Porter.

Many key members of Field's creative team from In the Bedroom returned to collaborate on Little Children, including his wife, Serena Rathbun. In a 2006 interview with The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson, Field revealed that he decided to cease acting and focus on making his own films after Rathbun advised him, "Do what you want to do. Don't get distracted." Later that year, Field spoke extensively about Rathbun's crucial role as his creative partner, recounting a conversation where she provided him with what he considered the film's "most pivotal scene," stating that "the film is unthinkable without it."

4.3. 2006-2021: Unrealized projects and hiatus

Following Little Children, Todd Field entered a fifteen-year period without directing another feature film, a hiatus that many journalists and critics lamented. Nicholas Bell, in his 2015 Ioncinema piece "Top 10 American Indie Filmmakers Missing in Action," expressed a common sentiment, writing, "It is definitely time for Field to throw one down the middle. In the meantime, we'll just have to watch In the Bedroom for the umpteenth time."

Despite the absence of new feature films, Field was actively engaged in writing numerous film and television projects that ultimately did not come to fruition. These included adaptations of significant novels such as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Beautiful Ruins, and Jonathan Franzen's Purity. He also dedicated nearly a decade to developing a film adaptation of the 2010 Boston Teran novel The Creed of Violence, a story set during the Mexican Revolution. This project, at various stages, was slated to star prominent actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, and Daniel Craig. Additionally, reports indicated that Field might direct a coming-of-age script set in the 1970s Pacific Northwest, drawing from his experiences with the Portland Mavericks minor league baseball team, with Kurt Russell reportedly involved.

Speaking publicly for the first time in sixteen years in a 2022 interview with The New York Times, Field explained the challenges of this period, stating, "I set my sights in a very particular way on certain material that was probably very tough to get made." When asked if he would ever consider reviving any of these past projects, Field metaphorically replied that they are "kind of like a family plot. You have these little headstones, and you have a passing acquaintance with and occasionally drop flowers on, but I don't want to dig any of them up."

During these same years, Field actively worked in advertising, directing commercials for major brands such as Xbox, Captain Morgan, Corona, BMW, NASCAR, and GE. Reflecting on this period, he noted, "I've been directing constantly, I feel much stronger as a director than I ever felt with those previous films." This experience allowed him to hone his craft and maintain his directorial skills.

4.4. Tár

Todd Field's highly anticipated third film, Tár, starring Cate Blanchett as the fictional conductor and composer Lydia Tár, premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in 2022. The film competed for both the Golden Lion and Queer Lion, with Blanchett ultimately winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her performance. The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, followed by a wide release on October 28, 2022. Its international theatrical release began in the UK on January 13, 2023.

Tár received widespread critical acclaim and numerous accolades. It earned six nominations for the 95th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Field, and Best Actress for Blanchett. The film also secured five nominations from the 76th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Sound, and Best Screenplay.

For his work on Tár, Field was nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director, the Producers Guild of America for Best Film, and the Writers Guild of America for Best Original Screenplay. He was named Best Director of the Year by both the London Film Critics' Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, with his script also receiving Best Original Screenplay from these organizations.

Tár holds the distinction of being only the fourth film in history to be named Best of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the London Film Critics' Circle, and the National Society of Film Critics. More critics listed Tár as their Best of the Year than any other film released in 2022, including publications such as The Atlantic, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen Daily, Vanity Fair, and Variety. Furthermore, IndieWire's annual poll of 165 critics worldwide also recognized Field as "Best Director of the Year" and his script as "Best Screenplay."

Critics lauded Field's masterful direction and the film's profound themes. Owen Gleiberman, in his Daily Variety review from the Venice Film Festival, proclaimed, "Let me say right up front: It's the work of a master filmmaker... Tár is not a judgement so much as a statement you can make your own judgment about. The statement is: We're in a new world." A. O. Scott of The New York Times, writing from the Telluride and New York Film Festivals, stated, "I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie quite like Tár. Field balances Apollonian restraint with Dionysian frenzy. Tár is meticulously controlled and also scarily wild. Field finds a new way of posing the perennial question about separating the artist from the art, a question that he suggests can only be answered by another question: are you crazy? We don't care about Tár because she's an artist. We care about her because she's art."

Alissa Wilkinson, writing for Vox, observed, "Not to be hyperbolic, but it might be perfect. Todd Field has tuned his themes so brilliantly. You can't just half-watch Tár, it demands your full attention. That's the mark of good art, but it's a discipline so many contemporary films aren't willing to demand from audiences. And if you're honest with yourself, you don't just watch Tár; it watches you, too." Robbie Collin of the Daily Telegraph noted the film's Kubrickian qualities, stating, "Field himself was a protégé of Stanley Kubrick, and Tár feels Kubrickian in many respects: its formal mastery, its exceptional acting, its atmosphere that clings like mist. But like Kubrick's own projects, it's something you really never have seen before."

Esteemed filmmakers also praised Field's work. Martin Scorsese, presenting the Best Film of the Year award to Field at the 2022 New York Film Critics Circle Awards, commended his filmmaking, saying, "For so long now, so many of us see films that pretty much let us know where they're going... but that's on dark days. The clouds lifted when I experienced Todd's film, Tár." Paul Thomas Anderson, when presenting Field with his Director Medallion at the 75th annual DGA Awards, remarked, "Every detail matters in this film. Nothing is not deliberate or full of intention. It's directed with such perfectly controlled mayhem and glee by Todd, it's really hard not to drool as another director." In 2023, Field also created a short film titled The Fundraiser for the Berlinale, hinting at a potential cinematic universe around Tár.

7.1. Actor

Field has appeared in various films and television productions throughout his career.

7.2. Filmmaker

Field's work as a director, writer, and producer spans feature films, short films, and music videos.

8.1. Film Awards and Nominations

8.2. Directed Academy Award Performances

Todd Field has directed multiple performances that have garnered Academy Award nominations, showcasing his skill in guiding actors to critical acclaim.