How many times have we said or heard the phrase “there aren’t producers like the old days anymore,” those who loved cinema and brave, original directors who even took risks out of their own pockets and searched for the best international partners to allow them to make the films they wanted. One of those who belonged to this category was certainly Jeremy Thomas, and the news of his death, which occurred on September 11 at the age of 77, arrived precisely on the closing day of the Venice Film Festival, on whose screens he had appeared in the documentary by Luca Guadagnino about Bernardo Bertolucci and where in competition there was Bucking Fastard by Werner Herzog, while he was awaited in Toronto for Takashi Miike’s new film, Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, produced by him. In 2021 Marc Cousins dedicated to him the documentary The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, the trailer for which you can watch below. A winner of the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture and of the David di Donatello for Best Film for the sumptuous The Last Emperor by Bernardo Bertolucci, which for the first time opened Western cinema’s doors to the Forbidden City, Thomas enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with the Italian director, but not only with him.
The Career of Jeremy Thomas
Thomas was born into a cinema-loving family: his father Ralph and his uncle Gerald were both filmmakers, and since childhood he knew that working in the industry was what he wanted to do. He began in various roles, including editing, working on films such as Il viaggio fantastico di Sinbad and A Misfortune by Ken Loach. In 1974 he began his producing career with the Australian film Braccato a vista by Philippe Mora, which was followed by L’urlo by Jerzy Skolimowski, a project he would later produce again many years later as Eo. Also Julien Temple, for whom he produced the debut La grande truffa del rock’n’roll, would work with him again in 2007 for the documentary Il futuro non è scritto: Joe Strummer and in 2025 for I am Curious Johnny. Many directors were able to count on him more than once: among them Nicolas Roeg (Il lenzuolo viola, Eureka, La signora in bianco), Bernardo Bertolucci (L’ultimo imperatore, Il té nel deserto, Piccolo Buddha, Io ballo da sola, The Dreamers), David Cronenberg (Crash, Il pasto nudo, A Dangerous Method), Matteo Garrone (Il racconto dei racconti, Dogman, Pinocchio), Takashi Miike (L’ultimo yakuza, L’immortale e il citato Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo), Wim Wenders (Non bussare alla mia porta, Palermo Shooting, Pina, Ritorno alla vita), Nagisa Oshima with whom he produced the masterpieces Furyo and Tabù – Gohatto. Terry Gilliam owes him Tideland and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. And one could go on at length about a career that proved he could forge trust and friendship with many directors, Bertolucci foremost, and that did not look solely at commercial success but at the prestige of the films bearing his name. Cinema lovers owe him a great debt.
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