He died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 88, the Hungarian-born director Peter Medak, who became a British citizen after fleeing Hungary in 1956 following the Soviet repression of the uprising. Over a career spanning more than five decades, Medak directed memorable and cult films, but he also directed in America, where he later relocated, episodes of television series such as Breaking Bad, Hannibal and House, M.D., to name just the most famous.
His career began in 1968 with the Glenda Jackson film Negatives, and continued on television with Attenti a quei due, before returning to cinema in 1972 with the satirical The Ruling Class, with Peter O’Toole, which earned an Oscar nomination for the role. In the seventies he also directed series such as Space: 1999 and the Peter Gabriel music video Modern Love. In 1980 he directed a beautiful horror film, now a cult classic: the ghost story set in a haunted house, Changeling, with George C. Scott and Melvyn Douglas, where he manages to create atmospheres and situations that still send shivers down the spine today.
He then returned to television to direct episodes of Heartbeat, Crime Story, The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast and in 1990 he directed another gem with The Krays, the gangster movie dedicated to two real crime twins in 1960s London, played by Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet. From 1993 comes another notable crime movie, Triple Cross, with Gary Oldman and Lena Olin. In 1998 comes the sequel Species II, and from that moment on Medak largely devoted himself to television, directing the series mentioned but also The Wire, Carnivàle, The Guardian and in 2007 for the Masters of Horror series, The Washingtonians (Patriots), on the theme of cannibalism. For cinema he directed Hand of God and his last directing credit, in 2018, is The Ghosts of Peter Sellers, a tragicomic and autobiographical documentary that recounts the failed attempt to direct the actor in 1973 in a pirate film titled Ghost of the Noonday Sun. After losing interest in the film, Sellers (who was a friend of Medak) began to sabotage the project with bizarre behavior that included fake heart attacks, ultimately turning against the very director. Moreover the crew suffered seasickness and the film, completed with great difficulty, was never released, it was rediscovered 40 years later and released on DVD. Here you can watch the trailer.
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