Editing Hal Ashby (section)

==Career==
===1967–1978: Breakthrough and stardom===
As Ashby was entering adult life, he moved from Utah to [[Los Angeles]], California, where he pursued a [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyle and ultimately became an assistant [[film editor]] through a long apprenticeship. His career gained momentum when he served as the editor of ''[[The Loved One (film)|The Loved One]]'' (1965), an adaptation of the [[Evelyn Waugh]] novel that involved such New Hollywood contemporaries as screenwriter [[Terry Southern]] and cinematographer [[Haskell Wexler]]. After being nominated for the [[Academy Award for Film Editing]] in 1967 for ''[[The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming]]'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qoGgx3jWDc|title=Grand Prix Wins Film Editing: 1967 Oscars|date=March 18, 2015|via=www.youtube.com}}</ref> His big break occurred one year later when he won the award for ''[[In the Heat of the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJBAFDpop8|title=Hal Ashby winning a Film Editing Oscar®|date=March 5, 2014|via=www.youtube.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/videos-photos/40th-oscars-highlights|title=40th Oscars Highlights|date=September 9, 2014|website=Oscars.org &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences}}</ref> Ashby often stated that the practice of editing provided him with the best filmmaking background outside of traditional university study and carried the techniques learned as an editor with him when he began directing.

At the urging of mentor [[Norman Jewison]], Ashby directed his first film, ''[[The Landlord]]''—an early rumination on the social dynamics of [[gentrification]] in [[Park Slope, Brooklyn]]—in 1970. While his birth date placed him within the [[Silent Generation]], the filmmaker (who had been a habitual [[marijuana]] smoker since 1950), eagerly embraced the [[hippie]] lifestyle, adopting [[vegetarianism]] and growing his hair long before it became ''de rigueur''.

Over the next ten years, Ashby directed several acclaimed and popular films. Many were about outsiders and adventurers traversing the pathways of life. They included the off-beat romance ''[[Harold and Maude]]'' (1971), ''[[The Last Detail]]'' (1973), and the social satire ''[[Being There]]'' (1979), with [[Peter Sellers]], giving the star a well-received role after many felt he had lapsed into self-parody. His most significant commercial success was ''[[Shampoo (film)|Shampoo]]'' (1975), a collaboration with [[Warren Beatty]] and [[Robert Towne]] that satirized late-1960s [[Sexual mores|sexual]] and [[social mores]] through the life of a hairdresser modeled after such contemporaneous figures as [[Jay Sebring]] and [[Jon Peters]]. ''[[Bound for Glory (1976 film)|Bound for Glory]]'' (1976), a muted biography of [[Woody Guthrie]] starring [[David Carradine]], was the first film to use a [[Steadicam]].

In June 1973, [[Michael Douglas]] and [[Saul Zaentz]] hired Ashby to direct ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', after the original director [[Miloš Forman]] became unavailable due to the reimposition of [[censorship]] in his native [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] after the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]] and after Forman's initial replacement [[Richard Rush (director)|Richard Rush]] was unable to secure studio funding.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/55189 |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=AFI Catalog}}</ref><ref name=":100">{{Cite web|last=Yumpu.com|title=Boxoffice-June.18.1973|url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/31901486/boxoffice-june181973|access-date=2021-06-12|website=yumpu.com|language=en}}</ref> Ashby was responsible for casting [[Jack Nicholson]] as R.P. McMurphy, but this resulted in a nine-month delay during which Forman fled to the United States and was rehired as director.<ref name=":0"/>

Aside from ''Shampoo'', Ashby's most commercially successful film was the [[Vietnam War]] drama ''[[Coming Home (1978 film)|Coming Home]]'' (1978). Starring [[Jane Fonda]] and [[Jon Voight]], both in [[Academy Award]]-winning performances, it was for this film that Ashby earned his only [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director Oscar]] nomination.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979|title=The 51st Academy Awards &#124; 1979|website=Oscars.org &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|date=October 5, 2014}}</ref> Arriving in the post-''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' and ''[[Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]'' era, ''Coming Home'' was one of the last films to encapsulate the modestly budgeted, [[Social realism|socially realistic]] ethos of the New Hollywood era, earning nearly $15 million in returns and rentals on a $3 million budget.

===1979–1988: Later films===
Because of his critical success and dependable profitability, shortly after the success of ''Coming Home'', Ashby was able to form a production company, Northstar, under the auspices of [[Lorimar Television|Lorimar]]. After ''Being There'', Ashby became more [[reclusive]], often retreating to his home in [[Malibu, California|Malibu Colony]], a gated enclave in the city. Later, it was widely rumored in a likely [[whisper campaign]] from Lorimar (whose executives clashed with the director) that Ashby had become dependent upon [[cocaine]], a drug that he only used intermittently after the production of ''Bound for Glory''. As a consequence of these rumors, he slowly became unemployable.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/Being_Hal_Ashby|title=Being Hal Ashby|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Eva Gardos, an editor who worked with Ashby during the period, has asserted that his drug intake remained largely confined to [[Cannabis (drug)|marijuana]] and [[psilocybin]].<ref name="auto"/>

Following ''Being There'', Ashby was provisionally set to reunite with Sellers and Terry Southern on ''Grossing Out'', a black comedy inspired by the actor's chance meeting with an international arms dealer on an airplane. Although Southern (who had not had a screenplay go to production in a decade) was rejuvenated by the prospect of working with the duo and produced a script that was said to be on par with his 1960s oeuvre, the project went into [[development hell]] after Sellers sudden death from a heart attack in July 1980. During this period, the productions<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/6212%7C64917/Hal-Ashby/|title=Hal Ashby|website=Turner Classic Movies}}</ref> of ''[[Second-Hand Hearts]]'' and ''[[Lookin' to Get Out]]''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/ashby/|title=Ashby, Hal–Senses of Cinema|first=Darren|last=Hughes|date=December 30, 2009}}</ref> The latter a [[Las Vegas Valley|Las Vegas]] caper that reunited him with Voight and featured Voight's young daughter, [[Angelina Jolie]] was plagued by the increasingly strained relationship between Ashby and Lorimar. Filmed in 1979, ''Second-Hand Hearts'' only received a poorly reviewed limited release in 1981 before being pulled from circulation for nearly thirty years. Belatedly released in October 1982, ''Lookin' to Get Out'' earned a little under $1 million in returns and rentals on an estimated $17 million budget. During this period, Lorimar executives grew less tolerant of his increasingly perfectionist production (811,000 feet of film were used shooting ''Lookin' to Get Out'') and editing techniques, a montage in the latter film set to [[The Police]]'s "[[Message in a Bottle (The Police song)|Message in a Bottle]]" took six months to perfect but proved to be logistically unusable due to a Lorimar agreement with the [[American Federation of Musicians]].

Initially set to helm ''[[Tootsie]]'' after two years of negotiations and Ashby-directed wig and makeup tests, Lorimar executives blocked him from working on the film because part of the pre-production period overlapped with final work on the long-gestating ''Lookin' to Get Out'', which was eventually recut by the studio when Ashby's work was deemed to be unsatisfactory. (Decades later, Ashby's cut was rediscovered and released on DVD in 2009.) As [[Dustin Hoffman]] had not offered a "formal commitment" to the production at the time of Ashby's dismissal, the director forfeited his $1.5 million fee. While post-production of ''Lookin' to Get Out'' continued, Lorimar permitted Ashby to film [[The Rolling Stones]]' [[Rolling Stones American Tour 1981|1981 American tour]] documentary, ''[[Let's Spend the Night Together (film)|Let's Spend the Night Together]]'', the director was a longtime fan of the group. He collapsed before the final filmed concert at [[Sun Devil Stadium]] in [[Tempe, Arizona]], on December 13, 1981. Although [[Jeff Wexler]] said Ashby was "partying way beyond his capabilities with the Stones," [[Caleb Deschanel]] has said that Ashby (who directed the concert shoot on a gurney) simply had the flu. The film was well-received but gained little traction during a limited theatrical release. In September 1983, Ashby directed ''[[Solo Trans]]'', a [[Neil Young]] concert video that was released the following year.

''[[The Slugger's Wife]]'', with a screenplay written by [[Neil Simon]], was a critical and commercial failure. Ashby (whose cocaine use had accelerated throughout the shoot)<ref name="auto"/> was fired after delivering a 20-minute rough cut of the beginning of the film that included almost no dialogue. When the [[Oliver Stone]]-written ''[[8 Million Ways to Die]]'' fared similarly at the box office, Ashby's post-production process was considered to be such a liability that he was fired by the production company on the final day of [[principal photography]].<ref name="auto"/>

Attempting to turn a corner in his declining career, Ashby stopped using drugs, trimmed his hair and beard, and began to frequently attend Hollywood parties wearing a navy-blue blazer so as to suggest that he was once again employable. Despite these efforts, he could only find work as a television director, helming one of three [[pilot episode|pilots]] for ''[[Beverly Hills Buntz]]'', an unsuccessful ''[[Hill Street Blues]]'' spinoff starring [[Dennis Franz]]. He also directed ''Jake's Journey'', a [[sword and sorcery]] fantasy conceived by [[Graham Chapman]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mubi.com/nl/films/jake-s-journey|title=Jake's Journey|via=mubi.com}}</ref>

===Unrealized projects===
{{Main|Hal Ashby's unrealized projects}}