Neil Jordan has enjoyed a career that has spanned over thirty years and he is back in the director’s chair this week with his new movie Byzantium.
The film sees him return to the vampire genre as he works with both Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan to bring the play by Moira Buffini to the big screen.
Jordan make is directorial debut back in 1982 with Angel, but it was Mona Lisa and The Company of Wolves that really put him on the map.
The Company of Wolves came in 1984 and was a gothic horror film that was based a short story by Angela Carter. Jordan penned the screenplay as well as being in the director’s chair as he teamed up with Angela Lansbury and Stephen Rea.
The Company of Wolves was met well by the critics when it was released but it has been held in higher esteem as the years have gone by - it has also become a cult classic.
Two years later Jordan returned with Mona Lisa, a movie that followed a petty criminal who gets caught up in the very dangerous life of a high class call girl.
The central performance by Bob Hoskins was critically acclaimed and he went on to win the Bafta and be nominated for an Oscar.
High Spirits, We’re No Angels and The Crying Game followed throughout the late eighties and into the early nineties - and while they weren’t all successful projects Jordan continued to make a name for himself.
In 1994 Jordan tackled the vampire genre for the first time as he brought Interview With The Vampire to the big screen; a movie that he has been synonymous with ever since.
The movie was a big screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Anne Rise and follows the lives of vampires Louis Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt.
Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst were all on the cast list and Interview With The Vampire remains one of the best films in the genre in the last twenty years.
Since 1994 Jordan has continued to work on a wide range of projects as he moved from Michael Collins to the End of the Affair to The Brave One.
Ondine was Jordan’s last big screen outing back in 2009 as he has concentrated on a major television project. Jordan created and wrote the historical series The Borgias, which followed the Borgia family at the turn of the 16th century.
But Jordan is back on the big screen this week with his new movie Byzantium - which is a film that really does breathe new life into the rather tired vampire genre.
Two mysterious women seek refuge in a run-down coastal resort. Clara meets lonely Noel, who provides shelter in his deserted guesthouse, Byzantium.
Schoolgirl Eleanor befriends Frank and tells him their lethal secret. They were born 200 years ago and survive on human blood. As knowledge of their secret spreads, their past catches up on them with deathly consequence.
Byzantium is a fantastically gothic and dark movie and while it has all the hallmarks of a vampire film at its heart is a mother and daughter story.
Jordan is back on top form with this film and it is great to see this director back on the big screen. He is familiar with this genre and he has delivered a movie that is both bloody and touching.
Byzantium is out now.
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