James Schamus is an American award-winning screenwriter, co-founder of Good Machine production company, and the CEO of Focus Features until its merging with FilmDistrict, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company. His output includes as screenwriter The Ice Storm, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (all directed by Ang Lee), and as producer Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, Coraline, The Kids Are All Right, and the upcoming The Moon and the Sun. He is Professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory. He has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Berkeley.Schamus participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18. He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
[on Focus Features] - Focus has a very specific place in film's cultural landscape. It's a place where voices from outside the mainstream speak, but they're speaking face-forward to the rest of the culture. Our zone is very specific. You take really original voices, but you're speaking the language that a lot of people can understand. My own taste often veers into the most obscure and heavily avant-garde around; I find that those films are to me inspirational and important and it's important that folks like me in the business engage and think and cherish avant-garde film.
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... where I sit, and where Focus sits, is in a very different place, taking artists like Gus Van Sant, who will never lose their independent streak, but when they're making a movie here are speaking a cinematic language that can be understood by an audience that will be interested. It doesn't have to be a mass audience. The line I use is, "The only way you know it's a Focus movie is if the vast majority of humanity is going to hate it!"
3
[on dealing with failure at Focus Features] - ... We have our post-mortems, (but) I think it's often a big mistake to have them (quickly). I'd rather wait through the video release. Then people have real perspectives. Everyone at the company is invited and we talk about the challenges, how they were met, how they were not met, and what you learned. People are extremely honest, and everyone is listened to. It's part of the culture of the company. We really want to learn from each other and learn from our mistakes. But one of my mottoes is, "Don't learn too much from your mistakes in this business."
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[on how he writes] - Basically, wherever, whenever and however. I can write by getting up early or staying up late or going to the country and taking a day off. "Lust, Caution" I wrote literally between meetings at Cannes.
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[on if being busy affects the quality of his work] - It sure can, sometimes. For me, most of the work is done taking walks, or looking out the window, or sitting on the subway. Before I put finger to keyboard, you have to have that reverie and freedom. If you're too crowded, if there's too much stress, too much going on, it can have a negative impact. On the other had, there's truth to that phrase, if you want something done, ask the busiest person you know. When you get in a groove, it's actually incredibly fun to be able to literally swivel the chair around and just go, "Wow, it's happening, I can feel it!" But in general, I try to hide.
6
I make as many bad movies as a big studio. But when they make a bad movie they spend forty to sixty million telling everyone about it. When I make a bad one, it gets a round of applause at a film festival.
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Fact
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Has the distinction as a producer for three films, all with gay theme/content, which have received Oscar nominations for Best Picture: Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Milk (2008) and Brokeback Mountain (2005).
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Currently Associate Professor at Columbia University, New York, New York. [May 2003]
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He attended Kosmorama, Trondeim International Filmfestival, in 2006 with his movie "Brokeback Mountain".
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Was an exchange student in Trondheim, Norway.
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Co-President of Focus Features, the arthouse offshoot of Universal Pictures.
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Partner in Good Machine, an indie-film company, with friends Ted Hope and David Linde. Bought by Universal Pictures and merged into a new division of the studio called Focus, June 2002.
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Winner of NBC Screenwriter's Tribute from Nantucket Film Festival, in Mass., June, 2002
$1.3 Million
