Name Martin Rosen | Role Filmmaker | |
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Nominations Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature Movies Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, Smooth Talk, Stacking, A Great Big Thing Similar People Richard Adams, Richard Briers, Michael Graham Cox, Simon Cadell, John Hubley | ||
Martin Rosen is an American-born filmmaker and theater producer. Rosen is known for having directed the animated film adaptation of Watership Down (1978) from the Richard Adams novel.
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Career
Rosen originally worked as a theater agent and talent scout, before he moved with his wife to the United Kingdom.
His first produced the Canadian feature A Great Big Thing (1968) and later co-produced Ken Russell's film version of Women in Love (1969), which won Academy Awards for Glenda Jackson (actress) and Billy Williams (cinematography).
Rosen was originally the producer of Watership Down but took over as director after John Hubley fell back and died, he also wrote the screenplay for it. This was the first of two novels by Richard Adams he adapted. In 1982 he also produced, directed and wrote the screenplay for another animated feature based on an Adams novel, The Plague Dogs (1982). Rosen produced Smooth Talk (1986), which won the Sundance Grand Prize. His last film as director was Stacking (1987). His last project as producer was the animated Watership Down TV series in 1999.
Rosen has also contributed on theater production, he was the originating producer of Michael Weller's Moonchildren first presented at London's Royal Court Theater before transferring to the US. He was the originating producer of Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" presented in association with The Brekeley Rep, Boston's Huntington Theater, and the Doolittle Theater in Los Angeles.
Rosen is married to Elisabeth Payne Rosen, an author and ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church.