Sam Mendes has established himself as one of the premier filmmakers and stage directors in the world. Indeed, his debut feature film, American Beauty, won the Academy Award for Best Picture back in 2000. If that isn’t enough, he also took home the Oscar as Best Director that year. Not bad. But his second film should have also won Best Picture. Road to Perdition was inexplicably and grotesquely snubbed by the Academy in 2002. In all honesty, is there a true film buff out there that can reasonably justify how Chicago managed to take home Best Picture when it hardly even possessed enough merit to warrant a nomination?

But, alas, that is a discussion for another day. Prior to releasing Jarhead in 2005, Mendes returned to his natural surroundings on the stage. In 2003 alone he directed productions of Gypsy, Uncle Vanya, and Twelfth Night; nabbing Olivier awards for the latter two. That same year he married Academy Award winning actress Kate Winslett.

Life is good.

After taking a brief hiatus to start a family, Mendes has been back to work in a big way. In fact, he just recently shot three movies. Yes, THREE. Revolutionary Road, slated for a Christmas release, will surely be a top contender at the upcoming Oscars. Mendes’ wife Kate Winslett stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in this adaptation of the beloved novel by Richard Yates which explores the internal struggles of a young suburban couple as they try to raise a family.

Also in post-production is an untitled documentary on musician Rufus Wainwright as well as another feature film, This Must Be the Place (2009). If you know anything about Mendes’ work, you will be struck at once by his genius ability at capturing the dichotomy of what can only be called The Duality of Man. More specifically, he specializes in showing how seemingly “normal” people in their “normal” surroundings cope with interpersonal and societal pressures (with wildly varying degrees of success).

To a large extent, his films (and the “everyday” people in them) are appealing and ultimately relatable to average people who suffer through comparable struggles in their own lives. Finally, Sam Mendes is currently attached to direct an adaptation of the classic George Eliot novel, Middlemarch. If you’ve read this sprawling 18th Century English novel, then you probably need to get out more (or, like me, you took a classic literature course in college). Nevertheless, if you are familiar with it, then your eyebrows are probably raised as high as mine. Mendes is one of a select few who could actually pull it off. Nuff said.

Story by Chris Virnig.

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