Barry Gifford

Writing

Barry Gifford

Born 1946-10-18 · Chicago, Illinois, United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Barry Gifford (born October 18, 1946) is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness. He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Perdita Durango was adapted into film by Alex de la Iglesia. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction. Description above from the Wikipedia article Barry Gifford, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Acting credits

The Phantom Father poster
6.5

American professor Robert Traum embarks on an adventurous and amusing journey through Bucovina to find Sami the projectionist, the only person alive that can tell him anything about his Romanian Jewish descent. His symbolic journey is filled with danger, the unknown and the surreal, but finally rewarded with a double love: on the one hand he finds romantic love, on the other the passion for old cinema, nomad, popular, naive and generous.

The Phantom Father

2012

Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch poster
7.2

An in-depth look at artist/filmmaker David Lynch's movies, paintings, drawings, photographs, and various other works of art. Features interview footage and commentary by family members, friends, fans, and people he's worked with, as well as behind-the-scenes antics of some of his most critically praised efforts.

Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch

1997

Nelson Algren Live poster
NR

A performance of some of Nelson Algren's greatest and least known works, performed live at the Steppenwolf theatre in Algren's hometown, Chicago.

Nelson Algren Live

2016

Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago poster
6.0

Author Barry Gifford's gritty autobiographical stories of growing up in 1950s Chicago provide the backdrop for an impressionistic documentary portrait of a vanished time and place.

Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago

2020

The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides poster
6.0

Filled with humor and defining experiences in both his own life and in the lives of some of his closest friends, William Faulkner and Robert Aldrich, as well as on his late wife, screenwriter Silvia Richards, Mr. Bezzerides offers colorful reflections as to why he and his typewriter unabashedly need to keep creating honest characters, worlds, and stories. Through recently discovered boxes of photographs, film clips, the haunting music by Fugazi, interviews (including Jules Dassin, Mickey Spillane and Barry Gifford) and testaments to his progressive creativity from other writers, Fay Lellios' straight-ahead documentary gives us a start in discovering this 97-year-old proletariat storyteller, and the meaning of his favorite phrase by Carl Jung, "There can be no birth of consciousness without pain."

The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides

2005

Fernanda Pivano: A Farewell to Beat poster
7.3

No synopsis available yet.

Fernanda Pivano: A Farewell to Beat

2001

Behind the camera

Lost Highway poster
7.5

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Lost Highway

1997

You Can't Win poster
4.9

The true-crime story of legendary outlaw Jack Black, whose 1926 memoir became an unlikely bestseller upon its release and later inspired generations of counter-cultural writing.

You Can't Win

2026

City of Ghosts poster
5.9

A con man who is on the run from law enforcement in the U.S. travels to Cambodia to collect his share in an insurance scam but discovers more than he bargained for.

City of Ghosts

2002

Dance with the Devil poster
6.5

She's sexy, shameless and loves taking people to their limit. She's a dangerous young woman who dreams about a jaguar that licks her naked body and sleeps by her side. Her past is bathed in blood and weird passions. Now she's met the man of her wildest dreams. He's dark, tough and mysterious. He likes robbing banks, trafficking in corpses and spicing it all with voodoo rituals. Together, the duo sets off toward Mexico destined to become the most feared outlaws in the continent.

Dance with the Devil

1997

No artwork available
NR

Raymond is hired to spy on Mark, an American businessman, in a steamy coastal town in Northern Brazil. However, things get complicated when he falls simultaneously for Mark's wife, Lucia, and her identical twin sister, Lea.

Tropico

Nelson Algren Live poster
NR

A performance of some of Nelson Algren's greatest and least known works, performed live at the Steppenwolf theatre in Algren's hometown, Chicago.

Nelson Algren Live

2016