Marc Levin
Encyclopedia
Marc Levin is an independent film producer and director. He is best known for his Brick City TV series, which won the 2010 Peabody award
and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramatic feature film, SLAM, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera D'Or
at Cannes in 1998.
and raised in Elizabeth and Maplewood, New Jersey
.
In 1982, Levin and his father, Al, teamed up on Portrait of an American Zealot which was made part of the Museum of Modern Art
's permanent film collection. In 1984, he made Inside Story: Fall River Spectacle for PBS which won the Cine Golden Eagle Award. In 1985, he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary for the WCBS TV Special The Wall Street Connection. In 1989, Levin was awarded a writing Emmy for the WCBS TV Special New York Non-Stop as well as a nomination for Outstanding Magazine Show (Non-News).
Blowback was released in 1991. In this demented black comedy, an insane scientist, Dr. Krack, creates an orgasm-inducing O-bomb and threatens to detonate it. The only ones who can stop him are a drug-dealing ex-CIA agent and the woman he meets in a rehab center.
In 1992, Levin directed Academy Award nominee Robert Downey, Jr. in The Last Party
, a gonzo look at the Presidential campaign, weaving together the personal and the political fortunes of Downey and Bill Clinton
.
In 1997, Levin was awarded the prestigious duPont-Columbia award for CIA: America's Secret Warriors, a three-part series that aired on the Discovery Channel
.
In the late nineties Levin created a hip-hop trilogy beginning with SLAM
, a searing prison drama, which starred Saul Williams
, Sonja Sohn and Bonz Malone
.
Followed in 1999 by Brooklyn Babylon, a fable inspired by the “Song of Songs
,” starred Tariq Trotter, Bonz Malone, and featured music by the legendary Grammy winners The Roots
.
In 2000, Levin directed, Whiteboys, a black comedy about white kids who want to be black rappers, starred Danny Hoch
, Dash Mihok
, Mark Webber and Piper Perabo
.
In Twilight Los Angeles, an adaptation of Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman show, Levin fused a Broadway play with a documentary look at the LA riots. Twilight premiered at the Sundance 2000 Film Festival and was selected as the opening film of the International Human Rights Film Festival at Lincoln Center.
Levin’s Street Time, a 2002 television series produced by Columbia/Tristar for Showtime, received critical acclaim for its authenticity and verite style. Levin executive produced the series and directed 10 episodes. The show stars Rob Morrow
, Scott Cohen, Erica Alexander and Terrence Howard
.
Levin’s documentary feature, Godfathers and Sons (2003), was part of the highly regarded Martin Scorsese
PBS series, The Blues. Scorsese recruited an international team of directors with both feature and documentary experience - Charles Burnett
, Clint Eastwood
, Mike Figgis
, Richard Pierce and Wim Wenders
.
Levin made his on-camera debut in Protocols of Zion, his street level look at the rise of anti-Semitism
since 9/11 and the renewed popularity of the anti-Semitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival
, was released theatrically in the fall of 2005 and on HBO the spring of 2006.
Mr. Untouchable, the story of the original Black Godfather, Harlem
heroin kingpin, Nicky Barnes, was released in theatres in 2007. It tells the true-life story of a real American Gangster from the point of view of law enforcement, associates, and Nicky Barnes, who appears for the first time in over a quarter century.
In 2008 Levin was Executive Producer along side Beyoncé Knowles
on Cadillac Records, the Chess Records
story starring Jeffrey Wright
, Adrian Brody, and Beyoncé. In the same year he executive produced the indie feature documentary Captured, the story of artist activist Clayton Patterson
, the man who videotaped the 1988 Tompkins Square Park
Riot and who has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City's Lower East Side
, a neighborhood famed for art, music and revolutionary minds. Levin executive produced a follow-up feature in 2010, Dirty Old Town by his son Daniel B. Levin, Jenner Furst and Julia Nason.
Levin’s Brick City is a ground-breaking docu-series about the city of Newark
, its Mayor, Cory Booker
, and the people on the frontlines of a city struggling to change. Executive produced with Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker
, the 5-hour series aired its first Peabody Award
winning season on the Sundance Channel
in September 2009. The show also received a 2010 Golden Eagle Cine Award and was nominated for both an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and a NAACP Image Award. The second season premiered on January 30, 2011.
Levin also periodically directed episodes of the classic TV series, Law and Order.
.
In 1988 Levin won a national Emmy award as a producer/editor of Moyers' The Secret Government - The Constitution in Crisis.
He directed The Home Front with Bill Moyers, which was honored with the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award in 1992.
"). Thug Life in D.C. won the 1999 National Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special. Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock won the CableACE Award for Best Documentary Special of 1994. The sequel, Back in the Hood, premiered on HBO ten years later. They also produced Heir to an Execution, a documentary feature following Ivy Meeropol
’s journey on the 50th anniversary of the execution of her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
. Heir was in competition at the Sundance film festival and aired on HBO.
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramatic feature film, SLAM, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera D'Or
Caméra d'Or
The Caméra d'Or is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes' selections ....
at Cannes in 1998.
Early life
Marc Levin was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and raised in Elizabeth and Maplewood, New Jersey
Maplewood, New Jersey
Maplewood is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 23,867.-History:...
.
1980s
In 1982, Levin and his father, Al, teamed up on Portrait of an American Zealot which was made part of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
's permanent film collection. In 1984, he made Inside Story: Fall River Spectacle for PBS which won the Cine Golden Eagle Award. In 1985, he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary for the WCBS TV Special The Wall Street Connection. In 1989, Levin was awarded a writing Emmy for the WCBS TV Special New York Non-Stop as well as a nomination for Outstanding Magazine Show (Non-News).
1990s
Blowback was released in 1991. In this demented black comedy, an insane scientist, Dr. Krack, creates an orgasm-inducing O-bomb and threatens to detonate it. The only ones who can stop him are a drug-dealing ex-CIA agent and the woman he meets in a rehab center.
In 1992, Levin directed Academy Award nominee Robert Downey, Jr. in The Last Party
The Last Party
The Last Party is a 1997 book by Adele Morales, second wife of Norman Mailer, whom she married in 1954. It was published in the US by Barricade Books....
, a gonzo look at the Presidential campaign, weaving together the personal and the political fortunes of Downey and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
.
In 1997, Levin was awarded the prestigious duPont-Columbia award for CIA: America's Secret Warriors, a three-part series that aired on the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
.
In the late nineties Levin created a hip-hop trilogy beginning with SLAM
SLAM
Slam or SLAM may refer to:In computer science:* Simultaneous localization and mapping, a technique used by robots and autonomous vehicles* SLAM project, a Microsoft Research project...
, a searing prison drama, which starred Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Sonja Sohn and Bonz Malone
Bönz Malone
Bönz Malone was born in the Bronx and has been called the "Hunter S. Thompson of Hip Hop". He also co-wrote and starred in the prison film Slam, which won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Prize at Sundance....
.
Followed in 1999 by Brooklyn Babylon, a fable inspired by the “Song of Songs
Song of songs
Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...
,” starred Tariq Trotter, Bonz Malone, and featured music by the legendary Grammy winners The Roots
The Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
.
In 2000, Levin directed, Whiteboys, a black comedy about white kids who want to be black rappers, starred Danny Hoch
Danny Hoch
Danny Hoch is an American writer, director and performance artist. He has acted in larger roles in independent and art house movies and had a few small roles in mainstream Hollywood films, with increasing exposure as in 2007's We Own the Night...
, Dash Mihok
Dash Mihok
Dashiell "Dash" Mihok is an American actor.-Life and career:Mihok was born in New York City, New York, the son of actors Andrea and Raymond Thorne . He attended the Bronx High School of Science and was raised in Greenwich Village. While at the Bronx High School of Science, Dash played baseball as...
, Mark Webber and Piper Perabo
Piper Perabo
Piper Lisa Perabo is a Golden Globe Award nominated American stage, film and television actress.-Early life:Perabo was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary Charlotte , a physical therapist, and George William Perabo, a professor of poetry at Ocean...
.
2000s
In Twilight Los Angeles, an adaptation of Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman show, Levin fused a Broadway play with a documentary look at the LA riots. Twilight premiered at the Sundance 2000 Film Festival and was selected as the opening film of the International Human Rights Film Festival at Lincoln Center.
Levin’s Street Time, a 2002 television series produced by Columbia/Tristar for Showtime, received critical acclaim for its authenticity and verite style. Levin executive produced the series and directed 10 episodes. The show stars Rob Morrow
Rob Morrow
Robert Alan "Rob" Morrow is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Don Eppes on Numb3rs and as Dr. Joel Fleischman on Northern Exposure, a role which garnered him three Golden Globes and two Emmy Award nominations for "Best Actor in a Dramatic Series."-Personal life:Morrow was born in...
, Scott Cohen, Erica Alexander and Terrence Howard
Terrence Howard
Terrence Dashon Howard is an American actor. Having his first major role in the 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus, which subsequently led to a number of roles in films and high visibility among African American audiences. Howard broke into the mainstream with a succession of well-reviewed television...
.
Levin’s documentary feature, Godfathers and Sons (2003), was part of the highly regarded Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
PBS series, The Blues. Scorsese recruited an international team of directors with both feature and documentary experience - Charles Burnett
Charles Burnett
Charles Burnett may refer to:*Charles Burnett , American film director*Charles Burnett , Scottish Officer of Arms*Charles Burnett , Royal Air Force officer and Australian Chief of the Air Staff...
, Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
, Mike Figgis
Mike Figgis
Michael "Mike" Figgis is an English film director, writer, and composer.-Personal life:Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films...
, Richard Pierce and Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
.
Levin made his on-camera debut in Protocols of Zion, his street level look at the rise of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
since 9/11 and the renewed popularity of the anti-Semitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, was released theatrically in the fall of 2005 and on HBO the spring of 2006.
Mr. Untouchable, the story of the original Black Godfather, Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
heroin kingpin, Nicky Barnes, was released in theatres in 2007. It tells the true-life story of a real American Gangster from the point of view of law enforcement, associates, and Nicky Barnes, who appears for the first time in over a quarter century.
In 2008 Levin was Executive Producer along side Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
on Cadillac Records, the Chess Records
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....
story starring Jeffrey Wright
Jeffrey Wright
Jeffrey Wright is an American film, television, and stage actor and film producer.-Early life:Wright was born in Washington, D.C. to a mother who worked as a customs lawyer and a father who died when he was a child...
, Adrian Brody, and Beyoncé. In the same year he executive produced the indie feature documentary Captured, the story of artist activist Clayton Patterson
Clayton Patterson
Clayton Patterson is a Canadian-born artist, photographer, videographer, and folk historian. Since moving to New York City in 1979, his work has focused almost exclusively on documenting the art, life and times of the Lower East Side in Manhattan.-Early life:Before moving to New York City in...
, the man who videotaped the 1988 Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
Riot and who has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, a neighborhood famed for art, music and revolutionary minds. Levin executive produced a follow-up feature in 2010, Dirty Old Town by his son Daniel B. Levin, Jenner Furst and Julia Nason.
Levin’s Brick City is a ground-breaking docu-series about the city of Newark
Newark
-United Kingdom:* Newark-on-Trent, a market town in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands region of England and the oldest Newark** Newark * Newark, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire...
, its Mayor, Cory Booker
Cory Booker
Cory Anthony Booker is the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Booker is a former Newark City Councilman...
, and the people on the frontlines of a city struggling to change. Executive produced with Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker
Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
, the 5-hour series aired its first Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
winning season on the Sundance Channel
Sundance Channel
Sundance Channel is an American cable television network devoted to airing independent feature films, world cinema, documentaries, short films, and original programs, such as news about the latest developments from each year's Sundance Film Festival....
in September 2009. The show also received a 2010 Golden Eagle Cine Award and was nominated for both an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and a NAACP Image Award. The second season premiered on January 30, 2011.
Levin also periodically directed episodes of the classic TV series, Law and Order.
Work with Bill Moyers
From the mid-seventies through the eighties he teamed up with one of America's most respected journalists, Bill MoyersBill Moyers
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
.
In 1988 Levin won a national Emmy award as a producer/editor of Moyers' The Secret Government - The Constitution in Crisis.
He directed The Home Front with Bill Moyers, which was honored with the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award in 1992.
Work with Daphne Pinkerson
Levin and his documentary film partner, Daphne Pinkerson, have produced 11 films for HBO's documentary film division, including Triangle: Remembering the Fire, Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, Mob Stories, Prisoners of the War on Drugs, The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row, Soldiers in the Army of God, and Gladiator Days(see "Troy KellTroy Kell
Troy Michael Kell is an inmate on death row in Utah. Troy Kell was sentenced to life in prison by the State of Nevada for the 1986 murder of James "Cotton" Kelly. Shortly after his conviction he was transferred to the Utah State Prison as part of a prisoner exchange program...
"). Thug Life in D.C. won the 1999 National Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special. Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock won the CableACE Award for Best Documentary Special of 1994. The sequel, Back in the Hood, premiered on HBO ten years later. They also produced Heir to an Execution, a documentary feature following Ivy Meeropol
Ivy Meeropol
Ivy Meeropol is the director and producer of the 2004 documentary Heir to an Execution. She is the daughter of Michael Meeropol and Ann Karus Meeropol and granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and adoptive granddaughter of Abel Meeropol author of "Strange Fruit" and "The House I Live In"...
’s journey on the 50th anniversary of the execution of her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg were American communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. The charges related to their passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union...
. Heir was in competition at the Sundance film festival and aired on HBO.
Latest work
Levin continued his 20-year working relationship with HBO with two films in 2011: Hard Times: Lost on Long Island and Prayer for a Perfect Season.External links
- http://www.blowbackproductions.com/
- http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/feb/11/brick-city/
- http://thewashingtonsyndicate.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/dc-movie-review-slam-1998/
- http://www.sfjff.org/film/biography?id=2788&last=Levin&first=Marc&role=Director
- http://www.filmbug.com/db/341670
- http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/forumarchiv/forum99/thug-life.html