Remembering Oscar Winning Filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky (1956-2015)
Bruce Sinofsky, an Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker, passed away today from diabetes-related complications. He was 58.
A Boston native, Sinofsky honed his craft as a Senior Editor at Maysles Films, working as a Senior Editor on commercials and feature films. He would leave Maysles Films in 1991 to form Creative Thinking International with Joe Berlinger.
The new company made a series of searing documentaries right out the box. They won a Director’s Guild Award for Brother’s Keeper, about an upstate New York man accused of killing his elderly brother. But it was their work on the Paradise Lost documentaries which would put them in the national spotlight. The films dove into the 1993 murders of three 8-year boys in rural Arkansas and how fear and shaky police work led to the convictions of the West Memphis Three: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelley. Johnny Depp, Henry Rollins, and Eddie Vedder rallied to their defense and sparked a grassroots campaign to re-open the case. Sinofsky’s follow-up films Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory played a key role in getting Echols, Baldwin, and Miskelley released in 2011.
Sinofsky was also a big music fan, directing Good Rockin’ Tonight, a PBS American Masters special on Sun Records, and teaming up with Berlinger to co-direct Some Kind Of Monster, an expansive, brutally honest, behind the scenes look at Metallica recording their album St. Anger. Fans and critics consider the film one of the greatest rock docs of all-time.
I had a chance to spend time with Bruce when I was at WNEW-FM, working on a station archives project with The Museum of Television and Radio. I received a called from WNEW alum Vin Scelsa, long time host of the show ‘Idiot’s Delight’ asking for a highlights tape from the night John Lennon was murdered. Vin told me that he, along with all of the WNEW airstaff who were on the air that night were meeting up in midtown with Bruce Sinofsky and asked if I could bring it to the restaurant. Vin told me that James Gandolfini was also going to be there, to discuss a project with Bruce.
With the exception of Gandolfini, we all arrived at the same time, and, while it had the feel of a college reunion, there was a sense of apprehension in the air. The WNEW-FM crew is close, more like a family than just a collection of people who just worked together. Gandolfini couldn’t make it which meant Bruce Sinfosky – a Boston native – was going to have to pitch the movie himself.
And what a pitch.
He explained how John Lennon’s murder affected him, how, while it initially produced a wave of sadness as it did for countless others, it also awakened him. It made him realize that life is short and he wasn’t going to do something unless it made him happy, fulfilled and complete. Bruce told how he walked the New York streets for hours on end and how the only solace that he found in the mournful days that followed was listening to WNEW-FM. Bruce wanted to make a film based on those experiences and others he met during those walks of grief. He wanted to have the station as a backdrop, a musical Greek chorus. Gandolfini wanted to play Scott Muni, the station’s figurehead, mentor and guide, who spearheaded the station’s efforts to being a healing center and a sounding board for grief. Bruce also brought to the dinner Andy Bienen, who had written the Academy Award winning film Boys Don’t Cry and presented him as the screenwriter for the project. The passion and the enthusiasm that he showed that night made believers of us all. What could have been a night of uneasy and uncomfortable conversation, turned out to be a night of releasing long held emotions and eventually, a sense of closure. I later found out that it was the first and only time that the members of the WNEW-FM got together to specifically talk about December 8, 1980.
Unfortunately, the project never came to pass. The fallout from the Paradise Lost docs called for a third film and Bruce also became a high demand director for other projects (including the critically acclaimed Sundance series Iconoclasts).
But anytime I see a film with the Bruce Sinofsky’s name attached to it, I could feel that same passion, energy and love that I heard that night in midtown. Here was someone who felt compelled to give a voice to those who otherwise might not have been had the chance to be heard. Just ask any of the West Memphis Three.
Heartfelt condolences to Bruce’s family, Joe Berlinger, and to all who knew and loved him.
Rest in peace Bruce.
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