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While French film critics created and supported the auteur theory that celebrated cinema as a medium dominated by directors, television was seen primarily as the domain of writers, producers and even stars, from Gertrude Berg and Lucie de Dicey, from Rod Serling and Norman Lear to David Chase and Matthew Weiner (both of whom directed their own shows) and Aaron Sorkin (who did not).
Just as auteur theory was a reductionist way of approaching the collaborative process of filmmaking, those conversations that deny directors, cinematographers, and other technical craftsmen as key players in shaping television have left countless influential figures marginalized in a medium that has shaped, reshaped, and evolved its aesthetic over more than 80 years.
There is no television without Karl Freund, the legendary cinematographer (Metropolis, Dracula) was recruited by Desi Arnaz for photography I love Lucybringing with it the polished black-and-white photography that characterized the first golden age of television, and helped develop and perfect the look and process behind what later became multi-camera comedies.
There’s no television without legendary directors putting on weekly installments of a series Theater 90 and other anthology shows of the 1950s and early 1960s, creating a look and feel that was prestige when the phrase “prestige television” was treated as an oxymoron.
Cinema would also be less important, as these directors included the likes of John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, George Roy Hill, and Arthur Penn, who learned to work quickly and prioritize performance, laying the foundation for American independent film in the 1960s and 1970s.
There is no television without Robert Butler, who directed the film Hill Street Blues pilot and helped bring the gritty realism that the small screen often lacked, or Rod Holcomb, Mimi Leder or Thomas Schlamm, who continued the process of taking television further and further from its often boxy and overly contained compositions with early runs of er and West wingwhich laid the foundation for the newer golden age of television.
And there is no television without James Burroughs, who died on Friday at the age of 85. Burroughs stood on the shoulders of the giants of the medium who came before him, and it can easily and perhaps accurately be said that no figure in the last fifty years has been more responsible for the look, feel, tone and rhythms of television comedy. Perhaps only Lear and Lorne Michaels, both of the breed of writing production most appreciated in the medium, have competing claims.
You can measure Burroughs’ importance or influence in purely mathematical terms.
Returning to 1974, when he directed his first four episodes of the series The Mary Tyler Moore ShowBurroughs has won 11 Emmy Awards and five DGA Awards, and has directed more than 50 comedy pilots. He directed 237 episodes of Cheers75 episodes taxidozens of episodes each Freezer and friends and Mike and MollyIn addition to every episode of Will & Gracewhether in its original run or in its revival. Nearly 50 years after those first stints behind the camera, and nearly a decade after NBC gave Burroughs a well-deserved prime-time honor, he directed all 10 episodes of the Hulu series. Mid-century modernwhich serves as his last credit.
Speaking of math, the 2016 NBC special was timed to coincide with Burroughs’ 1,000th episode as a television director (on NBC crowdedif you’re hoping to win a deep game of trivia).
You can measure Burroughs’s importance or influence in purely qualitative terms.
Did you see that list of titles? Can you go through these titles and isolate each of the one-man acting performances, guided by Burroughs, that have won an Emmy and other awards?
These are the shows that have shaped decades of television production, most of which have been emulated but never equaled. Cheerswhich Burroughs co-created with brothers Charles and… taxi It represents the climax of a workplace sitcom. The Boston bar and the Manhattan taxi garage were Petri dishes that perfectly contained the bizarre situations, perfectly calibrated performances and characterizations that bent but did not break the precarious balance of the format.
friends and Will & Grace Would the break comedy have ended all break comedies, except that it has spawned countless imitators, but again few equals. You can see elements of Norman Lear’s performances and The Mary Tyler Moore Show In DNA taxi and Cheersbut then you can see his DNA taxi and Cheers In all that has to be followed, even as the multi-camera periodically loses its popularity.
You can measure Burroughs’ importance or influence in the tales told by the director himself and the countless fans who worked with him and followed him.
Stories abound about Burroughs and his contributions to many shows, too numerous to include in a simple tribute. Just look for tidbits about what the bar is like in it Cheers Or the column in Monica’s apartment friends Or the depiction of same-sex intimacy Will & Grace. Burroughs deserves the lion’s share of credit for the things you noticed in these shows that you loved, but he probably deserves more credit for the things you didn’t notice.
You can measure Burroughs’ importance or influence on television audio consciousness by his importance and influence.
Emmy nominations will be announced in a few weeks, and if there’s fairness, Burroughs will get one, but not for directing. Burroughs stars as James Burroughs, the TV comedy icon, on HBO Return He proved himself worthy of a career as a capper.
As I discussed in my review of counting Ultimately, the show has always been about an industry under threat, staring at encroachments by cable, streaming, reality programming, and artificial intelligence and saying, “We’re still here and we still matter!”
By choosing a character who could embody an industry, a mediator, and a bulwark against undeserving aggressors and invaders, Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow presented Burroughs as the most believable person of all. Burroughs played him as an intelligent, sympathetic, deviant person who, despite generations of experience under his belt, is completely forward-looking. It was the ultimate compliment to Burroughs’ performance and Burroughs was the ultimate complement to the group and its approach. Return.
There’s a tendency among snobby viewers to denigrate multi-camera comedies as ugly, old-fashioned and lazy, which some of them do, although no one would get away with making the same accusation about an episode of the series. taxi or Cheersshows that the game is as good today as it was when it was first introduced. These snobs say that the studio audience, or, God forbid, the laugh track, do all the work.
No, James Burroughs and his extraordinary collaborators did this work, following in a tradition that goes back to Gertrude Berg and Karl Freund.
There was no one like him.
