Trivia

He wrote his famous book, "The Technique of Film Editing", before becoming involved in professional filmmaking. It was reviewed - not entirely favorably - in the magazine "Sight And Sound" by an actual film editor, Seth Holt. When Reisz made his first feature film, Samedi soir, dimanche matin (1960), he hired Holt as his editor and, after their first day of working together, told him, "I didn't know what I was talking about, did I ?".

Fought as a pilot with the Czech squadron in the RAF during World War II.

One of the most influential 'British New Wave' directors.

Directed three actresses to Oscar nominations: Vanessa Redgrave (Best Actress, Morgan (1966); Isadora (1968)), Meryl Streep (Best Actress, La maîtresse du lieutenant français (1981)), and Jessica Lange (Best Actress, Sweet Dreams (1985)).

He refused to direct Le Retour du Jedi (1983).

Son of a Jewish lawyer who fled from Czechoslovakia to the UK to escape the Holocaust.

After the war he worked as a film journalist for the publication "Sight and Sound". He then became Program Selection Officer for the British Film Institute. In the 1950s he was one of the founders of the Free Cinema movement. His subsequent feature films have often tended to focus on working-class angst and class structure in general, with social outcasts at their center. During his later years he worked increasingly in theater direction.

He became interested in films at an early age.

Member of the "Official Competition" jury at the 36th Cannes International Film Festival in 1983.

Member of the "Official Competition" jury at the 23rd Cannes International Film Festival in 1970.

His last feature film was Chacun sa chance (1990), which flopped. The film's leading lady Debra Winger said she liked working with him, but acknowledged that he was one of "wrong reasons" that she accepted the film, along with wanting to work with screenwriterArthur Miller, and her desire to play a role with a multiple-personality disorder.

He spent a year during the 1970s working with John le Carré on an adaptation of le Carré's "The Naive and Sentimental Lover" which was never made.