Barry Sonnenfeld

Barry Sonnenfeld has worked a variety of jobs in Hollywood on several famous and well-regarded movies, but we're guessing for many Shmoopers this will be the first time they've heard the name. Fair enough—not every director can have the name recognition of a Steven Spielberg or… another Steven Spielberg.

So let's add Barry Sonnenfeld to the list of directors you should know.

Sonnenfeld began his career as a cinematographer and worked with directors as admired as Rob Reiner (Misery and When Harry Met Sally…) and the Coen Brothers (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, and Raising Arizona).

He made his directorial debut with The Addams Family (1991), a film that has become a pop cult favorite even if reviews of the day were spread between calling it "a one-joke concept" to "a twisted treat." He followed it up with For Love or Money, The Addams Family Values, and Get Shorty.

Then in 1997, Sonnenfeld took the helm of Men in Black, one of his highest rated films.

Director's Chair

Like his previous films, Sonnenfeld developed a quirky, fast-paced comedy with Men in Black. While the original script always had comedic elements, Sonnenfeld felt there wasn't enough adventure in what had been billed as an action-adventure comedy. As he put it, "I kept talking about playing it as a police procedural situation, sort of like French Connection almost, except when you're shaking a guy down, you're shaking down an alien" (source).

He made several changes to the original script to rework the material. He scratched the original Bug creature, a physical puppet created by Rick Baker, because he decided the ending needed more action. This result was a brawl between Will Smith and a computer-generated Bug, set to the tune of 45 CG shots and $4.5 million.

He also took the advice of his cast and crew to help shape his vision. Baker thought the original concept for Rosenberg—then a bartender named Chucky—was lame, and Sonnenfeld gave him permission to do what he thought would work. The end result was so impressive that the character went from bit player to central character in the form of Rosenberg the Arquillian prince.

Sonnenfeld's a good actors' director, giving them room to improvise and experiment creatively. For example, Tommy Lee Jones cut most of the dialogue from the interrogation with Jake Jeebs, resulting in a funnier scene. And he let Will Smith ad-lib, "It just be raining black people in New York," a line that serves as a great introduction to the character.

Describing the directing process, Sonnenfeld said, "One of the coolest things about the film is that at the end of the movie, I get credit for all these decisions that were either done by other people or were totally accidental" (source). Sounds like a cushy gig, but we're guessing that's a bit of an understatement. If not for him making the hundreds of decisions necessary to create a coherent vision, we doubt Men in Black, or any other film he's directed, would be as well-loved as they are today.