Latest news with #JamesFoley
The Guardian
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
James Foley obituary
The film director James Foley, who has died from brain cancer aged 71, was a self-effacing and shrewd stylist whose camerawork always served the actors and the psychology of the characters. This thespian focus was best showcased in his 1992 adaptation of David Mamet's stage play Glengarry Glen Ross; its heavyweight cast, which included Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey, might have overwhelmed a less purposeful supervisor. But in his hands this dissection of American capitalism, set in a beleaguered real-estate office, became an actors' masterclass; the cast would turn up on their days off to watch each other work. Foley had been convinced to direct it by a new version of Mamet's script that broke down what on stage had been cerebral monologues into pithy, visceral repartee. Accordingly, the director insisted on casting 'great actors, people with movie charisma, to give it watchability, especially since the locations were so restricted'. Recruiting Pacino as Ricky Roma, the star salesman, Foley had the luxury of a three-week rehearsal period. He used it to avoid a pitfall endemic to Mamet: 'There was a real danger that actors could get seduced by the superficial level of gratification that comes with saying great dialogue. I was much more interested in getting actors that had an interior, emotional life,' he told the WHYY radio station in Philadelphia. With many of the stars reducing their salaries to come on board, egos were on hold – a prerequisite for Foley. 'My litmus test is I have to be able to make fun of actors, and of who they are, and their fame,' he said. It paid dividends: the finished Glengarry Glen Ross had a commanding intensity and bite. The 'always be closing' pep talk – an added scene with Baldwin in the role of head office's ball-breaking envoy – later became a staple of acting classes. The film's prising open of male belligerence and insecurity was a recurrent feature in Foley's films, which were often noir-inflected, character-focused crime dramas. Its milieu of tawdry salesmanship, and the eternal imperative of the hustle, must surely have resonated with his struggle to rise up Hollywood's pecking order. Born in Bay Bridge, Brooklyn, New York, James was the son of Frances and James Sr, a lawyer, and grew up in Staten Island. After graduating in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974, he abruptly switched tack to cinema after taking a six-week course at New York University. He then studied for a master's degree at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in 1979. Foley was offered the chance to direct by Hal Ashby, an errant New Hollywood auteur; Ashby was impressed by one of the young man's films being projected on to a wall at a student party. They never made anything together, but what Foley described as Hollywood's 'weird calculus' meant Ashby's patronage was enough to earn him the directorial chair on his first feature: a derivative but energetic high-school romance, Reckless (1984). He followed it up with the crime drama At Close Range (1986), starring his friend Sean Penn as a Pennsylvanian latchkey teenager drawn into the orbit of his psychopathic father, played by Christopher Walken. Not only exhibiting Foley's way with actors, especially in Walken's flamboyant but subtly shaded performance, the director also imbued the film with an insistent romanticism. He later summed up his low-key approach to style as: 'I like getting the movie inside of the drama as if there was no director involved.' Foley's connection to Penn led to him directing the screwball comedy Who's That Girl (1987), starring the actor's then wife, Madonna (he was best man at the couple's wedding, and directed the music videos for Madonna's Live to Tell, Papa Don't Preach and True Blue, under the name Peter Percher). Who's That Girl was a critical and commercial bomb; Foley had to regroup in the wake of this atypical foray into lighter material: 'It was a major life experience. That first failure is so shocking,' he told Film Freak Central. He returned with the fraught and intense desert noir After Dark, My Sweet (1990), adapted from the 1955 Jim Thompson novel, which was Foley's only feature-writing credit. Although, like many of his films, it was a commercial failure despite critical admiration, it earned him Pacino's attention for Glengarry Glen Ross. Foley continued working throughout the 90s and early 2000s, with his two films with Mark Wahlberg – the teen sociopath thriller Fear (1996) and the actioner The Corruptor (1999) – finding moderate commercial success. But the critical lashing and commercial failure of the costly $60m cyberstalking neo-noir Perfect Stranger (2007), starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, led to him being consigned to 'director jail' for a time. For much of the 2010s, he worked exclusively in TV, a medium about which he expressed reservations; among other jobs, David Fincher – whose psychological slant he shared – hired him to direct 12 episodes of the Netflix series House of Cards. For his final features he accepted a franchise gig: directing the two sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey, in 2017 and 2018. Easily the most commercially successful films of his career, he viewed them with a certain pragmatism. 'The movie is not going to win Oscars,' he said of Fifty Shades Darker. 'But I don't think it's going to win Razzies [Golden Raspberry awards]. That's my goal – to not win a Razzie.' Having weathered several cycles of fortune within Hollywood, this journeyman took the long view: 'I'm interested in studying the history of directors, and why they make a few good films and then fall off the map. You look to the credits of episodic TV and there they are – and I think that it has so much to do with how you respond to failure.' He is survived by a brother, Kevin, and two sisters, Eileen and Jo Ann. James Foley, film director, born 28 December 1953; died 6 May 2025
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mission launched to find body of Peter Kassig, Indianapolis native killed by Islamic State
A Qatari mission has begun searching for the remains of an Indianapolis native and other U.S. hostages killed by Islamic State in Syria a decade ago, two sources briefed on the mission said, reviving a longstanding effort to recover their bodies. Islamic State, which controlled swaths of Syria and Iraq at the peak of its power from 2014 to 2017, beheaded numerous people in captivity, including aid worker Peter Kassig, and released videos of the killings. Qatar's international search and rescue group began the search Wednesday, accompanied by several Americans, the sources said. The group, deployed by Doha to earthquake zones in Morocco and Turkey in recent years, had so far found the remains of three bodies, the sources said. A Syrian security source said the remains had yet to be identified. The second source said it was unclear how long the mission would last. The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment. The Qatari mission gets under way as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to visit Doha and other Gulf Arab allies next week and as Syria's ruling Islamists, close allies of Qatar, seek relief from U.S. sanctions. The Syrian source said the mission's initial focus was on looking for the body Kassig, who was killed by Islamic State in 2014 in Dabiq in northern Syria. The second source said Kassig's remains were among those they hoped to find. In a statement, the Kassig family said it was waiting for analysis seeking to confirm the identities of the dead. "We are grateful to all those who are involved in the effort to get these deceased individuals' remains identified and returned to their home countries and loved ones," the statement said. Kassig was the only child of Ed and Paula Kassig and grew up in Broad Ripple, graduating from North Central High School in 2006. He served in the Army before being honorably discharged. The Hoosier said he "found his calling" on a visit to Lebanon in 2012, where began by volunteering at a refugee hospital. He also founded an aid organization. Kassig was captured by Islamic State militants during a humanitarian mission to Syria in 2013. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman while in captivity. In November 2014, he was killed. U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were among other Western hostages killed by Islamic State. Their deaths were confirmed in 2014. U.S. aid worker Kayla Mueller was also killed in Islamic State captivity. Her death was confirmed in 2015. "We're grateful for anyone taking on this task and risking their lives in some circumstances to try and find the bodies of Jim and the other hostages," said Diane Foley, James Foley's mother. "We thank all those involved in this effort." The jihadists were eventually driven out of their self-declared caliphate by a U.S.-led coalition and other forces. Plans for the Qatari mission were discussed during a visit to Washington in April by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the Minister of State for the foreign ministry, Mohammed Al Khulaifi — a trip also designed to prepare for Trump's visit to Qatar, one of the sources said. Another person familiar with the issue said there had been a longstanding commitment by successive U.S. administrations to find the remains of the murdered Americans, and that there had been multiple previous "efforts with U.S. government officials on the ground in Syria to search very specific areas." The person did not elaborate. But the U.S. has had hundreds of troops deployed in northeastern Syria that have continued pursuing the remnants of Islamic State. The person said the remains of Kassig, Sotloff and Foley were most likely in the same general area, and that Dabiq had been one of Islamic State's "centerpieces" — a reference to its propaganda value as a place named in an Islamic prophecy. Two Islamic State members, both former British citizens who were part of a cell that beheaded American hostages, are serving life prison sentences in the United States. Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who seized power from Bashar al-Assad in December, battled Islamic State when he was the commander of another jihadist faction — the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front — during the Syrian war. Sharaa severed ties to al Qaeda in 2016. IndyStar contributed. Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Erin Banco; writing by Tom Perry. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Peter Kassig's body sought a decade after Islamic State killed him
Indianapolis Star
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
Mission launched to find body of Peter Kassig, Indianapolis native killed by Islamic State
A Qatari mission has begun searching for the remains of an Indianapolis native and other U.S. hostages killed by Islamic State in Syria a decade ago, two sources briefed on the mission said, reviving a longstanding effort to recover their bodies. Islamic State, which controlled swaths of Syria and Iraq at the peak of its power from 2014 to 2017, beheaded numerous people in captivity, including aid worker Peter Kassig, and released videos of the killings. Qatar's international search and rescue group began the search Wednesday, accompanied by several Americans, the sources said. The group, deployed by Doha to earthquake zones in Morocco and Turkey in recent years, had so far found the remains of three bodies, the sources said. A Syrian security source said the remains had yet to be identified. The second source said it was unclear how long the mission would last. The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment. The Qatari mission gets under way as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to visit Doha and other Gulf Arab allies next week and as Syria's ruling Islamists, close allies of Qatar, seek relief from U.S. sanctions. The Syrian source said the mission's initial focus was on looking for the body Kassig, who was killed by Islamic State in 2014 in Dabiq in northern Syria. The second source said Kassig's remains were among those they hoped to find. In a statement, the Kassig family said it was waiting for analysis seeking to confirm the identities of the dead. "We are grateful to all those who are involved in the effort to get these deceased individuals' remains identified and returned to their home countries and loved ones," the statement said. Kassig was the only child of Ed and Paula Kassig and grew up in Broad Ripple, graduating from North Central High School in 2006. He served in the Army before being honorably discharged. The Hoosier said he "found his calling" on a visit to Lebanon in 2012, where began by volunteering at a refugee hospital. He also founded an aid organization. Kassig was captured by Islamic State militants during a humanitarian mission to Syria in 2013. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman while in captivity. In November 2014, he was killed. U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were among other Western hostages killed by Islamic State. Their deaths were confirmed in 2014. U.S. aid worker Kayla Mueller was also killed in Islamic State captivity. Her death was confirmed in 2015. "We're grateful for anyone taking on this task and risking their lives in some circumstances to try and find the bodies of Jim and the other hostages," said Diane Foley, James Foley's mother. "We thank all those involved in this effort." The jihadists were eventually driven out of their self-declared caliphate by a U.S.-led coalition and other forces. Plans for the Qatari mission were discussed during a visit to Washington in April by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the Minister of State for the foreign ministry, Mohammed Al Khulaifi — a trip also designed to prepare for Trump's visit to Qatar, one of the sources said. Another person familiar with the issue said there had been a longstanding commitment by successive U.S. administrations to find the remains of the murdered Americans, and that there had been multiple previous "efforts with U.S. government officials on the ground in Syria to search very specific areas." The person did not elaborate. But the U.S. has had hundreds of troops deployed in northeastern Syria that have continued pursuing the remnants of Islamic State. The person said the remains of Kassig, Sotloff and Foley were most likely in the same general area, and that Dabiq had been one of Islamic State's "centerpieces" — a reference to its propaganda value as a place named in an Islamic prophecy. Two Islamic State members, both former British citizens who were part of a cell that beheaded American hostages, are serving life prison sentences in the United States. Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who seized power from Bashar al-Assad in December, battled Islamic State when he was the commander of another jihadist faction — the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front — during the Syrian war. Sharaa severed ties to al Qaeda in 2016.
CBS News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Search by FBI, Qatar uncovers remains of 30 people believed killed by ISIS in Syria
The remains of 30 people believed to have been killed by the militant Islamic State group have been found in a remote Syrian town in a search led by Qatari search teams and the FBI, according to a statement from Qatar on Monday. The Qatari internal security forces said the FBI had requested the search, and that DNA tests are currently underway to determine the identities of the people. The Qatari agency did not say whom the American intelligence and security agency is trying to find. However, the Reuters news agency, citing two sources briefed on the mission, said they were searching for the remains of American hostages killed by ISIS. Dozens of foreigners, including aid workers and journalists, were killed by ISIS militants who had controlled large swaths of Syria and Iraq for half a decade and declared a so-called caliphate. The militant group lost most of its territory in late 2017 and was declared defeated in 2019. Since then, dozens of gravesites and mass graves have been discovered in northern Syria containing remains and bodies of people ISIS had abducted over the years. American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as humanitarian workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig are among those killed by ISIS. A Syrian source told Reuters that the initial search was focused on was on finding the remains of Kassig, who was beheaded in 2014 in northern Syria. "We are grateful to all those who are involved in the effort to get these deceased individuals' remains identified and returned to their home countries and loved ones," the Kassig family said in a statement to Reuters. John Cantlie, a British correspondent, was abducted alongside Foley in 2012, and was last seen alive in one of the extremist group's propaganda videos in 2016. The search took place in the town of Dabiq, near Syria's northern border with Turkey. ISIS released videos in 2014 and 2015 of the beheadings of Foley, Sotloff, and Kassig. A similar video was released of two abducted Japanese aid workers who were beheaded by the extremists in a similar way. A masked man who was doing the killings and speaking in English on the videos was later identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a British citizen of Kuwaiti origin from London, known as "Jihadi John." He was killed in November 2015 in a targeted U.S. and British drone strike. Mass graves have also found in areas previously controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad who was ousted in a lightning insurgency last December, ending his family's half-century rule. For years, the Assads used their notorious security and intelligence agencies to crack down on dissidents, many who have gone missing. First responders carry a body at the site of a mass grave in Raqqa, Syria, the city that served as the de facto capital of the Islamic State group, Sept. 7, 2019. Maya Alleruzzo / AP American journalist Austin Tice, abducted in 2012 in a contested area in western Syria, is among the most prominent cases of the missing. He was last seen a video weeks later, showing him being taken captive by armed men. The U.S. administration in December said he is still believed to be alive, though Washington admitted at the time it had no direct evidence of Tice's wellbeing. Washington had for years maintained that Tice was held by Syria's now-former authorities. In an interview with "CBS Mornings" in December, Tice's parents said they had not seen video evidence that he is alive, and they don't know where he is. "We haven't seen ... video evidence since the initial video that came out shortly after he was taken, but there has been confirmation from folks that have had eyes on him, and that even fairly recently," Marc Tice said. "So, again, we are confident that he is alive and we know he's ready to come home." The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared during the uprising that began in 2011 and descended into a 13-year civil war.
Belfast Telegraph
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Belfast Telegraph
Remains of 30 people believed killed by IS found in Syria by Qatar and FBI
The Qatari internal security forces said the FBI had requested the search, and that DNA tests are currently under way to determine the identities of the people. Dozens of foreigners, including aid workers and journalists, were killed by IS militants who had controlled large swaths of Syria and Iraq for half a decade and declared a so-called caliphate. The militant group lost most of its territory in late 2017 and was declared defeated in 2019. Since then, dozens of gravesites and mass graves have been discovered in northern Syria containing remains and bodies of people IS had abducted over the years. American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as humanitarian workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig, are among those who were killed by IS. John Cantlie, a British correspondent, was abducted alongside Mr Foley in 2012, and was last seen alive in one of the extremist group's propaganda videos in 2016. The search took place in the town of Dabiq, near Syria's northern border with Turkey. Mass graves have also found in areas previously controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad who was ousted in a lightning insurgency last December, ending his family's half-century rule. For years, the Assads used their notorious security and intelligence agencies to crack down on dissidents, many who have gone missing. The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared during the uprising that began in 2011 and descended into a 13-year civil war.
