Art director and legendary production designer, twice Oscar winner for his work on “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, Norman Reynolds died at the age of 89.
If legends are immortal, it is news that hurts. Legendary artistic director and production designer, twice Oscar winner for his work on Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Norman Reynolds died peacefully in his family home at the age of 89.
“You wouldn’t guess that behind his affable, unassuming and funny appearance was a hugely talented art director, who brought so many films we all love to life through his iconic sets. He was amazed by the number of fans that his work had created and by the importance it held for them” wrote in a press release his family, quoted by the BBC.
Among these fans precisely, Steven Spielberg, of whom he said that he was “the creative heart” from Star Wars and the Indiana Jones saga. “He possessed this rare combination of humility and superior genius.” It is to Norman Reynolds that we owe in particular the brilliant find of the precious idol that Indy tries to steal at the beginning of the Raiders of the lost Ark.
A small statuette he had found in a souvenir shop at the Mexico City airport, repackaged and reworked so that it would be usable and manipulable in the film. It is also to him that we owe the creation of the sequence which follows the theft of the statuette, when Indy tries to escape the enormous ball which threatens to crush him. “His design concepts have always exceeded my wildest expectations” confided Spielberg. A work deservedly rewarded with an Oscar for Reynolds.
On Star Wars, he left an indelible mark. We owe him the design of the planet Dagobah, the famous carbonite coffin in which Han Solo is cryogenized, the design of the Death Star, the room where the emperor’s throne appears in The Return of the Jedi. Creations that have marked, and still mark, a whole generation of artistic directors and decorators.
Norman Reynolds’ career obviously cannot be reduced to these films. He was notably responsible for the sets on the films Superman, The Empire of the Sun, the formidable Secret of the Pyramid, Alien 3, or the first Mission: Impossible with Tom Cruise.
His modesty about his work in the film world was notorious, telling callers he was baking cookies rather than having to regale them with his Hollywood stories.