Phil Alden Robinson (Sneakers) Sneakers (1992)
Phil Alden Robinson (born March 1, 1950, Long Beach, New York) directed and co-wrote Sneakers (1992). Working with Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, the writers of WarGames (1983), Robinson made Sneakers his second feature, and his second feature about computers, after the much different and much louder Field of Dreams (1989).
Field of Dreams was the calling card
Robinson's second feature as director was Field of Dreams (1989), the W. P. Kinsella adaptation that drew an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and made him a directing brand-name overnight. The film's earnest, low-key sentimentality is, on its face, an opposite register from Sneakers — but the attention to ensemble, to character economy, and to the rhythm of conversational scenes carries directly across.
"Robinson's gift is for talk. He films people listening to each other, which is harder than it sounds." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1989)
Sneakers was a return to the WarGames trio
Robinson, Lasker, and Parkes had been close friends since the late 1970s. WarGames was Lasker and Parkes's script; Robinson watched the production. By the time Sneakers started writing in 1984, the three had been kicking the idea around together.
"Phil is a writer first. He directs because he wants the script he wrote to be the script that gets shot. He is not a hired gun." — Walter F. Parkes, The Hollywood Reporter (2017)
Robinson's approach to Sneakers was procedural in the WarGames sense: the writers consulted phone phreaks, lockpickers, ex-CIA officers, and mathematicians, and then built the script around what was actually possible.
"We had a rule. If a real cryptographer would laugh at a scene, the scene came out." — Phil Alden Robinson, The A.V. Club (2012)
Filmography as director
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | In the Mood | Feature debut |
| 1989 | Field of Dreams | Best Picture Oscar nominee |
| 1992 | Sneakers | Lasker/Parkes script |
| 2000 | Freedom Song | TV film, Showtime |
| 2002 | The Sum of All Fears | Tom Clancy adaptation |
| 2007 | Band of Brothers (TV) | Episode director |
| 2008 | The Pacific (TV) | Episode director |
After The Sum of All Fears, Robinson moved primarily into television, directing for HBO's Band of Brothers and The Pacific miniseries. He has not directed another theatrical feature.