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Irvin "Kersh" Kershner (April 29, 1923 ? November 29, 2010)[1], was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Never Say Never Again and RoboCop 2.[2]
Irvin Kershner's background is a mixture of music and art. The study of music (violin, viola, and composition) was the most important activity of his early years. He attended the Temple University ? Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Later, he went to New York and Provincetown to study with the famous painting teacher Hans Hofmann. He then moved to Los Angeles where he studied photography at the Art Center College of Design.
He began his film career at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, teaching photography and taking cinema courses under Slavko Vorkapić, a montage artist and then dean of the School. Kershner then accepted a job as still photographer on a State Department film project in Iran under the Point Four Program, which ultimately led to an assignment as a director and cinematographer of documentaries in Iran, Greece and Turkey with the United States Information Service.
When he returned to the States, he and the late Paul Coates developed Confidential File, a documentary television series. Kershner worked as writer, director, cinematographer and editor. He later developed and directed the television series The Rebel, as well as the pilots for Peyton Place, Cain's One Hundred, Philip Marlowe, and others.
He then moved on to feature films, some of the best known of which are: Hoodlum Priest which starred Don Murray; The Luck of Ginger Coffey with Robert Shaw and Mare Ure; A Fine Madness (with Sean Connery, Joanne Woodward and Jean Seberg); The Flim-Flam Man starring George C. Scott; Up the Sandbox with Barbra Streisand; The Return of a Man Called Horse starring Richard Harris; the critically acclaimed TV movie Raid on Entebbe which was nominated for nine Emmys, including Best Direction; Eyes of Laura Mars starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones.
Kershner considered himself an internationalist. He has said "I've been a student of Christianity. I've been interested in the historical basis of the Muslim religion. I studied Buddhism. I don't think of myself as a Jew except by birth, as I don't follow the customs. I'm a Jew because other people consider me so. My pride is in being international."[3] He has also said:
I'm afraid of patriotism. The world has gotten very small and cosmic awareness makes patriotism seem an adolescent notion, which is why immature minds are easily manipulated by it. I really believe that patriotism in its generally accepted sense means accepting social prejudices, and the fewer we have of them the freer we shall be.[3]
there you go
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