Oscar-Winning Director and North Texas Native Robert Benton Dead at 92

Academy Award-winning screenwriter-director and North Texas native Robert Benton died Sunday at the age of 92. Benton’s death was confirmed to The New York Times on Tuesday by his manager, Marisa Forzano.

Born in Dallas and later raised in Waxahachie, Benton graduated from the University of Texas before serving as the artistic director at Esquire magazine. Like many influential filmmakers who emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, Benton did not begin his career with cinema in mind. However, producing the modest short film A Texas Romance in 1909 served as a calling card that introduced Benton to several prominent filmmakers, each of whom took advantage of his keen ear for dialogue.

Between a pair of young outlaws, a bitter aging grandfather, a nastily divorced couple and a young farm boy from Kansas who came from outer space, the characters within Robert Benton’s films represented a multitude of experiences.
Benton largely helped transition the film industry into the “New Hollywood” era, in which young artists were given the creative freedom to address taboo subjects. The diversity of Benton’s filmography reflects his deeply compassionate approach to storytelling, which reflects his unyielding humanity and altruistic Texas spirit.

Few debut screenwriters will ever be involved with a film as transgressive, controversial and important as Bonnie and Clyde. Widely regarded as the film that signified a “changing of the guard” in the industry, the true-crime thriller about the Texan lovers who committed a murder spree was met with both praise and trepidation due to its shocking violence and articulate portrayal of youth culture. While grounded in fact, Benton’s screenplay earned praise for reinventing the cinematic “anti-hero.” Bonnie and Clyde, as played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, were understood to be troubled, emotionally stunted outsiders who were inexplicably hailed as Robin Hood-esque figures by the media.

Although Texas had generally served as the backdrop for westerns, Bonnie and Clyde put a spotlight on the state’s more modern history, opening the door for future local productions. Ironically, the western genre would also serve as Benton’s gateway to bigger and better things. After penning the screenplay for Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s gunslinger adventure film There Was A Crooked Man…, Benton made his directorial debut with the western Bad Company.

Bad Company was certainly not the traditionalist “cowboys and Indians” style-epic that Hollywood was used to, as Benton demystified the quintessential American genre through his brutal depiction of warfare, survivalism and the bitter notion of Manifest Destiny that defined the frontier era. Although it was dubbed the first “acid western” as a result of its psychedelic qualities, Bad Company managed to earn attention as a result of the performance of its leading actor. Jeff Bridges may have been born in Los Angeles, but his roles in the Texas classics The Last Picture Show and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot earned him a place alongside the Lone Star State’s icons.

While hardly as graphic or intense as other New Hollywood films, Bad Company made viewers uncomfortable because of its grim sense of realism. The nastiness of both Bad Company and Benton’s subsequent film, the neo-noir thriller The Late Shift, may have turned off audiences who didn’t want to think about the disturbing material, but Benton was able to apply this authentic style to a much more commercial project with Kramer vs. Kramer, the film for which he is often best remembered.

Divorce had emerged as a hot-button issue in the U.S. in the ‘70s, and Benton captured the changing viewpoints in the national conversation with a surprisingly sincere attempt to portray both sides of the debate. Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep starred as a loveless couple whose divorce settlement is taken to court when they quarrel over the custody of their five-year-old son. The curiosity factor of Kramer vs. Kramer’s premise, combined with the sensitive, changing ideas of domesticity, turned the film into both a critical and commercial sensation. In addition to winning five Academy Awards (with Benton earning the “triple crown” of Best Picture, Director and Screenplay), Kramer vs. Kramer surpassed other era box-office hits like Alien and The Muppet Movie to be the highest-grossing film of 1979.

Benton’s success as a director didn’t prevent him from helping to fine-tune other projects, though. His contributions to Richard Donner’s Superman helped the film emphasize the scenes of a young Clark Kent, who grew up as a timid, immigrant child before transforming into the world’s greatest superhero. While it was impressive that Benton could add such sensitivity to a comic book adaptation, he ultimately did his best work with a film that was shaped by his own experiences.

Places in the Heart was inspired by Benton’s childhood in Waxahachie, as well as the stories he had inherited from his family about their life during the Great Depression. While Hollywood had often depicted Texan characters as broad caricatures with exaggerated accents and eccentricities, Places in the Heart told an earnest story about a young mother raising her children during a period of social upheaval. Many films from this era have been targeted as “problematic” as a result of outdated stereotypes, but Places in the Heart holds up as a surprisingly progressive piece of storytelling. Between its depiction of single motherhood, religious fanaticism, characters with disabilities and class dynamics, Places in the Heart offered a slice of life story that didn’t cast judgment upon the lifestyles it depicted.

Places in the Heart earned Benton another Oscar, but it also marked a second wind in which he was empowered to create more of his heartfelt, personal stories.

Even as Hollywood turned its eye to making blockbusters that could capture the fanfare of Star Wars and Back to the Future, Benton was able to carve out a place for himself in the cinematic ecosystem with his quiet, introspective dramas. His track record wasn’t spotless, but his ambitions were admirable — for every misconstrued farce like Nadine, there was a powerful character study like Nobody’s Fool.

Though Benton had largely retired since directing The Human Stain in 2003, he remained an active part of the industry, having been honored by the Dallas International Film Festival in 2017. Although his greatest work has inspired other emerging filmmakers who wanted to capture the same aura of naturalism, the fact that Benton’s style has never truly been replicated is indicative of what a singular creator he was.

Often referred to as an “actor’s director” as a result of his mutually beneficial relationships with several major stars, Benton’s real gift was an ability to treat intimate, grounded stories with the same respect that would otherwise be granted to more elaborate feats of Hollywood splendor.

Despite having three Oscars, Benton’s name was often overlooked in discussions of the greatest American filmmakers, though this may have been a consequence of how generous Benton was in praising his collaborators.

Nonetheless, Benton’s death at 92 marks the passing of a generational talent who shaped dramatic cinema's evolution over the past half-century.