San Francisco Frontiers - Cannes honours Jackson, Middle Earth wizard who 'transformed' cinema

With his unkempt hair and a predilection for going barefoot on set, the 64-year-old Oscar winner has taken on a string of cinematic challenges armed with an eye for detail and dazzling special effects.

"He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of the spectacle," said Thierry Fremaux, director of the Cannes Festival, as he announced the honorary Palme D'Or prize for Jackson in March.

"But Jackson is not only a great technician; he is above all a tremendous storyteller."

An only child born in the small town of Pukerua Bay near the New Zealand capital Wellington, he was captivated at the age of eight when the 1933 version of "King Kong" appeared on the family's black-and-white television.

"Ask me today what I think of King Kong and I will tell you that it is one of the most perfect pieces of cinematic escapism," Jackson said in a 2006 biography.

His first film, as an eight-year-old, was a war movie shot with schoolmates in the back garden with his parents' Super Eight camera. He poked holes in the celluloid to simulate gunfire.

While working as an apprentice photographic engraver on Wellington's Evening Post newspaper aged about 18, Jackson bought a copy of "The Lord of the Rings" to read on a long train trip.

"I kept saying to myself: 'This book could make a really great movie.'"

Within a few years, he took a first step into the industry.

- Hobbits, elves -

In his early 20s, the director bought a Bolex 16-millimetre camera and made a low-budget horror, "Bad Taste", which was shown at Cannes, praised by critics and sold in 30 countries.

Jackson met his life partner Fran Walsh at a screening of the movie, and she would go on to collaborate in his films, including the blockbuster "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. They have two children.

The director won international renown with the 1994 drama thriller "Heavenly Creatures", also premiered at Cannes, starring Kate Winslet and based on the true story of two schoolgirls who murder one of their mothers.

In 1998, he secured financial backing to put "The Lord of the Rings" on the big screen.

New Line Cinema committed to the three films of Tolkien's tale with Jackson as director and New Zealand as the majestic location -- a choice that the country would tap as a major tourism draw.

He devoted the next seven years to the hobbits, elves and Ringwraiths of Middle Earth, lending his storytelling and technical skills to a film trilogy lasting more than nine hours that was bestowed with multiple Oscars.

In 2004, after years of talks, he began filming a successful remake of "King Kong", the story of a giant gorilla captured from the fictional Skull Island, and its demise on New York's Empire State Building.

Jackson returned to Tolkien's world in 2012 with three box office hits based on "The Hobbit".

The bearded director was praised by the Cannes Film Festival also for his "colossal" 2018 documentary series "They Shall Not Grow Old", which restored original World War I footage to recreate the lives of soldiers on the Western Front.

J.Peterson--SFF