Carroll Ballard (born October 14, 1937) is a retired American film director. He has directed six feature films, including The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), Wind (1992), Fly Away Home (1996) and Duma (2005).
After serving in the U.S. Army, Ballard attended film school at UCLA, where one of his classmates was Francis Ford Coppola.[1] He made a well received student film called Waiting for May in 1964.[2]
His early credits include the documentaries Beyond This Winter's Wheat (1965) and Harvest (1967), both of which he made for the U.S. Information Agency. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award. He directed a short subject called The Perils of Priscilla (1969), which was filmed from the point of view of a cat who escapes from home.[3]Rodeo (1970) provided an intimate look at the 1968 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City.[4] He shot the title sequence of Coppola's 1968 musical Finian's Rainbow and was second unit director on Star Wars (1977), for which he handled many of the outdoor desert scenes.
Ballard finally got the chance to make a feature film when Coppola offered him the job of directing The Black Stallion (1979), an adaptation of the children's book by Walter Farley.[5] The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Mickey Rooney). In 2002 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry.
In the 1990s, he made two films: Wind (1992) and Fly Away Home (1996).
His most recent film is Duma (2005), about a South African boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah.[7]Duma had tested badly and Warner Bros. planned to not release this film in the United States theatrically, but the film received acclaim from influential film critics like Scott Foundas and Roger Ebert, and it led Warner Bros to reconsider.[8][9]Warner Bros. finally gave Dumaalimited theatrical release in the US.[10]
Ballard has received acclaim from film critics. Pauline Kael was an early admirer.[11] Kenneth Turan once wrote: "[Ballard] knows how to be both caring and restrained, minimizing a movie's saccharine content while maximizing the sense of wonder."[12]
