Six Degrees Of Separation [1993] with Will Smith

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108149/

Six Degrees of Separation [1993]

Directed by Fred Schepisi
Produced by Arnon Milchan
Distributed by MGM
Release date 8 December 1993 (USA)
Running time 112 min
Language English


Stockard Channing ? Ouisa Kittredge
Will Smith ? Paul
Donald Sutherland ? Flan Kittredge
Ian McKellen ? Geoffrey Miller
Mary Beth Hurt ? Kitty
Bruce Davison ? Larkin
Richard Masur ? Dr. Fine
Anthony Michael Hall ? Trent Conway
Heather Graham ? Elizabeth
Eric Thal ? Rick
Anthony Rapp ? Ben
Oz Perkins ? Woodrow ('Woody') Kittredge (as Osgood Perkins II)
Catherine Kellner ? Talbot ('Tess') Kittredge
J. J. Abrams ? Doug (as Jeffrey Abrams)
Joe Pentangelo ? Police Officer

Six Degrees of Separation is a 1990 play by John Guare. Guare's play was adapted into a 1993 film directed by Fred Schepisi, starring Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland. Sir Ian McKellen and Will Smith. It explores the existential premise that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else in the world by a chain of no more than six acquaintances.

The plot of the play was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man who managed to convince a number of people in the 1980s that he was the son of actor Sidney Poitier. After the play became a dramatic and financial success, Hampton was tried and acquitted for harassment of Guare; he felt he was due a share of the profits that he ultimately never received.

A strong influence on the play and film is the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. There are some very overt references to it, as when homosexual con artist Paul (the David Hampton character in the piece) explains the thesis paper he has just written on The Catcher In The Rye[2] to a family who takes him in for the night. There are also many more subtle allusions made both in the script and in the cinematography of the film version. While one has to be familiar with the original work in order to pick up on the inferences, there are references which fall somewhere between these two extremes; such as when various characters begin to take on Holden Caulfield-esque characteristics and attitudes.

The film features cameo appearances by a number of New York society types including Kitty Carlisle Hart and the artist Chuck Close.

1994 Academy Award for Best Actress - Stockard Channing [nominee]
1994 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical - Stockard Channing [nominee]