He made his name as a director of television commercials with award-winning spots for
British Rail InterCity ("Relax", 1988) and the
Solid Fuel Advisory Council ("Furry Friends", 1988), as well as his 1993 advertisement for
Dunlop Tyres ("Tested for the Unexpected") set to the sound of
Venus in Furs by the
Velvet Underground. By 1996 he had won 23 British
Design and Art Direction (D&AD) awards, and in 2012 was jointly named "most awarded director" (co-equal with
Frank Budgen) at the organisation's 50th anniversary. Kaye made several music videos, including the video for "
God's Gonna Cut You Down" by
Johnny Cash, which won a
Grammy Award, "
Dani California" by
Red Hot Chili Peppers, "
What God Wants" by
Roger Waters, and "Help Me" and "
Runaway Train" by
Soul Asylum.
American History X His feature film debut was
American History X (1998), a drama about racism starring
Edward Norton and
Edward Furlong. Kaye disowned the final cut of the film and unsuccessfully attempted to have his name removed from the
credits. The film was critically lauded and Norton was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film. The battle over artistic control of the film, which has become part of Hollywood folklore, all but destroyed Kaye's career. He delivered his original cut on time and within budget – but when the producer,
New Line Cinema, insisted on changes, the arguments began. The debate quickly escalated. Kaye spent $100,000 of his own money to take out 35 full-page ads in the Hollywood trade press denouncing Norton and the producer, using quotations from a variety of people from
John Lennon to
Abraham Lincoln. He attended a meeting at New Line to which (to ease negotiations) he brought a
Catholic priest, a Jewish
rabbi and a
Tibetan monk. When the company offered him an additional eight weeks to re-cut the film, he said he had discovered a new vision and needed a year to remake it, and collaborated with
Nobel Prize-winning poet
Derek Walcott on new narration for the script. Finally, when the
Directors Guild refused to let him remove his name from the New Line version of the film, he demanded it to be credited to "
Humpty Dumpty" instead, and filed a $200 million lawsuit when the company refused. It premiered in April 2011 at the
Tribeca Film Festival. The film screened and won awards at the following film festivals: Deauville American Film Festival, Woodstock film festival (Honorary Maverick Award for Kaye) Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films in France, Tokyo International Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival, and Ramdam Film Festival in Tournai, Belgium. In early 2016 Kaye was set to direct Joe Vinciguerra's screenplay titled
Stranger Than the Wheel, starring
Shia LaBeouf, and in 2018 he was to direct
Honorable Men, a crime drama written by
Gary DeVore. However, neither project has since come to fruition. Since 2020, he has announced several new projects in development:
African History Y starring
Djimon Hounsou;
Civil, a drama set amid the
civil rights movement; and
Tremendum, a partially animated film inspired by conversations Kaye had with
Marlon Brando. In 2022, it was announced he would direct the dark comedy film
The Trainer written by Vito Schnabel and Jeff Solomon. The film premiered at the
2024 Rome Film Festival. ==Personal life==