With a background in the visual arts, James found a place at the Slade School of Fine Art in London where he studied painting and theater design in the early 1960s. While a student, his interest in filmmaking and photography led him to direct his first and much applauded movie, The Rocking Horse (1962). The success of this film led to an opportunity to work with Tony Richardson, directing his first feature film at the age of twenty-one.  Shortly after this experience, James fused his film experience with his roots in art, making a series of groundbreaking films on artists including David Hockney and Richard Hamilton.

In the early seventies, James co-founded the Berwick Street Film Collective with filmmakers Marc Karlin, Humphry Trevelyan, and artist Mary Kelly making the Nightcleaners experimental documentary which offered a new and controversial approach to the political film.

Following Nightcleaners, James revisited experimental narrative form, making Coilin and Platonida on the West coast of Ireland using non-actors in a silent film shot on Super 8mm and re-filmed on 16mm. 

In 1982, progressing from the art film, the political film, and experimental narrative, James approached a more traditional style making A Shocking Accident, a romantic comedy starring Rupert Everett.  Based on the short story by Graham Greene, it won an Academy award in 1983.

In the early nineties after directing, writing and producing over twenty-five films, James moved to Los Angeles, rented a studio, and returned full circle to painting, drawing and print-making. He is now completing a new artist film on the renowned Catalan artist and activist, Antoni Tàpies.

To view a detailed chronology of James' career, please click here.