Dalloway -- a postmodern masterpiece whose minimal action takes place on a single June day in postwar London. The Hours progresses in fuguelike fashion: First we meet Clarissa Vaughan, a New York book editor dubbed "Mrs Dalloway" by her longtime friend and former lover Richard. Next, Cunningham presents Woolf herself, beginning work in 1923 on what is to become Mrs. Dalloway. And finally we are introduced to Laura Brown, a California housewife who is avidly reading Woolf's novel. Scenes from these three narratives are presented in recurrent identical succession: "Mrs. Dalloway," Mrs. Woolf, Mrs. Brown -- all bristling with connections and startling parallels. The "Mrs. Dalloway" strand is particularly rich, filled as it is with one-to-one correspondences to Woolf's novel. But the deepest and most important thing that The Hours shares with Mrs. Dalloway is "the feeling," as Woolf called it, "that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." Cunningham's three women proceed through the day, through the hours, trying to keep themselves psychologically intact, like someone carrying a glass of water filled to the brim through a crowd and endeavoring not to spill it. They hesitate before plunging into the day because they know how hard it is to live in the world and remain identical with oneself. And they puzzle over a universal dilemma: how to bring the self into the world without its getting broken in the process. In The Hours, Michael Cunningham has explored this dilemma with an impressive and moving subtlety worthy of his great precursor. Benjamin Kunkel

    An anthology devoted entirely to its writings, in English translation, is long overdue.The selections in this volume are drawn from the colorful first decade of Cahiers, 1951-1959, when a group of young iconoclasts rocked the world of film criticism with their provocative views on international cinema--American, Italian, and French in particular. They challenged long-established Anglo-Saxon attitudes by championing American popular movies, addressing genres such as the Western and the thriller and the aesthetics of technological developments like CinemaScope, emphasizing mise en scene as much as thematic content, and assessing the work of individual filmmakers such as Hawks, Hitchcock, and Nicholas Ray in terms of a new theory of the director as author, auteur, a revolutionary concept at the time. Italian film, especially the work of Rossellini, prompted sharp debates about realism that helped shift the focus of critical discussion from content toward style. The critiques of French cinema have special interest because many of the journal's major contributors and theorists--Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, Chabrol--were to become some of France's most important film directors and leaders of the New Wave.Translated under the supervision of the British Film Institute, the selections have for the most part never appeared in English until now. Jim Hillier has organized them into topical groupings and has provided introductions to the parts as well as the whole. Together these essays, reviews, discussions, and polemics reveal the central ideas of the Cahiers of the 1950s not as fixed doctrines but as provocative, productive, often contradictory contributions to crucial debates that were to overturn critical thinking about film.

    And yet, the history of its making is so colorful, so chaotic, that one cannot help but marvel at the seemingly insurmountable odds it overcame to become a true cinematic masterpiece, a film that continues to captivate us decades after its release. Now, thirty-five years after The Godfather's highly anticipated debut, comes this fully authorized, annotated, and illustrated edition of the complete screenplay. Virtually every scene is examined including:Fascinating commentary on technical details about the filming and shooting locationsTales from the set, including the arguments, the accidents, and the practical jokesProfiles of the actors and stories of how they were castDeleted scenes that never made the final cutGoofs and gaffes that didAnd much more Interviews with former Paramount executives, cast and crew members—from the producer to the makeup artist—and director Francis Ford Coppola round out the commentary and shed new light on everything you thought you knew about this most influential film. The more than 200 photographs from the film, from behind-the-scenes, and from the cutting room floor make this a visual feast for every Godfather fan.

    Acclaimed as both actor and director, as well as for his musical compositions, he’s won multiple Oscars for his achievements in front of and behind the camera and has established himself as a true cinematic great. This stunning volume presents a chronological look at his astonishing body of work, from the early “spaghetti westerns” to his iconic role as “Dirty” Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry (1971), to the soulful Bird (1988) and the revolutionary western Unforgiven (1992) through to more recent films such as the Academy Award-winning Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), and his latest picture, the rousing drama Invictus, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, which was released in December 2009. Over 300 spectacular images, including dynamic stills from memorable screen performances and revealing behind-the-scenes photos, are accompanied by Richard Schickel’s incisive and illuminating commentary.

    He also made comedies, musical fantasies, detective films, and documentaries. He was an exceptionally versatile artist who won almost every major prize in cinema, including a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1992. This is the best-known biography of the film giant, based on extensive interviews with Ray himself, his actors, collaborators, and a deep knowledge of Bengali culture. This second edition contains extensive new material covering Ray's final three films made in 1989-1991, a discussion of his artistic legacy, and the most comprehensive bibliography of Ray's own writings.

    1962) did not go to film school and hates being defined as an auteur. He prefers to see himself as a craftsman, dutifully going about the art and business of making film. Trouble is, it's hard to be self-effacing when you are the director responsible for Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network. Along with Quentin Tarantino, Fincher is the most accomplished of the Generation X filmmakers to emerge in the early 1990s.This collection of interviews highlights Fincher's unwavering commitment to his craft as he evolved from an entrepreneurial music video director (Fincher helped Madonna become the undisputed queen of MTV) into an enterprising feature filmmaker. Fincher landed his first Hollywood blockbuster at twenty-seven with Alien3, but that film, handicapped by cost overruns and corporate mismanagement, taught Fincher that he needed absolute control over his work. Once he had it, with Se7en, he achieved instant box-office success and critical acclaim, as well as a close partnership with Brad Pitt that led to the cult favorite Fight Club.Fincher became circumspect in the 2000s after Panic Room, shooting ads and biding his time until Zodiac, when he returned to his mantra that -entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.- Zodiac reinvigorated Fincher, inspiring a string of films--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--that enthralled audiences and garnered his films dozens of Oscar nominations.

    Martha Livingstone, a court-appointed psychiatrist, is charged with assessing the sanity of a young novitiat accused of murdering her newborn. Miriam Ruth, the Mother Superior, determindly keeps young Agnes from the doctor, arousing Livingstone's suspicions further. Who killed the infant and who fathered the tiny victim? Livingstone's questions force all three women to re-examine the meaning of faith and the power of love leading to a dramatic, compelling climax. A hit on Broadway and later on film."Riveting, powerful, electrifying drama...the dialogue crackles."-New York Daily News"Outstanding play [that]...deals intelligently with questions of religion and psychology."-The New York Times"Unquestionably blindingly theatrical...cleverly executed blood and guts evening in the theatre."-New York Post

    Providing extended critical discussion on six of his most important films (Shadows, Faces, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Love Streams), Ray Carney argues that Cassavetes' work is a distinctly life-affirming form of modernist expression that is at odds with the world-denying modernism of many of the most important art works produced in this century. Cassavetes is revealed to be a profoundly thoughtful and self-aware filmmaker and a deeply philosophical thinker, whose work takes its place in the American tradition along with the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James. The six films treated here emerge as expressive interpretations of the bewildering challenges in contemporary American cultural experience.

    At a screening at Cannes in May 1979, Francis Ford Coppola said simply, "There wasn't a truthful thing written about [the film] in four years." That year at Cannes, Apocalypse Now won the Palme d'Or, going on from there to worldwide acclaim and etching itself in the memories of audiences with unforgettable sequences like the dawn helicopter attack scored to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" or Lt. Colonel Kilgore's chilling "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Here, generously illustrated with evocative stills from the film and revealing photographs from the set, is the story behind the movie where Vietnam met Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is the extraordinary saga of Coppola and his crew and actors-who included Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford -- battling hurricanes in the jungles of the Philippines, the calamity of a lead actor's heart attack, and crises both psychological and financial . . . in the end giving rise to a modern film classic.

    It's easy to see why Mr. Martin, who wrote the film...was moved to reinvent this role...Mr. Martin's screenplay is bighearted and funny.' The New York Times

    With his meticulous notes and impressions of Mario Puzo’s novel, the notebook was referred to by Coppola daily on set while he directed the movie. The Godfather Notebook pulls back the curtain on the legendary filmmaker and the film that launched his illustrious career. Complete with an introduction by Francis Ford Coppola and exclusive photographs from on and off the set, this is a unique, beautiful, and faithful reproduction of Coppola’s original notebook. This publication will change the way the world views the iconic film—and the process of filmmaking at large. A must-have book of the season. Nothing like it has ever been published before.

    In the mid-1970s Charlotte Chandler spoke with Marlene Dietrich in Dietrich’s Paris apartment. The star’s career was all but over, but she agreed to meet because Chandler hadn’t known Dietrich earlier, “when I was young and very beautiful.” Dietrich may have been retired, but her appearance and her celebrity—her famous mystique—were as important to her as ever. Marlene Dietrich’s life is one of the most fabulous in Hollywood history. She began her career in her native Berlin as a model, then a stage and screen actress during the silent era, becoming a star with the international success The Blue Angel. Then, under the watchful eye of the director of that film, her mentor Josef von Sternberg, she came to America and became one of the brightest stars in Hollywood. She made a series of acclaimed pictures—Morocco, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, Destry Rides Again, among many others—that propelled her to international stardom. With the outbreak of World War II, the fiercely anti-Nazi Dietrich became an American citizen and entertained Allied troops on the front lines. After the war she embarked on a new career as a stage performer, and with her young music director, the gifted Burt Bacharach—whom Chandler interviewed for the book—Dietrich had an outstanding second career. Dietrich spoke candidly with Chandler about her unconventional private life: although she never divorced her husband, Rudi Sieber, she had numerous well-publicized affairs with his knowledge (and he had a longtime mistress with her approval). By the late 1970s, plagued by accidents, Dietrich had become a virtual recluse in her Paris apartment, communicating with the outside world almost entirely by telephone Marlene Dietrich lived an extraordinary life, and Marlene relies extensively on the star’s own words to reveal how intriguing and fascinating that life really was.

     But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl. EX MACHINA is an intense psychological thriller, played out in a love triangle. It explores big ideas about the nature of consciousness, emotion, sexuality, truth and lies.

    Phrases like "phone home" and the music score from Jaws are now part of our cultural script, appearing in commercials, comedy routines, and common conversation.Yet few scholars have devoted time to studying Spielberg's vast output of popular films despite the director's financial and aesthetic achievements. Spanning twenty-five years of Spielberg's career, Steven Spielberg: Interviews explores the issues, the themes, and the financial considerations surrounding his work. The blockbuster creator of E.T., Jaws, and Schindler's List talks about dreams and the almighty dollar."I'm not really interested in making money," he says. "That's always come as the result of success, but it's not been my goal, and I've had a tough time proving that to people."Ranging from Spielberg's twenties to his mid-fifties, the interviews chart his evolution from a brash young filmmaker trying to make his way in Hollywood, to his spectacular blockbuster triumphs, to his maturation as a director seeking to inspire the imagination with meaningful subjects.The Steven Spielberg who emerges in these talks is a complex mix of businessman and artist, of arrogance and insecurity, of shallowness and substance. Often interviewers will uncover the director's human side, noting how changes in Spielberg's personal life -- marriage, divorce, fatherhood, remarriage -- affect his movies. But always the interviewers find keys to the story-telling and filmmaking talent that have made Spielberg's characters and themes shape our times and inhabit our dreams."Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about," he says. "Whether you watch eight hours of Shoah or whether it's Ghostbusters, when the lights go down in the theater and the movie fades in, it's magic."

    Now the major motion picture "Brokeback Mountain" is being hailed as equally masterful, with performances that are "the stuff of Hollywood history" "(The New York Times)." "Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay" offers readers insight into how this classic short story was turned into an award-winning screenplay and film. "Brokeback Mountain" was originally published in "The New Yorker." It won the National Magazine Award. It also won an O. Henry Prize. Included in this volume is Annie Proulx's haunting story about the difficult, dangerous love affair between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy. Also included is the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning screenplay for the major motion picture, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. All three writers have contributed essays on the process of adapting this critically acclaimed story for film. This book is an indispensable tool for film students and aficionados.