Polanski


Christopher Sandford - 2007
    Polanski would go on to become one of the best and most infamous directors in Hollywood’s history, with a list of achievements that includes Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, Macbeth, Chinatown, Tess, Frantic, and more recently, the Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning The Pianist.Yet the most dramatic story has unfolded within his own personal life: in August 1969, his pregnant wife Sharon Tate and seven of their friends were butchered by the Manson family. Polanski was in London at the time. Eight years later he was arrested by L.A. police on charges of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in Jack Nicholson’s home. Polanski fled the country and has since lived in exile in Paris.The director is currently filming Oliver Twist and promises to follow it with his version of the Tate killings. Both projects, dealing with child exploitation and murder, can only fuel the controversy that surrounds him. This biography is timed to coincide with the release of the movies, and will be the first opportunity to read about this talented yet wildly excessive personality in such depth for over fourteen years.

The Air is on Fire


David Lynch - 2007
    Spanning a period of forty years, David Lynch's widely respected films and television series include "Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway," and "Mulholland Drive," However, his prolific visual art production, which began even before his films, has rarely been seen. This catalogue of his artistic output, published on the occasion of a large-scale exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, covers a wide variety of disciplines: painting, photography, drawings, sculpture, furniture, music, and "moving pictures." His art echoes his films in theme and aesthetic, yet offers viewers a fresh and more intimate glimpse into his singular universe. The book also contains several essays that analyze his artworks, as well as a conversation with Lynch, interviewed within the context of the show. 469 illustrations in color.

Jaws


Antonia Quirke - 2002
    Under extreme pressure on a catastrophic location shoot, Universal's 27 year-old prodigy crafted a thriller so effective that for many years Jaws was the highest-grossing film of all time. It was also instrumental in establishing the concepts of the event movie and the summer blockbuster. Jaws exerts an extraordinary power over audiences. Apparently simplistic and manipulative, it is a film that has divided critics into two broad camps: those who dismiss it as infantile and sensational - and those who see the shark as freighted with complex political and psychosexual meaning. Antonia Quirke, in an impressionistic response, argues that both interpretations obscure the film's success simply as a work of art. In Jaws Spielberg's ability to blend genres combined with his precocious technical skill to create a genuine masterpiece, which is underrated by many, including its director. Indeed, Quirke claims, this may be Spielberg's finest work.

Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks


Adam Nayman - 2020
    In Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks, Anderson’s entire career—from Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), and Phantom Thread (2017) to his music videos for Radiohead to his early short films—is examined in illustrated detail for the first time.   Anderson’s influences, his style, and the recurring themes of alienation, reinvention, ambition, and destiny that course through his movies are analyzed and supplemented by firsthand interviews with Anderson’s closest collaborators—including producer JoAnne Sellar, actor Vicky Krieps, and composer Jonny Greenwood—and illuminated by film stills, archival photos, original illustrations, and an appropriately psychedelic design aesthetic. Masterworks is a tribute to the dreamers, drifters, and evil dentists who populate his world.

Woody Allen: Interviews


Robert E. Kapsis - 2006
    1935) is one of America's most idiosyncratic filmmakers, with an unparalleled output of nearly one film every year for over three decades. His movies are filled with rapid-fire one-liners, neurotic characters, anguished relationships, and old-time jazz music. Allen's vision of New York--whether in comedies or dramas--has shaped our perception of the city more than any other modern filmmaker. "On the screen," John Lahr wrote in the New Yorker in 1996, "Allen is a loser who makes much of his inadequacy; off-screen, he has created over the years the most wide-ranging oeuvre in American entertainment."Woody Allen: Interviews collects over twenty-five years of interviews with the director of Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Bullets Over Broadway, and Annie Hall, for which he won an Oscar. The book's interviews reveal a serious director, often at odds with his onscreen persona as a lovable, slap-stick loser. Allen talks frankly about his rigorous work habits; his biggest artistic influences; the attention he devotes to acting, screenwriting, and directing; and how New York fuels his filmmaking.Along with discussing film techniques and styles, Allen opens up about his love of jazz, his Jewish heritage, and the scandal that arose when he left his longtime partner Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter. Including four interviews from European sources, three of which are now available in English for the first time, Woody Allen: Interviews is a treasure trove of conversations with one of America's most distinctive filmmakers.Robert E. Kapsis is professor of sociology at Queens College and is the author of Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation. His work has appeared in the Village Voice, Variety, Journal of Popular Film and Video, and Cineaste and at the Museum of Modern Art. Kathie Coblentz is special collections cataloger at the New York Public Library. Kapsis and Coblentz coedited Clint Eastwood: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).

2001: A Space Odyssey


Peter Krämer - 2010
    It has been celebrated for its beauty and mystery, its realistic depiction of space travel and dazzling display of visual effects, the breathtaking scope of its story, which reaches across millions of years, and the thought-provoking depth of its meditation on evolution, technology and humanity's encounters with the unknown. 2001 has been described as the most expensive avant-garde movie ever made and as a psychedelic trip, a unique expression of the spirit of the 1960s and as a timeless masterpiece. Peter Krämer's insightful study explores the complex origins of the film, the unique shape it took and the extraordinary impact it made on contemporary audiences. Drawing on new research in the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, Krämer challenges many of the widely-held assumptions about the film. He argues that 2001 was Kubrick's attempt to counter the deep pessimism of his previous film, Dr Strangelove (1964), which culminates in the explosion of a nuclear 'doomsday' device, with a more hopeful vision of humanity's future, facilitated by the intervention of mysterious extra-terrestrial artifacts. This study traces the project's development from the first letter Kubrick wrote to his future collaborator Arthur C. Clarke in March 1964 all the way to the dramatic changes Kubrick made to the film shortly before its release by MGM in April 1968. Krämer shows that, despite – or, perhaps, because of – Kubrick's daring last-minute decision to turn the film itself into a mysterious artifact, 2001 was an instant success with both critics and general audiences, and has exerted enormous influence over Hollywood's output of science fiction movies ever since. The book argues that 2001 invites us to enjoy and contemplate its sounds and images over and over again, and, if we are so inclined, to take away from it an important message of hope.

Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film


Peter Biskind - 2004
    Peter Biskind profiles the people who took the independent movement from obscurity to the Oscars, most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax an indie powerhouse. Candid, penetrating and controversial, DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES is a must read for anyone interested in the film world."In DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES, Biskind takes on the movie industry of the 1990s and again gets the story....Peter Biskind captures his era as John Dunne did that of the Zanucks." Frank Rich, The New York Times"Dishy, teeming, superbly reported and packed with lively inside anecdotes...[a] juicy and fascinating expose." - Entertainment Weekly

Alternate Oscars


Danny Peary - 1993
    Photos.

A Year In Vietnam With The 101st Airborne: 1969-1970


Harry G. Enoch - 2012
    Drafted out of graduate school and trained in the infantry, he spent a year with the 101st Airborne. This work is a journal of the experience, a day to day description of what it was like in a "grunt unit" fighting in the Central Highlands, dealing with the heat, the bugs, the rain, the endless patrolling in the villages and mountains, the ever present boredom and occasional violence. It's not all exciting action but it's always real.

Feminist Film Theory: A Reader


Sue Thornham - 1999
    This anthology charts the history of those debates, bringing together the key, classic essays in feminist film theory. Feminist Film Theory maps the impact of major theoretical developments on this growing field-from structuralism and psychoanalysis in the 1970s, to post-colonial theory, queer theory, and postmodernism in the 1990s.Covering a wide range of topics, including oppressive images, woman as fetishized object of desire, female spectatorship, and the cinematic pleasures of black women and lesbian women, Feminist Film Theory is an indispensable reference for scholars and students in the field.Contributors include Judith Butler, Carol J. Clover, Barbara Creed, Michelle Citron, Mary Ann Doane, Teresa De Lauretis, Jane Gaines, Christine Gledhill, Molly Haskell, bell hooks, Claire Johnston, Annette Kuhn, Julia Lesage, Judith Mayne, Tania Modleski, Laura Mulvey, B. Ruby Rich, Kaja Silverman, Sharon Smith, Jackie Stacey, Janet Staiger, Anna Marie Taylor, Valerie Walkerdine, and Linda Williams.

Cary Grant: A Touch of Elegance


Warren G. Harris - 1988
    Cary Grant...Hollywood's ultimate ladies' man...the silver screen's most ardent lover. But beyond his portrayal of the sophisticated romantic hero in movies like "The Philadelphia Story" and "Notorious" was a man haunted by fear and self-doubt which affected his career as well as his personal life.

Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies


Robert Sklar - 1975
    80 black-and-white photos.

Guide to Screenplay Structure


Dan O'Bannon - 2012
    O’Bannon also includes his insights on subjects such as the logic of the three-act structure, the role of the producer in screenplay development, and the psychological principle known as “hedonic adaptation,” which has a unique effect on the structuring of screen stories.

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic


Glenn Frankel - 2017
    It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just thirty-two days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favorite film, celebrating moral fortitude.Yet what has been often overlooked is that High Noon was made during the height of the Hollywood blacklist, a time of political inquisition and personal betrayal. In the middle of the film shoot, screenwriter Carl Foreman was forced to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his former membership in the Communist Party. Refusing to name names, he was eventually blacklisted and fled the United States. (His co-authored screenplay for another classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, went uncredited in 1957.) Examined in light of Foreman's testimony, High Noon's emphasis on courage and loyalty takes on deeper meaning and importance.In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel tells the story of the making of a great American Western, exploring how Carl Foreman's concept of High Noon evolved from idea to first draft to final script, taking on allegorical weight. Both the classic film and its turbulent political times emerge newly illuminated.

Sahir Ludhianvi - The peoples poet


Akshay Manwani - 2013
    So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.