Book picks similar to
A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan by Aaron Gerow
film
japanese-cinema
cinema
japan
The Day the Laughter Stopped
David A. Yallop - 1976
Will take 25-35 days
A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies
Dennis Bartok - 2016
It is about the death of physical film in the digital era and about a paranoid, secretive, eccentric, and sometimes obsessive group of film-mad collectors who made movies and their projection a private religion in the time before DVDs and Blu-rays.The book includes the stories of film historian/critic Leonard Maltin, TCM host Robert Osborne discussing Rock Hudson's secret 1970s film vault, RoboCop producer Jon Davison dropping acid and screening King Kong with Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore East, and Academy Award-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow recounting his decades-long quest to restore the 1927 Napoleon. Other lesser-known but equally fascinating subjects include one-legged former Broadway dancer Tony Turano, who lives in a Norma Desmond-like world of decaying movie memories, and notorious film pirate Al Beardsley, one of the men responsible for putting O. J. Simpson behind bars.Authors Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph examine one of the least-known episodes in modern legal history: the FBI's and Justice Department's campaign to harass, intimidate, and arrest film dealers and collectors in the early 1970s. Many of those persecuted were gay men. Victims included Planet of the Apes star Roddy McDowall, who was arrested in 1974 for film collecting and forced to name names of fellow collectors, including Rock Hudson and Mel Torm�.A Thousand Cuts explores the obsessions of the colorful individuals who created their own screening rooms, spent vast sums, negotiated underground networks, and even risked legal jeopardy to pursue their passion for real, physical film.
Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of Handmade Films
Robert Sellers - 2003
His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong... This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders’ story of what happened...
The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stephanie Schwam - 2000
The critics initially disliked it, but the public loved it. And eventually, the film took its rightful place as one of the most innovative, brilliant, and pivotal works of modern cinema. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey consists of testimony from Kubrick's collaborators and commentary from critics and historians. This is the most complete book on the film to date--from Stanley Kubrick's first meeting with screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke to Kubrick's exhaustive research to the actual shooting and release of the movie.From the Trade Paperback edition.
On Kubrick
James Naremore - 2007
This book argues that in several respects Kubrick was one of the cinema's last modernists.
The Heart of the Lion: A Novel of Irving Thalberg's Hollywood
Martin Turnbull - 2020
He’s climbed all the way to head of production at newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is determined to transform Leo the Lion into an icon of the most successful studio in town.The harder he works, the higher he soars. But at what cost? The more he achieves, the closer he risks flying into oblivion. A frail and faulty heart shudders inside this chest that blazes with ambition. Thalberg knows that his charmed life at the top of the Hollywood heap is a dangerous tightrope walk: each day—each breath, even—could be his last. Shooting for success means risking his health, friendships, everything. Yet, against all odds, the man no one thought would survive into adulthood almost single-handedly ushers in a new era of filmmaking.This is Hollywood at its most daring and opulent—the Sunset Strip, premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, stars like Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford—and Irving is at the center of it all.From the author of the Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels comes a mesmerizing true-life story of the man behind Golden Age mythmaking: Irving Thalberg, the prince of Tinseltown.Martin Turnbull's Hollywood’s Garden of Allah novels have been optioned for the screen by film & television producer, Tabrez Noorani.
James Bond: My Long And Eventful Search For His Father
Len Deighton - 2012
Len Deighton, author of the classic espionage novel 'The Ipcress File', knew both sides intimately. An acquaintance of Ian Fleming’s (who had praised Deighton’s debut novel in the 'Sunday Times') Deighton was also close to the man who was to become Fleming’s nemesis – Kevin McClory, a veteran of the British film industry. The history of Bond’s development under the arc lights becomes, in Deighton’s expert hands, a saga-like story of inflated egos and poisonous vendettas, exotic locations and claustrophobic courtooms, all involving household names. As an eye witness to the protracted disputes that complicated Bond’s depiction both on screen and on the page, Deighton is in a unique position to tell what he saw. Candid, comical, always steely-eyed, this hefty slice of cinematic memoir reads with all the high-powered pace of a Len Deighton thriller.
The Independent Film Producer's Survival Guide: A Business and Legal Sourcebook
Gunnar Erickson - 2002
In this comprehensive guidebook, three experienced entertainment lawyers tell you everything you need to know to produce and market an independent film-from the development process to deal making, financing, setting up the production, hiring directors and actors, distributing and marketing your film.
Smoking in Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson
Alistair Owen - 2000
Talking candidly about his entire career; his acting, writing and directing, and the many tussles he has faced with Hollywood moguls, this is Bruce Robinson as you've never seen or heard him before.'The most purely likeable book about cinema I have ever read. Robinson talks about his profession in a way that is astonishingly clear-headed, funny and wise' David Hare, Guardian, Books of the Year
Woody Allen: A Biography
John Baxter - 1998
It also explores the real Woody Allen, the critically acclaimed filmmaker from the Upper East Side, and his amusing movie persona of a neurotic and lovable loser.Shrewdly and effectively deconstructing Woody, John Baxter's biography illuminates Allen's preoccupation with sex and mortality, his personal quirks and obsessions, his manipulation of celebrity, and his cinematic achievement as chronicler and court jester of Manhattan's intellectual elite."A splendidly written, exhaustive account and a major achievement" - The Observer"Astute and highly entertaining biography" - Daily Telegraph"A bracing corrective to the usual po-faced, sycophantic studies of the cult of Woody" - Mail on Sunday"Full of interesting information for cinema enthusiasts" - The Spectator"The saga [of Woody and Mia] makes compulsive reading" - The Guardian
Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World
Pete Tombs - 1998
Fully illustrated, this book includes an Indian song-and-dance version of Dracula; Turkish version of Star Trek and Superman; China's "hopping vampire" films, and much more.
The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead
Christian Sellers - 2010
For the first time in 25 years, the cast and crew of all five films in this franchise reveal the stories behind the movies, offering their own opinions and details about life on the sets of some of the most fraught productions in cinema history. Supported by dozens of cast and crew members, The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead features hundreds of previously unreleased behind-the-scenes photographs and exclusive artwork. This eye-catching, comprehensive book is the ultimate celebration of The Return of the Living Dead franchise and all those who contributed to its creation.
Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Phillip Lopate - 1998
As an undergraduate at Columbia, he organized the school's first film society. Later, he even tried his own hand at filmmaking. But it was not until his ascent as a major essayist that Lopate found his truest and most lasting contribution to the medium. And, over the past twenty-five years, tackling subjects ranging from Visconti to Jerry Lewis, from the first New York Film Festival to the thirty-second, Phillip Lopate has made film his most cherished subject. Here, in one place, are the very best of these essays, a joy for anyone who loves movies.
Pictures in My Head
Gabriel Byrne - 1994
His career in film started in John Boorman's atmospheric Excalibur and to date has included such highlights as Miller's Crossing (The Coen Brothers), Gothic (Ken Russell), In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan) which he also produced, The Usual Suspects (Brian Singer) and most recently Smila's Feeling for Snow and the Man in the Iron Mask. The range of roles is varied but always played with a brooding intensity.
Blade Runners, Deer Hunters & Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies
Michael Deeley - 2008
Producer Michael Deeley, an urbane Englishman in Hollywood, had to fight wars to get these movies made, from defending the legendary sex scene of Don't Look Now from a disapproving Warren Beatty to seizing control of Convoy from a cocaine-ridden Sam Peckinpah. This is a no-holds-barred look at the true stories behind some of the greatest cult movies ever made.