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Elia Kazan
Richard Schickel - 2005
In that role he manifestly shaped the conception and writing, as well as the presentation, of many of the period's iconic works, reshaping the values of the stage and bringing a new realism and intensity of performance to the screen. His various achievements include the original Broadway productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman and such Hollywood films as Gentleman's Agreement, Brando's Streetcar, and Splendor in the Grass.A non–traditional biography, this book combines social and political history with a sharp critical evaluation of Kazan's work. Schickel presents Kazan as a figure of his culture and time, much in the same way that David Remnick treated Muhammed Ali and the larger picture of American history in King of the World. History's view of Kazan is now colored by a single political act –– his naming names in testimony before the House Un–American Activities Committee. By putting the actions, work, and words of this towering figure in context, Schickel not only defends his hero and his hero's work; he also helps the reader move beyond Kazan's most infamous moment to appreciate the larger American story in which he played such a pivotal role. The result is an intelligent and lively biography and social history.
A Fortunate Life
Robert Vaughn - 2008
His family worked in the theater for generations, and he knew from the very start that he would join them. In his fifty-year career, Vaughn has made his mark in roles on stage, in film, and on television the world over. In A Fortunate Life, he describes some of the one-of-a-kind experiences he’s enjoyed in his celebrated career. A Fortunate Life reveals the details of his early years in Hollywood, when he found himself appearing as often in the gossip magazines as on screen, and he recounts insider stories about such legendary figures as Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Charlton Heston, Oliver Reed, Jason Robards, Richard Harris, Yul Brynner, Elizabeth Taylor, and many more. Vaughn’s work in The Young Philadelphians, The Magnificent Seven, Superman III, and many other films won kudos from critics and peers alike. Worldwide recognition came when he starred in the smash hit series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and he vividly describes the extraordinary experience of becoming, quite suddenly, one of the world’s brightest stars. Vaughn warmly recalls his romances with stars like Natalie Wood and his adventures with friends like Steve McQueen and James Coburn, but equally important was his involvement in the politics of the 1960s. The first actor to publicly speak out against the war in Vietnam, he served as national chairman of Dissenting Democrats, the largest antiwar organization in the U.S. He gave hundreds of speeches denouncing the war, debated William F. Buckley on national TV, and helped persuade his friend Robert F. Kennedy to run for president in 1968---only to see the race end in tragedy. With a wealth of moving, wonderfully entertaining and often jaw-dropping stories from the worlds of acting and politics, A Fortunate Life is a must-read for fans of Robert Vaughn and anyone who wants a glimpse behind the scenes of classic Hollywood.
Deep Focus: Reflections On Cinema
Satyajit Ray - 2011
His films, from Pather Panchali in the mid-1950s to Agantuk in the 1990s, changed the way the world looked at Indian cinema. But Ray was not only a film-maker. He was also a bestselling writer of novels and short stories, and possibly the only Indian film-maker who wrote prolifically on cinema. This book brings together, for the first time in one volume, some of his most cerebral writings on film. With the economy and precision that marked his films, Ray writes on the art and craft of cinema, pens an ode to silent cinema, discusses the problems in adapting literary works to film, pays tributes to contemporaries like Godard and Uttam Kumar, and even gives us a peek into his experiences at film festivals, both as a jury member and as a contestant. Published in association with the Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films, and including fascinating photographs by and of the master, Deep Focus not only reveals Ray's engagement with cinema but also provides an invaluable insight into the mind of a genius.
Brief Encounter
Noël Coward - 1945
Based by Noel Coward upon his 1936 short play 'Still Life', the screenplay conjures up the drab, emotionally restrained world of post-war Britain better than almost any other literary text. It was nominated for an Oscar at the 1947 Academy Awards. Brief Encounter is perhaps the most moving and fully realized of all David Lean's films. This volume contains a specially commissioned introduction by Coward's biographer, Sheridan Morley.
Opening Wednesday at a Theater Or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American 1970s
Charles Taylor - 2017
. . but the riches found in the overlooked B movies of the time, rolled out wherever they might find an audience, unexpectedly tell an eye-opening story about post-Watergate, post-Vietnam America. Revisiting the films that don't make the Academy Award montages, Charles Taylor finds a treasury many of us have forgotten, movies that in fact “unlock the secrets of the times.”Celebrated film critic Taylor pays homage to the trucker vigilantes, meat magnate pimps, blaxploitation “angel avengers,” and taciturn factory workers of grungy, unartful B films such as Prime Cut, Foxy Brown, and Eyes of Laura Mars. He creates a compelling argument for what matters in moviemaking and brings a pivotal American era vividly to life in all its gritty, melancholy complexity.
The Hollywood Scandal Almanac: 12 Months of Sinister, Salacious and Senseless History!
Jerry Roberts - 2012
The real-life scandals of Hollywood’s personalities rival any drama they bring to life on the silver screen. This book provides 365 daily doses of high and low crimes, fraud and deceit, culled from Tinseltown’s checkered past. Whether it’s the exploits of silent-era star Fatty Arbuckle, the midcentury misdeeds of Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, or the modern excesses of Lindsay Lohan, this calendar of Hollywood transgressions has a sensational true tale for every day of the year. It’s an entertaining and sometimes shocking trip down memory lane filled with sneaky affairs, box-office bombs, and careers cut short—sometimes by murder. It shows that the drama doesn’t end when the credits roll.
Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You (Kindle Single)
Neal Pollack - 2016
He uproots his family—including his wife, Regina, a painter with whom he shares a pact to always honor each other’s artistic pursuits—and moves to California.What follows is a funny and ultimately moving account of ridiculous bad timing and luck. In a monumental first step, Pollack accidentally options his life rights to a major film studio. From afar he watches as his new hipster-parenting memoir, Alternadad, garners actual vitriol from the national press. The Writer’s Guild goes on strike as soon as Pollack becomes a member, and—in his breakthrough moment—he stands before the head of comedy development at HBO to deliver his pitch…and forgets what he has to say.Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You is a lighthearted look at one man’s ill-fated worming into the heart of Hollywood, the Silver Lake School District, and Los Angeles at large, but it also reveals a darn good marriage under significant duress.
Never Been Kissed
Cathy East Dubowski - 1999
But things aren't quite working out on the road from Geeksville to Miss Popularity, as Josie must soon choose between writing the article that could save her job and protecting the career of the handsome young English teacher who's stolen her heart.
Features eight pages of photos.
Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway
Farley Granger - 2007
Granger describes how he learned his craft as he went on to star in a number of films, giving an insider's view of working with Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train and Rope, Luchino Visconti on Senso, and Nick Ray on They Live by Night.He is eloquent about his bisexuality and tells of affairs with Patricia Neal, Arthur Laurents, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein and Ava Gardner and his involvement with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Tyrone Power.Granger recreates his legendary struggle to break his contract with Goldwyn. He had to buy his way out to work on Broadway. He describes the early days of live television and working with Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer, Helen Hayes, and Claire Bloom. He captures the thrill of acting on the stage with Janice Rule, June Havoc, Larry Hagman, Barbara Cook, and the National Repertory Theatre, where his determination paid off with an OBIE for his work in Tally & Son.Granger's delightful and elegant memoir captures the extravangance of Hollywood's Golden Age-and provides colorful portraits of many of its major players.
Savile: The Beast: The Inside Story of the Greatest Scandal in TV History
John McShane - 2013
But on October 3rd, 2012, ITV broadcast an investigation into Savile's behavior called Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile. In it they revealed the true, predatory, and evil man behind the popular TV persona. In the documentary, several women alleged he sexually abused them when they were underage. This sparked a flurry of allegations in the following days and weeks from other alleged victims. So far police have been called to investigate reports of abuse on young children from as long ago as 1959 and anticipate the number of victims to be in the region of 300. But how Savile was allowed to get away with such monstrous crimes for so long has been the subject of immense debate and has led to the investigations of several British institutions. The BBC has been criticized and is hosting an internal investigation into how Savile's behavior was never called into question and how abuse allegations during his long career at the corporation failed to be flagged. An investigation is also underway into the canceling of a Newsnight program in 2011. The Department of Health has also said it will investigate its own conduct in appointing Savile to lead a "taskforce" overseeing the management of high security psychiatric hospital Broadmoor in 1998. Abuse is also alleged to have taken place at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary, where Savile volunteered. This is a well researched and informative look at how a predatory pedophile was allowed to go unnoticed for so long and to breach a nation's trust is such a cruel and evil way
Judy Garland on Judy Garland: Interviews and Encounters
Randy L. Schmidt - 2014
Collecting and presenting the most important Garland interviews and encounters that took place between 1935 and 1969, this work opens with her first radio appearance under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and concludes with her last known interview, one taped for Radio Denmark just months before her death. What makes this collection unique is that it places Judy in the role of storyteller. She wrote a number of essays for various publications and sat for countless print, radio, and television interviews. These and other autobiographical efforts she made are proof that Judy Garland wanted her story told in her own words. Finally, 45 years after her death, here it is.
Who the Hell's in It: Conversations With Hollywood's Legendary Actors
Peter Bogdanovich - 2000
He started out as an actor (he debuted on the stage in his sixth-grade production of Finian’s Rainbow); he watched actors work (he went to the theater every week from the age of thirteen and saw every important show on, or off, Broadway for the next decade); he studied acting, starting at sixteen, with Stella Adler (his work with her became the foundation for all he would ever do as an actor and a director).Now, in his new book, Who the Hell’s in It, Bogdanovich draws upon a lifetime of experience, observation and understanding of the art to write about the actors he came to know along the way; actors he admired from afar; actors he worked with, directed, befriended. Among them: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Frank Sinatra, and James Stewart.Bogdanovich captures—in their words and his—their work, their individual styles, what made them who they were, what gave them their appeal and why they’ve continued to be America’s iconic actors.On Lillian Gish: “the first virgin hearth goddess of the screen . . . a valiant and courageous symbol of fortitude and love through all distress.” On Marlon Brando: “He challenged himself never to be the same from picture to picture, refusing to become the kind of film star the studio system had invented and thrived upon—the recognizable human commodity each new film was built around . . . The funny thing is that Brando’s charismatic screen persona was vividly apparent despite the multiplicity of his guises . . . Brando always remains recognizable, a star-actor in spite of himself. ” Jerry Lewis to Bogdanovich on the first laugh Lewis ever got onstage: “I was five years old. My mom and dad had a tux made—I worked in the borscht circuit with them—and I came out and I sang, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ the big hit at the time . . . It was 1931, and I stopped the show—naturally—a five-year-old in a tuxedo is not going to stop the show? And I took a bow and my foot slipped and hit one of the floodlights and it exploded and the smoke and the sound scared me so I started to cry. The audience laughed—they were hysterical . . . So I knew I had to get the rest of my laughs the rest of my life, breaking, sitting, falling, spinning.”John Wayne to Bogdanovich, on the early years of Wayne’s career when he was working as a prop man: “Well, I’ve naturally studied John Ford professionally as well as loving the man. Ever since the first time I walked down his set as a goose-herder in 1927. They needed somebody from the prop department to keep the geese from getting under a fake hill they had for Mother Machree at Fox. I’d been hired because Tom Mix wanted a box seat for the USC football games, and so they promised jobs to Don Williams and myself and a couple of the players. They buried us over in the properties department, and Mr. Ford’s need for a goose-herder just seemed to fit my pistol.”These twenty-six portraits and conversations are unsurpassed in their evocation of a certain kind of great movie star that has vanished. Bogdanovich’s book is a celebration and a farewell.From the Hardcover edition.
I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived in and Out of the Movies
Illeana Douglas - 2015
Taking Dennis Hopper's words, "That's what it's all about man" to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper middle class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it."I Blame Dennis Hopper is a testament to the power of art and the tenacity of passion. It is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives. With crackling humor and a full heart, Douglas describes how a good Liza Minnelli impression helped her land her first gig and how Rudy Valley taught her the meaning of being a show biz trouper. From her first experience being on set with her grandfather and mentor-two-time Academy Award-winning actor Melvyn Douglas-to the moment she was discovered by Martin Scorsese for her blood-curdling scream and cast in her first film, to starring in movies alongside Robert DeNiro, Nicole Kidman, and Ethan Hawke, to becoming an award winning writer, director and producer in her own right, I Blame Dennis Hopper is an irresistible love letter to movies and filmmaking. Writing from the perspective of the ultimate show business fan, Douglas packs each page with hilarious anecdotes, bizarre coincidences, and fateful meetings that seem, well, right out of a plot of a movie.I Blame Dennis Hopper is the story of one woman's experience in show business, but it is also a genuine reminder of why we all love the movies: for the glitz, the glamor, the sweat, passion, humor, and escape they offer us all.
Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words
Preston Sturges - 1990
At the height of his career, Sturges had not only won an Academy Award but was also one of the most highly paid executives in the country.The only account of his life in his own words, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges unveils the source of his extraordinary creativity: a life that was every bit as antic and unconventional as his movies.
DSLR Cinema: Crafting the Film Look with Video
Kurt Lancaster - 2010
Exploring the cinematic quality and features offered by hybrid DSLRs, this book empowers the filmmaker to craft visually stunning images inexpensively.Learn to think more like a cinematographer than a videographer, whether shooting for a feature, short fiction, documentary, video journalism, or even a wedding.
DSLR Cinema
offers insight into different shooting styles, real-world tips and techniques, and advice on postproduction workflow as it guides you in crafting a film-like look.Case studies feature an international cast of cutting edge DSLR shooters today, including Philip Bloom (England), Bernardo Uzeda (Brazil), Rii Schroer (Germany), Jeremy Ian Thomas (United States), Shane Hurlbut, ASC (United States), and Po Chan (Hong Kong). Their films are examined in detail, exploring how each exemplifies great storytelling, exceptional visual character, and how you can push the limits of your DSLR.