The Impossible David Lynch


Todd McGowan - 2007
    He studies Lynch's talent for blending the bizarre and the normal to emphasize the odd nature of normality itself. Hollywood is often criticized for distorting reality and providing escapist fantasies, but in Lynch's movies, fantasy becomes a means through which the viewer is encouraged to build a revolutionary relationship with the world.Considering the filmmaker's entire career, McGowan examines Lynch's play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. Each chapter discusses the idea of impossibility in one of Lynch's films, including the critically acclaimed Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man; the densely plotted Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive; the cult favorite Eraserhead; and the commercially unsuccessful Dune. McGowan engages with theorists from the "golden age" of film studies (Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey, and Jean-Louis Baudry) and with the thought of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Hegel. By using Lynch's weirdness as a point of departure, McGowan adds a new dimension to the field of auteur studies and reveals Lynch to be the source of a new and radical conception of fantasy.

The Road Most Traveled


Chuck Ragan - 2012
    There couldn't be a better person to put together this tome than Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan and here he's collected tales from members of the Gaslight Anthem, Rise Against, At The Drive-In and more, all of whom share their own unique perspective on travel. The road isn't always glamorous but for some of us it's in our blood. These are those stories.

Suite for Barbara Loden


Nathalie Léger - 2012
    Loden’s 1970 film Wanda is a masterpiece of early cinema vérité, an anti-Bonnie-and-Clyde road movie about a young woman, adrift in rust-belt Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, who embarks on a crime spree with a small-time crook.How to paint a life, describe a personality? Inspired by the film, a researcher seeks to piece together a portrait of its creator. In her soul-searching homage to the former pin-up girl famously married to Hollywood giant Elia Kazan, the biographer’s evocative powers are put to the test. New insights into Loden’s sketchy biography remain scarce and the words of Marguerite Duras, Georges Perec, Jean-Luc Godard, Sylvia Plath, Kate Chopin, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald come to the narrator’s rescue. As remembered scenes from Wanda alternate with the droll journal of a flailing research project, personal memories surface, and with them, uncomfortable insights into the inner life of a singular woman who is also, somehow, every woman.

On Kubrick


James Naremore - 2007
    This book argues that in several respects Kubrick was one of the cinema's last modernists.

You'll Float Too: The World of IT


Alyse Wax - 2019
    This compendium includes commentary from director Andy Muschietti; producers Barbara Muschietti, Dan Lin, and Roy Lee; the acclaimed ensemble cast; and other creative players who helped bring a new, disturbing vision of King’s perennial bestseller to life.

Starmaker: Life as a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, the Rat Pack and 600 More Stars Who Fired Me


Jay Bernstein - 2011
    From his childhood in Oklahoma City and his first job in a Hollywood mail room to the ownership of his own public relations firm and his work as a personal manager and television producer, Bernstein's life is chronicled in his own words. In addition to his rise to greatness, Bernstein also describes the relationships he had with stars and relates the stories behind some of the crazy stunts he pulled to garner attention, such as paying women to throw hotel keys at Tom Jones, having Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart's legs insured for one million dollars, and getting married underwater for an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Written with style and a sense of humor, this autobiography shares the intimate details of Jay Bernstein's fascinating life.

Spin: 20 Years of Alternative Music: Original Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Techno, and Beyond


Will Hermes - 2005
    Through the introduction of MTV and the alternative rock revolution, it's been many things. Rude. Brilliant. Soulful. Snotty. Angry. Delirious. In the past two decades, genres have spawned like mad, from goth, indie rock, and gangsta rap to emo and the garage rock revival. This twentieth-anniversary tribute celebrates the passion and fury of the music, with original essays, quotes, and photographs by contributors who are as hopelessly obsessed with it as you are. SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music features: Alan Light on Beastie Boys, Ann Powers on U2, Charles Aaron on R.E.M., Dave Eggers on The Smiths + Morrissey, Marc Spitz on Goth, Simon Reynolds on Depeche Mode + Synth-pop, Dave Itzkoff on ’80s Teen Movies, Chuck Klosterman on Weezer, Will Hermes on Radiohead, Neil Strauss on Nine Inch Nails + Industrial, Sacha Jenkins on Public Enemy, Andy Greenwald on Emo, RJ Smith on Gangsta Rap, Jon Dolan on The White Stripes, Chris Norris on Nirvana, Doug Brod on Oasis + Britpop, Jim DeRogatis on Smashing Pumpkins, Laura Sinagra on Courtney Love, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tupac

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting


Robert McKee - 1997
    Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.

Keith Haring


Jeffrey Deitch - 2008
    This is the book Haring wanted to make, based on the outline of a monograph that was never completed due to his untimely death in 1989.

The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968


Andrew Sarris - 1968
    Sarris's The American Cinema, the bible of auteur studies, is a history of American film in the form of a lively guide to the work of two hundred film directors, from Griffith, Chaplin, and von Sternberg to Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, and Jerry Lewis. In addition, the book includes a chronology of the most important American films, an alphabetical list of over 6000 films with their directors and years of release, and the seminal essays "Toward a Theory of Film History" and "The Auteur Theory Revisited." Over twenty-five years after its initial publication, The American Cinema remains perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject.

The Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History


Caseen Gaines - 2017
    For the first time, this deluxe and highly comprehensive book tells the complete story of this deeply personal Henson project, highlighting the unique creative journey and groundbreaking techniques that brought the film to the screen. Drawing from unseen archive interviews with Jim Henson and new interviews with the film’s behind-the-scenes creative team, Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History leaves no stone unturned in chronicling the entire production, from the initial concept based on themes close to Henson’s heart to the ingenious conceptual design, puppet construction, and logistics of the shoot itself. The book also delves into the wider world of Dark Crystal, exploring the creation of comics, novels, and other official projects inspired by the film.  This deluxe coffee-table book contains an in-depth look at the day-to-day production of the film and showcases a huge range of incredible visuals, including candid set photography, previously unseen concept art, storyboards, production notes, and more. The book also features a plethora of amazing removable items, such as script pages, notes and sketches from Henson, and other unique treasures. Definitive, enthralling, and revelatory, Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History is the last word on an enduring modern classic and the book that fans of the film have been waiting for.

The Pixels of Paul Cézanne: And Reflections on Other Artists


Wim Wenders - 2015
    The Pixels of Paul Cezanne is a collection of essays by Wim Wenders in which he presents his observations and reflections on the fellow artists who have influenced, shaped, and inspired him."How are they doing it?" is the key question that Wenders asks as he looks at the dance work of Pina Bausch, the paintings of Cezanne, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as the films of Ingmar Bergman, Michelanelo Antonioni, Ozu, Anthony Mann, Douglas Sirk, and Sam Fuller.He finds the answer by trying to understand their individual perspectives, and, in the process revealing his own art of perception in texts of rare poignancy.

Cinematography for Directors: A Guide for Creative Collaboration


Jacqueline B. Frost - 2009
    This is the only book that focuses exclusively on the relationship between the director and cinematographer.

The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks


Nicole LaPorte - 2010
    Then came Hollywood’s Circus Maximus—created by director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave the world The Lion King—an entertainment empire called DreamWorks. Now Nicole LaPorte,who covered the company for Variety, goes behind the hype to reveal for the first time the delicious truth of what happened.Readers will feel they are part of the creative calamities of moviemaking as LaPorte’s fly-on-the-wall detail shows us Hollywood’s bizarre rules of business. We see the clashes between the often otherworldly Spielberg’s troops and Katzenberg’s warriors, the debacles and disasters, but also the Oscar-winning triumphs, including Saving Private Ryan. We watch as the studio burns through billions, its rich owners get richer, and everybody else suffers. We see Geffen seducing investors likeMicrosoft’s Paul Allen, showing his steel against CAA’s Michael Ovitz, and staging fireworks during negotiations with Paramount and Disney. Here is Hollywood, up close, glamorous, and gritty.

The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion


Joss Whedon - 2011
    It's a little more complicated than that..." All will be revealed in the Official Visual Companion, featuring in-depth interviews, the full screenplay by Whedon and Goddard, stunning production art, and hundreds of color photos!