This book lays to rest the persistent myth that businesspeople and producers stifle artistic talent and reveals instead the genius of a system of collaboration and conflict. Working from industry documents, Schatz traces the development of house styles, the rise and fall of careers, and the making-and unmaking-of movies, from Frankenstein to Spellbound to Grand Hotel. Richly illustrated and highly readable, The Genius of the System gives the definitive view of the workings of the Old Hollywood and the foundations of the New.

    What further sets him apart is his role in bringing to the screen some of the most acclaimed Oscar-winning films of our time: Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Sleepless in Seattle are just some of the projects he green-lighted at United Artists, Orion, TriStar, his own Phoenix Pictures. "The ultimate lose-lose situation for a studio executive: to wind up with a commercial bomb and a bad movie." Of course, there are the box office disasters, and the films, as Medavoy says, "for which I should be shot." They, too, have a place in his fascinating memoir -- a pull-no-punches account of financial and political maneuvering, and of working with the industry's brightest star power, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan, and countless others. "Putting together the elements of a film is a succession of best guesses." Medavoy speaks out on how movie studio buyouts have stymied the creative process and brought an end to the "hands-off" golden age of filmmaking. An eyewitness to Hollywood history in the making, he gives a powerful and poignant view of the past and future of a world he knows intimately.

    The book also analyzes the complex and problematic films of Brian De Palma, attacks the 1980s fantasy cinema of Lucas and Spielberg, examines the work of women directors, and celebrates the films of Scorcese and Michael Cimino.

    But Olivier was as elusive in life as he was on the stage, a bold and practiced pretender who changed names, altered his identity, and defied characterization. In this mesmerizing book, acclaimed biographer Terry Coleman draws for the first time on the vast archive of Olivier’s private papers and correspondence, and those of his family, finally uncovering the history and the private self that Olivier worked so masterfully all his life to obscure. Beginning with the death of his mother at age eleven, Olivier was defined throughout his life by a passionate devotion to the women closest to him. Acting and sex were for him inseparable: through famous romances with Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright and countless trysts with lesser-known mistresses, these relationships were constantly entangled with his stage work, each feeding the other and driving Olivier to greater heights. And the heights were great: at every step he was surrounded by the foremost celebrities of the time, on both sides of the Atlantic—Richard Burton, Greta Garbo, William Wyler, Katharine Hepburn. The list is as long as it is dazzling.Here is the first comprehensive account of the man whose autobiography, written late in his life, told only a small part of the story. In Olivier, Coleman uncovers the origins of Olivier’s genius and reveals the methods of the century’s most fascinating performer.

    Ava, Hedy, Judy, Liz epitomized Hollywood's golden era. With a trembling lip or sultry eye, with a tear or song or husky whisper, these women held moviegoers across America in their sway from the hard times of the 1930s through the booming postwar years to the early sixties. They were royalty and box office, and led pampered public lives—furs, jewels, designer gowns; limousines, flash bulbs, handsome escorts—that captured the national imagination. They also signed seven-year contracts with a morals clause, and the more they slipped, the more the secret abortions, efficient cover-ups, legal legerdemain, and dropped charges bound them to the wizard in their Oz, Louis B. Mayer. The slips are here along with the successes. Here, too, are the Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow, Million-Dollar Mermaid Esther Williams, Sweater Girl Lana Turner, and bad girl Ava Gardner ("She can't act. She can't talk. She's terrific," declared Mayer after her screen test). From Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer to Princess Grace and Dame Elizabeth Taylor, the sixteen portraits in this lively, photograph-filled volume, each accompanied by the star's filmography, tell the tales that have long lay hidden behind the gossip and the glories of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's glamorous golden girls.

    This landmark biography brings into focus a fascinating brilliant entrepreneur—like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, a true American visionary—who risked everything to realize his bold dream of a Hollywood empire. Although a major Hollywood studio still bears William Fox’s name, the man himself has mostly been forgotten by history, even written off as a failure. Now, in this fascinating biography, Vanda Krefft corrects the record, explaining why Fox’s legacy is central to the history of Hollywood.At the heart of William Fox’s life was the myth of the American Dream. His story intertwines the fate of the nineteenth-century immigrants who flooded into New York, the city’s vibrant and ruthless gilded age history, and the birth of America’s movie industry amid the dawn of the modern era. Drawing on a decade of original research, The Man Who Made the Movies offers a rich, compelling look at a complex man emblematic of his time, one of the most fascinating and formative eras in American history.Growing up in Lower East Side tenements, the eldest son of impoverished Hungarian immigrants, Fox began selling candy on the street. That entrepreneurial ambition eventually grew one small Brooklyn theater into a $300 million empire of deluxe studios and theaters that rivaled those of Adolph Zukor, Marcus Loew, and the Warner brothers, and launched stars such as Theda Bara. Amid the euphoric roaring twenties, the early movie moguls waged a fierce battle for control of their industry. A fearless risk-taker, Fox won and was hailed as a genius—until a confluence of circumstances, culminating with the 1929 stock market crash, led to his ruin.

    Featuring a collection of images from the studios' own vaults, this book looks at the 'creature features' which continue to influence filmmakers today.

    Forty years later, Deneuve is still widely regarded as one of the grande dames of French cinema. Despite her international appeal, however, Denueve has always chosen to avoid the ferocious glare of Hollywood and seldom allows the public into her private life. In these memoirs, Deneuve takes the reader behind the scenes of her life and career in this fascinating collection of seven previously unpublished diaries that she kept while filming abroad. In her own words, Deneuve charts the shooting of films such as The April Fools; Tristana, directed by Luis Bunuel; Indochine; and Dancer in the Dark. Including a never before published interview with famed director Pascal Bonitzer, this memoir is an intimate look into Deneuve's life both on and off screen, and is every bit as riveting as her movie persona.

    Randy Taraborrelli comes the definitive biography of the most enduring icon in popular American culture. When Marilyn Monroe became famous in the 1950s, the world was told that her mother was either dead or simply not a part of her life. However, that was not true. In fact, her mentally ill mother was very much present in Marilyn's world and the complex family dynamic that unfolded behind the scenes is a story that has never before been told...until now. In this groundbreaking book, Taraborrelli draws complex and sympathetic portraits of the women so influential in the actress' life, including her mother, her foster mother, and her legal guardian. He also reveals, for the first time, the shocking scope of Marilyn's own mental illness, the identity of Marilyn's father and the half-brother she never knew, and new information about her relationship with the Kennedy's-Bobby, Jack, and Pat Kennedy Lawford. Explosive, revelatory, and surprisingly moving, this is the final word on the life of one of the most fascinating and elusive icons of the 20th Century.

    When it became a surprise blockbuster, studios began to trust him with larger budgets and the whims of his expansive imagination. Mixing gothic horror, black comedy, and oddball whimsy, Burton's movies veer from childlike enchantment to morbid melancholy, often with the same frame.His beautifully designed and highly stylized films-including Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow, and Ed Wood-are idiosyncratic, personal visions that have found commercial success. In Tim Burton: Interviews, the director discusses how animation and art design affect his work, how old horror films have deeply influenced his psyche, why so many of his protagonists are outcasts, and how he's managed to make personal films within the Hollywood system. He gives tribute to writers he's worked with, his favorite actors-including Johnny Depp and Vincent Price-and talks enthusiastically about pulp horror fiction and the works of Edgar Allan Poe.These interviews show his progression from an inarticulate young director to a contemplative and dry-witted artist over the course of twenty years. In later interviews, he opens up about being in therapy and how his childhood fantasies still affect his art. Tim Burton: Interviews reveals a man who has managed to thrive inside Hollywood while maintaining the distinctive quirks of an independent filmmaker.Kristian Fraga, New York City, wrote and directed the award-winning PBS documentary The Inside Reel: Digital Filmmaking. He is a founding partner of Sirk Productions, LLC, a Manhattan-based film and television production company.

    Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds, which dissects such Argento cult films as Two Evil Eyes, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, and Deep Red, includes a new introduction discussing Argento’s most recent films, from The Stendahl Syndrome to Mother of Tears; an updated filmography; and an interview with Argento.

    He recounts how the studio system rose out of the ashes of Thomas Edisons trust to create the handful of companies that have dominated global screens and imaginations for more than 100 years. Throughout, he reveals that the elements we take to be a natural part of the Hollywood experience--stars, genre-driven storytelling, blockbuster franchises, etc.--are really the product of cultural, political, and commercial forces. In many ways, Hollywood has remained the same for over a century. It has always been a global industry based in the U.S., and its storytelling has always unfolded across media, adapting plays, book, and comics and spinning off product tie-ins, television series, and social media campaigns. But major events have also continually remade Hollywood. The studios have weathered wars, disruptive new technologies, and competition by adopting a strategy of risk management and assimilation. This book explores the challenges of new technologies, including sound, home video, and computer graphics. And it examines Hollywoods responses to World War II, independent film movements, and regulations imposed by Washington. Hollywood: A Very Short Introduction is filled with discussions of well-known movies, stars, and directors, encapsulating the past century of research on Hollywood while adding many original insights and stories. It is the perfect introduction for readers who want to better understand the history and functioning of our screen-saturated world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

    Now, James Monaco offers a revised and rewritten third edition incorporating every major aspect of this dynamic medium right up to the present.Looking at film from many vantage points, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia explores the medium as both art and craft, sensibility and science, tradition and technology. After examining film's close relation to such other narrative media as the novel, painting, photography, television, and even music, Monaco discusses those elements necessary to understand how films convey meaning and, more importantly, how we can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate.In a key departure from the book's previous editions, the new and still-evolving digital context of film is now emphasized throughout How to Read a Film. A new chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the twenty-first century with a thorough discussion of topics like virtual reality, cyberspace, and the proximity of both to film. Monaco has likewise doubled the size and scope of his Film and Media: A Chronology appendix. The book also features a new introduction, an expanded bibliography, and hundreds of illustrative black-and-white film stills and diagrams. It is a must for all film students, media buffs, and movie fans.

    But with the arrival of the internet, have the critics finally fallen under the axe? With movie posters now just as likely to be adorned by Twitter quotes as fusty reviewer recommendations, has the rise of enthusiastic amateurism sounded the death knell of a profession? Are the democratic opportunities of the internet any more reliable than the old gripes and prejudices of the establishment? Can editing really be done by robots? And what kind of films would we have if we listened to what the audience thinks it wants? Starting with the celebrated TV fight between film-maker Ken Russell and critic Alexander Walker (the former hit the latter with a rolled-up copy of his Evening Standard review on live television) and ending with his own admission to Steven Spielberg of a major error of judgement, Mark Kermode takes us on a journey across the modern cinematic landscape. Like its predecessor, The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, Hatchet Job blends historical analysis with trenchant opinion, bitter personal prejudices, autobiographical diversions and anecdotes, and laugh-out-loud acerbic humour. It's the perfect book for anyone who's ever expressed an opinion about a movie.

    Described by one reviewer as “like getting stabbed in the head,” the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Now in its tenth anniversary year, The Room is an international phenomenon to rival The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Thousands of fans wait in line for hours to attend screenings complete with costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons.Readers need not have seen The Room to appreciate its costar Greg Sestero’s account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and interpersonal relationships to achieve the dream only he could love. While it does unravel mysteries for fans, The Disaster Artist is more than just an hilarious story about cinematic hubris: It is ultimately a surprisingly inspiring tour de force that reads like a page-turning novel, an open-hearted portrait of a supremely enigmatic man who will capture your heart.