This biography reveals the secrets of the sometimes strange and often sad private life that was concealed behind the matronly facade.

    The sheer number of false rumors and downright lies disseminated about the man and his films is truly astonishing. Yet Herzog's body of work is one of the most important in postwar European cinema. His international breakthrough came in 1973 with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, in which Klaus Kinski played a crazed Conquistador. For The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog cast in the lead a man who had spent most of his life institutionalized, and two years later he hypnotized his entire cast to make Heart of Glass. He rushed to an explosive volcanic Caribbean island to film La Soufrière, paid homage to F. W. Murnau in a terrifying remake of Nosferatu, and in 1982 dragged a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo. More recently, Herzog has made extraordinary "documentary" films such as Little Dieter Needs to Fly. His place in cinema history is assured, and Paul Cronin's volume of dialogues provides a forum for Herzog's fascinating views on the things, ideas, and people that have preoccupied him for so many years.

    Upon its publication in 1963, An Actor's Handbook quickly established itself as an essential guide for actors and directors. Culling key passages from Stanislavski's vast output, this book covers more than one hundred and fifty key concepts, among them 'Improvisation', 'External Technique', 'Magic If', 'Imaginary Objects', 'Discipline', 'What Is My System?' and 'Stage Fright'.This reissued, attractively packaged edition will be an essential book for any performer.

    Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association."

    Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years."This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck

    Included are discussions on: cinematic time and space; compositional rules; and types of editing.

    They say a film is made in the editing room, and this book is easily the most comprehensive, revelatory, and illuminating account of this essential cinematic art. A must-read for both the casual moviegoer and the serious cinephile alike." —Mark HamillA Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most influential films of the last fifty years as seen through the eyes of Paul Hirsch, the Oscar-winning film editor who worked on such classics as George Lucas’s Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Mission: Impossible, Herbert Ross’s Footloose and Steel Magnolias, John Hughes’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down, and Taylor Hackford’s Ray. Hirsch breaks down his career movie by movie, offering a riveting look at the decisions that went into creating some of cinema’s most iconic scenes. He also provides behind-the-scenes insight into casting, directing, and scoring and intimate portraits of directors, producers, composers, and stars.Part film school primer, part paean to legendary filmmakers and professionals, this funny and insightful book will entertain and inform aficionados and casual moviegoers alike.

    Robert Bresson makes some quite radical distinctions between what he terms "cinematography" and something quite different: "cinema"—which is for him nothing but an attempt to photograph theater and use it for the screen.Director of The Trial of Joan of Arc, Pickpocket, A Prisoner Escapes, Diary of a Country Priest, Money, and many other classic films, Robert Bresson is, quite simply, one of the most brilliant cinematographers in the history of film.

    But within four weeks they themselves had experienced the "impossible."In An Acrobat of the Heart, teacher-director-playwright Stephen Wangh reveals how Jerzy Grotowski's physical exercises can open a pathway to the actor's inner creativity. Drawing on Grotowski's insights and on the work of Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, and others, Wangh bridges the gap between rigorous physical training and practical scene and character technique. Wangh's students give candid descriptions of their struggles and breakthroughs, demonstrating how to transform these remarkable lessons into a personal journey of artistic growth. Courageous and compelling, An Acrobat of the Heart is an invaluable resource for actors, directors, and teachers alike.

    Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends.Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he and his younger brother were sent to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed.The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem.Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.

    With subsequent movies such as The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch, Cronenberg demonstrated his ability not only to touch painful nerves but also to invest his own developing genre with seriousness, philosophical dimension and a rare emotional intensity.Cronenberg on Cronenberg charts his development from maker of inexpensive 'exploitation' cinema to internationally renowned director of million-dollar movies, and reveals the concerns and obsessions which continue to dominate his increasingly rich and complex work. This edition, with an additional chapter, follows Cronenberg's work up to the creation of Crash.

    Yet many may be surprised to learn that the true story behind the making of the film is as captivating as the film itself. In The Making of Slap Shot, veteran sports writer Jonathon Jackson lets fans not only relive just how the film was made, but brings to light surprising facts (i.e., Al Pacino was the first choice for the role of Reggie Dunlop; almost every scene-even the absurd and unbelievable ones-depicts a real life event). With access to those involved in the making of the film, he brings to life some of the magic behind the creation of memorable scenes and characters, especially the Charleston Chiefs, one of the most popular fictional sports teams in history. Based on interviews with over 50 cast members, production staff, and anyone of note involved in the film's creation Destined to be a collectible and keepsake (along with the jerseys, bobbleheads, and other paraphernalia associated with the film), The Making of Slapshot is a must for fans eager to learn even more about their favorite film.

    In the book, Fellini recounts the stories behind his classic films La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, La Strada, and others, describing the inspirations from which they arose and the struggles to get them filmed. He also speaks at length on actors Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, and Anna Magnani, and on directors Roberto Rossellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Michelangelo Antonioni.

    Following on from the success of his thriller, Ex Machina, Alex Garland returns to cerebral sci-fi with his adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's cult novel -a tale of a biologist attempting to uncover the mystery of her husband's disappearance into a restricted zone.What she and her fellow scientists discover is a world populated by mysterious life forms that might offer answers, but which exposes them to madness and death.Beside the screenplay, the book also includes 20 pages of behind-the-scenes photos.

    Rosenblum and journalist Robert Karen have written both a history of the profession and a personal account, a highly entertaining, instructive, and revelatory book that will make any reader a more aware movie-viewer.