Shunt: The Story of James Hunt


Tom Rubython - 2010
    In this account of his life, the author has examined every detail of the driver's life - from his very earliest days to the last hours of his existence - as well as the lives of those he left behind.

Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie


Jon Ronson - 2014
    Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong.Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank, inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank is set for release in 2014, starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson and directed by Lenny Abrahamson.Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie is a memoir of funny, sad times and a tribute to outsider artists too wonderfully strange to ever make it in the mainstream. It tells the true story behind the fictionalized movie.

On Photography


Susan Sontag - 1973
    Sontag develops further the concept of 'transparency'. When anything can be photographed and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

My Story


Ronnie Kray - 1993
    Following on from Our Story, Ron Kray fills in the gaps and gives his version of the murders of Jack The Hat McVitie and George Cornell, describing his bisexuality and his marriage in Broadmoor and clarifying many of the misconceptions about the years when he and Reg ruled the London underworld, shot enemies at will and simultaneously socialized with some of the most glittering politicians, celebrities and hostesses of the time.

Adventures in the Screen Trade


William Goldman - 1983
    Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firsthand look at why and how films get made and what elements make a good screenplay. Says columnist Liz Smith, "You'll be fascinated.

The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation


Thomas Lamarre - 2009
    Thomas Lamarre contends that the history, techniques, and complex visual language of animation, particularly Japanese animation, demands serious and sustained engagement, and in The Anime Machine he lays the foundation for a new critical theory for reading Japanese animation, showing how anime fundamentally differs from other visual media.The Anime Machine defines the visual characteristics of anime and the meanings generated by those specifically "animetic" effects-the multiplanar image, the distributive field of vision, exploded projection, modulation, and other techniques of character animation-through close analysis of major films and television series, studios, animators, and directors, as well as Japanese theories of animation. Lamarre first addresses the technology of anime: the cells on which the images are drawn, the animation stand at which the animator works, the layers of drawings in a frame, the techniques of drawing and blurring lines, how characters are made to move. He then examines foundational works of anime, including the films and television series of Miyazaki Hayao and Anno Hideaki, the multimedia art of Murakami Takashi, and CLAMP's manga and anime adaptations, to illuminate the profound connections between animators, characters, spectators, and technology.Working at the intersection of the philosophy of technology and the history of thought, Lamarre explores how anime and its related media entail material orientations and demonstrates concretely how the "animetic machine" encourages a specific approach to thinking about technology and opens new ways for understanding our place in the technologized world around us.

Jim Jarmusch: Interviews


Ludvig Hertzberg - 2001
    1953) has presented moviegoers with his uniquely personal vision, from his first feature film, Permanent Vacation (1980), to his latest, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). As the interviews in this volume reveal, Jarmusch has always been interested in mixing very different cultural ingredients to form something uncategorizably new in films that transcend the boundaries between high and low cultures. Jarmusch half-mockingly described his movie Stranger Than Paradise (1984), the film that first brought him substantial notice, as "a semi-neorealist black comedy in the style of an imaginary Eastern European film director obsessed with Ozu, and familiar with the 1950s American television show The Honeymooners."His unique approach to movie making jump-started the low-budget American independent film movement with Stranger Than Paradise, which won the Camera d'Or for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival.Ranging from 1981 to 2000 this collection chronicles the career and sensibility of a thoroughly independent filmmaker. It features one previously unpublished interview, two that have never appeared in English, and another two which are presented in their entirety rather than in the abridged forms in which they were published.Jarmusch discusses the actors with whom he has worked (Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker, and Roberto Benigni among them), the progression of his camera and editing techniques, his fascination with the co-existence of disparate and often opposing cultures, and his cult status as an independent movie director. He comes across as kind, modest, and attentive, with a warm sense of humor and an ever-glowing affection for and dedication to his art, and for all the small and marginalized aspects of the world.Ludvig Hertzberg is a freelance film critic and a doctoral candidate in cinema studies at Stockholm University, Sweden.

A Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond


Christine Vachon - 2006
    Here is an account of a filmmaker who looks straight into the eye of the Hollywood blockbuster storm and dares not to blink.In "A Killer Life," Christine Vachon follows up her independent producing handbook, "Shooting to Kill," with a behind-the-scenes memoir of the battle between creativity and commerce -- and a renegade's rise to being one of the most powerful female producers in independent film today."A Killer Life" traces the early years Vachon spent producing such controversial and critically acclaimed movies as "Poison, Happiness," and "Kids," films that paved the way for Academy Award-winning triumphs like "Boys Don't Cry." She recounts the birth and rise of independent film and the evolution of her company, Killer Films, revealing the stories behind star castings and firings and films that never got made; how sexuality factors into the films she produces; and how the often lethal combination of finance and creativity affects what we see on the big screen.Intelligent and tough as nails, but endearingly self-effacing, Vachon's account of her filmmaking experiences, and the successes and failures that have made Killer Films one of the few truly independent film companies in New York, is a thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking read for filmmakers and fans alike.

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood


Mark Harris - 2008
    Explores the epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967-Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Doolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde-and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood, and America, forever.

Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend


Mark Wilkerson - 2006
    Author Mark Wilkerson interviewed Townshend himself and several of Townshend's friends and associates for this biography.

Ken Burns: The Kindle Singles Interview (Kindle Single)


Tom Roston - 2014
    In this illuminating, in-depth Q & A, “America’s storyteller” lets readers in on his philosophical approach to understanding our nation’s past, as well as a little family secret for overcoming your fears.Tom Roston is a veteran journalist who began his career at The Nation and Vanity Fair magazines, before working at Premiere magazine as a senior editor. He writes a regular blog about nonfiction filmmaking on PBS.org and he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City. Cover design by Adil Dara.

When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence


Connie Bruck - 2003
    The Music Corporation of America was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Dr. Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist with a gift for booking bands. Twelve years later, Stein moved his operations west to Beverly Hills and hired Lew Wasserman. From his meager beginnings as a movie-theater usher in Cleveland, Wasserman ultimately ascended to the post of president of MCA, and the company became the most powerful force in Hollywood, regarded with a mixture of fear and awe. In his signature black suit and black knit tie, Was-serman took Hollywood by storm. He shifted the balance of power from the studios—which had seven-year contractual strangleholds on the stars—to the talent, who became profit partners. When an antitrust suit forced MCA’s evolution from talent agency to film- and television-production company, it was Wasserman who parlayed the control of a wide variety of entertainment and media products into a new type of Hollywood power base. There was only Washington left to conquer, and conquer it Wasserman did, quietly brokering alliances with Democratic and Republican administrations alike. That Wasserman’s reach extended from the underworld to the White House only added to his mystique. Among his friends were Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, and gangster Moe Dalitz—along with Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and especially Reagan, who enjoyed a particularly close and mutually beneficial relationship with Wasserman. He was equally intimate with Hollywood royalty, from Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to Steven Spielberg, who began his career at MCA and once described Wasserman’s eyeglasses as looking like two giant movie screens.The history of MCA is really the history of a revolution. Lew Wasserman ushered in the Hollywood we know today. He is the link between the old-school moguls with their ironclad studio contracts and the new industry defined by multimedia conglomerates, power agents, multimillionaire actors, and profit sharing. In the hands of Connie Bruck, the story of Lew Wasserman’s rise to power takes on an almost Shakespearean scope. When Hollywood Had a King reveals the industry’s greatest untold story: how a stealthy, enterprising power broker became, for a time, Tinseltown’s absolute monarch.From the Hardcover edition.

The Gross: The Hits, the Flops: The Summer That Ate Hollywood


Peter Bart - 1999
    A backstage glimpse of the realities of the new Hollywood focuses on the film releases and strategies of the summer of 1998, showing why Godzilla was fated to fail and how Spielberg triumphed.

Sex Pistols: The Inside Story


Fred Vermorel - 1978
    The complete account of the Sex Pistols saga.

Martin Scorsese: A Journey


Mary Pat Kelly - 1991
    - Includes a section on the making of the much-anticipated Gangs of New York starring Leonardo DiCaprio- With an updated chronology, filmography, and index