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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Films, cinema > Individual film directors, film-makers
James Cameron has blazed a trail through the cinematic landscape
with a series of groundbreaking films that have each become deeply
embedded in the popular imagination. But while Cameron has created
and employed advanced filmmaking technologies to realize his unique
vision, his process of creative ideation began with pen, pencil and
paints long before he picked up a camera. Inspired by his mother,
an artist, Cameron displayed remarkable ability at an early age,
filling sketchbooks with illustrations of alien creatures, faraway
worlds, and technological wonders. As he grew older, his art became
increasingly sophisticated, exploring major themes that would imbue
his later work-from the threat of nuclear catastrophe to the
dangers inherent in the development of artificial intelligence, to
a fascination with ecology that would foreshadow his storied career
in science and exploration. Working in the film industry in his
early twenties, Cameron supported himself by illustrating
theatrical posters and concept art for low-budget films before
creating the visionary concept pieces that would help greenlight
his first major feature, The Terminator. For the first time, Tech
Noir brings together a dazzling and diverse array of personal and
commercial art from Cameron's own collection, showing the
trajectory of ideas which led to such modern classics as The
Terminator, Aliens, Titanic and Avatar. Starting with his earliest
sketches through to unrealized projects and to his later work, the
book features the filmmaker's personal commentary on his creative
and artistic evolution throughout the years. A unique journey into
the mind of a singular creative powerhouse, Tech Noir is a true
publishing event and the ultimate exploration of one of cinema's
most imaginative innovators.
This volume examines the work of directors Jacques Copeau, Theodore
Komisarjevsky and Tyrone Guthrie. It explores in detail many of the
directors' key productions, including Copeau's staging of Moliere's
The Tricks of Scapin, Komisarjevsky's signature season of Chekhov
plays at the Barnes Theatre and Guthrie's pioneering direction of
Shakespeare's plays in North America. This study argues that their
work exemplifies the complexity and novelty of the role of theatre
directing in the first three-quarters of the 20th century, as
Komisarjevsky was in the middle of the genesis of directing in
Russia, Copeau launched his directorial career just as the role was
gaining definition, and Guthrie was at the vanguard of directing in
Britain, at last shaking off the traditions of the actor-manager to
formulate the new role of artistic director.
The definitive history of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth saga,
Anything You Can Imagine takes us on a cinematic journey across all
six films, featuring brand-new interviews with Peter, his cast
& crew. From the early days of daring to dream it could be
done, through the highs and lows of making the films, to fan
adoration and, finally, Oscar glory. Lights A nine-year-old boy in
New Zealand's Pukerua Bay stays up late and is spellbound by a
sixty-year-old vision of a giant ape on an island full of
dinosaurs. This is true magic. And the boy knows that he wants to
be a magician. Camera Fast-forward twenty years and the boy has
begun to cast a spell over the film-going audience, conjuring
gore-splattered romps with bravura skill that will lead to Academy
recognition with an Oscar nomination for Heavenly Creatures. The
boy from Pukerua Bay with monsters reflected in his eyes has
arrived, and Hollywood comes calling. What would he like to do
next? 'How about a fantasy film, something like The Lord of the
Rings...?' Action The greatest work of fantasy in modern
literature, and the biggest, with rights ownership so complex it
will baffle a wizard. Vast. Complex. Unfilmable. One does not
simply walk into Mordor - unless you are Peter Jackson. Anything
You Can Imagine tells the full, dramatic story of how Jackson and
his trusty fellowship of Kiwi filmmakers dared take on a quest
every bit as daunting as Frodo's, and transformed JRR Tolkien's
epic tale of adventure into cinematic magic, and then did it again
with The Hobbit. Enriched with brand-new interviews with Jackson,
his fellow filmmakers and many of the films' stars, Ian Nathan's
mesmerising narrative whisks us to Middle-earth, to gaze over the
shoulder of the director as he creates the impossible, the
unforgettable, and proves that film-making really is 'anything you
can imagine'.
This volume provides a fresh assessment of the pioneering practices
of theatre directors Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook and Eugenio
Barba, whose work has challenged and extended ideas about what
theatre is and does. Contributors demonstrate how each was
instrumental in rethinking and reinventing theatre’s
possibilities: where it takes place – whether in theatres or
beyond – and who the audience might then be, as well as how
actors train and perform, highlighting the importance of the group
and collaboration. The volume examines their role in establishing
intercultural dialogues and practices, and the wider influence of
this work on theatre. Consideration is also given to each
director’s documentation of their practice in print and film and
the influence this has had on 21st-century performance.
An illustrated critical survey of Academy Award-winning writer and
director Sofia Coppola's career, covering everything from her
groundbreaking music videos through her latest films In the two
decades since her first feature film was released, Sofia Coppola
has created a tonally diverse, meticulously crafted, and
unapologetically hyperfeminine aesthetic across a wide range of
multimedia work. Her films explore untenable relationships and the
euphoria and heartbreak these entail, and Coppola develops these
themes deftly and with discernment across her movies and music
videos. From The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette to Lost in
Translation and The Beguiled, Coppola's award-nominated filmography
is also unique in how its consistent visual aesthetic is informed
by and in conversation with contemporary fine art and photography.
Sofia Coppola offers a rich and intimate look at the overarching
stylistic and thematic components of Coppola's work. In addition to
critical essays about Coppola's filmography, the book will include
interviews with some of her closest collaborators, including
musician Jean-Benoit Dunckel and costume designer Nancy Steiner,
along with a foreword by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. It
engages with her creative output while celebrating her talent as an
imagemaker and storyteller. Along the way, readers meet again a
cast of characters mired in the ennui of missed connections:
loneliness, frustrated creativity, rebellious adolescence, and the
double-edged knife of celebrity, all captured by the emotional,
intimate power of the female gaze.
This companion to the bestselling The Wes Anderson Collection is
the only book to take readers behind the scenes of The Grand
Budapest Hotel. Through a series of in-depth interviews between
writer/director Wes Anderson and cultural critic Matt Zoller Seitz,
Anderson shares the story behind the film's conception, personal
anecdotes about the making of the film, and the wide variety of
sources that inspired him-from author Stefan Zweig to filmmaker
Ernst Lubitsch to photochrom landscapes of turn-of-the-century
Middle Europe. The book also features interviews with costume
designer Milena Canonero, composer Alexandre Desplat, lead actor
Ralph Fiennes, production designer Adam Stockhausen and
cinematographer Robert Yeoman; essays by film critics Ali Arikan
and Steven Boone, film theorist and historian David Bordwell, music
critic Olivia Collette, and style and costume consultant
Christopher Laverty; and an introduction by playwright Anne
Washburn. Previously unpublished behind-the-scenes photos, ephemera
and artwork lavishly illustrate these interviews and essays. The
Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel stays true to
Seitz's previous book on Anderson's first seven feature films,The
Wes Anderson Collectionwith an artful design and playful
illustrations that capture the spirit of Anderson's inimitable
aesthetic. Together, they offer a complete, definitive overview of
Anderson's filmography to date. Praise for the film, The Grand
Budapest Hotel: Nine Academy Award (R) nominations, including Best
Picture, Directing, and Writing - Original Screenplay; Best Film -
Musical or Comedy, Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Motion
Picture, 5 BAFTA awards, including Best Original Screen Play; Best
Production Design, Best Costume Design; Best Make Up & Hair and
Best Original Music.
Between 1960 and 1964, the legendary Roger Corman created eight
motion pictures that have become known as the "Poe Cycle",
elevating the careers of both himself and Vincent Price to cult
status around the world. Nearly half a century later these films
are staples in most DVD collections of anyone who admires the
cinema of the Fantastic. This is the long-awaited book that details
and analyses these highly important films. This book has been 30
years in the making! Nevermore will include: Hundreds of rare
images never seen before from each film; Commentaries from Vincent
Price and Roger Corman; Special observations by Barbara Steele,
Elizabeth Shepherd, Joyce Jameson and Hazel Court as the leading
ladies of the series; Exclusive interviews with the actors and
artisans that made the Poe films; Rare poster art from around the
world; Extra material on the Poe films made after Corman with
exclusive interviews with Gordon Hessler and Samuel Z Arkoff.
Archivist and film historian David Del Valle in collaboration with
Professor Sam Umland have fashioned a film-by-film analysis of
Roger Corman's Poe films including the Poe-inspired films made
after Corman left AIP to pursue other projects. The unique
combination of Professor Umland's insights into the literary
landscape of Poe in concert with Mr Del Valle's twenty five years
of research interviewing all the participants in the Poe series now
culminates here. This is the "dream within a dream" for aficionados
of these films which have never left the imagination of the
generation that grew up watching them.
George Stevens Jr. grew up on movie sets. His grandmother, aunts,
uncles, and other family members were all entertainers, but it was
his father, director George Stevens Sr., who cast the longest
shadow. The elder Stevens won best director Oscars for A Place in
the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956) and was nominated for directing The
More the Merrier (1943), Shane (1953), and The Diary of Anne Frank
(1959). George Jr. worked by his father's side while also
establishing himself as a successful television director. He
learned a variety of skills from the master, including
cinematography, storytelling, managing difficult actors, and
maintaining artistic control over one's work. As a result of
Stevens Sr.'s position in the Screen Directors' Guild during the
height of McCarthyism, Stevens Jr. also learned firsthand about
freedom of artistic expression and protection of civil rights - and
the navigation of treacherous political waters. In 1961, Edward R.
Murrow recruited Stevens Jr. to head up the film and television
department for the United States Information Agency, pushing him
out of his father's shadow and into the work that would become his
greatest legacy. Travelling to film festivals around the world as
USIA delegate, he became aware of the urgent need to promote and
preserve America's film legacy and founded the American Film
Institute. AFI saved thousands of movies, scouring the country for
copies of forgotten or lost films that were then catalogued and
deposited at the Library of Congress. Under Stevens Jr.'s
direction, AFI also issued grants to support the work of young,
independent filmmakers and established the AFI Conservancy, a
school for film arts. Shortly after that, Stevens Jr. created the
Kennedy Center Honors, a uniquely American tradition honoring the
lifetime contributions made by those in performing arts. In My
Place in the Sun, George Stevens Jr. recounts his lifelong passion
for and commitment to the art of film, along the way providing an
intimate look into the artistry of one of Hollywood's greatest
directors. Both an insightful history of Hollywood's Golden Age and
a savvy insider's account of post-World War II Washington culture,
this magnificent autobiography brings to life almost ninety years
of American film history and culture.
'Darkly comic, beautifully written and full of surprises' Daily
Mail 'Really funny. David is a great writer' Paula Hawkins, Good
Housekeeping 'A riotously good novel, witty and earnest, brimming
with sharply drawn characters and creeping suspense. David Thewlis
is a fabulous writer' Anna Bailey, Sunday Times bestselling author
of Tall Bones 'A deliciously smart, hilarious human drama with the
pace and intrigue of a gripping thriller. One of the year's most
memorable novels' B P Walter, Sunday Times bestselling author of
The Dinner Guest Celebrated director Jack Drake can't get through
his latest film (his most personal yet) without his wife Martha's
support. The only problem is, she's dead... When Jack sees Betty
Dean - actress, mother, trainwreck - playing the part of a crazed
nun on stage in an indie production of The Devils, he is struck
dumb by her resemblance to Martha. Desperate to find a way to
complete his masterpiece, he hires her to go and stay in his house
in France and resuscitate Martha in the role of 'loving spouse'.
But as Betty spends her days roaming the large, sunlit rooms of
Jack's mansion - filled to the brim with odd treasures and the
occasional crucifix - and her evenings playing the part of Martha
over scripted video calls with Jack, she finds her method acting
taking her to increasingly dark places. And as Martha comes back to
life, she carries with her the truth about her suicide - and the
secret she guarded until the end. A darkly funny novel set between
a London film set and a villa in the south of France. A mix of
Vertigo and Jonathan Coe, written by a master storyteller. PRAISE
FOR DAVID THEWLIS'S FICTION 'David Thewlis has written an
extraordinarily good novel, which is not only brilliant in its own
right, but stands proudly beside his work as an actor, no mean
boast' Billy Connolly 'Hilarious and horror-filled' Francesca
Segal, Observer 'A fine study in character disintegration... Very
funny' David Baddiel, The Times 'Exquisitely written with a warm
heart and a wry wit... Stunning' Elle 'Queasily entertaining'
Financial Times 'A sharp ear for dialogue and a scabrously satiric
prose style' Daily Mail 'Laugh-out-loud, darkly intelligent'
Publishers Weekly 'This is far more than an actor's vanity project:
Thewlis has talent' Kirkus
This volume celebrates one of the best known and most loved Italian
directors in the world, one of the great masters of tension and
horror: Dario Argento. Over the years his cinema has established
itself - among cinephiles but not only - for its visionary power,
for the search for an aesthetic dimension which is reached through
excess. And this excess is not so much what materialises in the
virtuosity of the staging of murder and death, as in treating such
a brutal and disturbing material in such a way that it becomes
something abstract, almost a baroque stylisation. The volume, full
of critical essays that investigate the poetics and imagination of
Dario Argento, retraces the director's complete filmography. It
also welcomes the testimonies of collaborators and the statements
of great directors and actors who shared his long career.
Biographies complete the volume. With texts by: Mick Garris,
Domenico De Gaetano, Marcello Garofalo, Stefano Della Casa, Piera
Detassis, Roberto Pugliese, Alan Jones, Domenico Monetti;
testimonianze di: Stefania Casini, Franco Bellomo, Luigi Cozzi,
Claudio Simonetti, Sergio Stivaletti, Luciano Tovoli, Antonello
Geleng, Pupi Oggiano; fotogrammi tematici: Grazia Paganelli, Matteo
Pollone, and Fabio Pezzetti Tonion. Text in English and Italian.
This book looks at Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece, Modern Times
(1936), through the lens of film aesthetics, structure, and
post-modern perspective. The naive Tramp character of Modern Times
is often seen as the embodiment of a revolutionary reaction to his
age. However, this study of the film shows that it is not only
difficult but also impossible to accept the long-established
critical reception of Chaplin's film and its characters in our own
"Post-modern Times." Drawing from extensive research and bringing
post-modern context to the film through a comparative analysis of
Todd Phillips's Joker (2019), the book introduces how exhilarating
a comprehensive study of film can be for engaged viewers.
Illustrating that a detailed filmic reading of Modern Times can be
a guide, or an extended case study, for analysing culture, this
book will be of interest to students and teachers in film studies,
literary studies, and the visual arts.
An absorbing portrait of a groundbreaking Black woman filmmaker.
Kathleen Collins (1942-88) was a visionary and influential Black
filmmaker. Beginning with her short film The Cruz Brothers and Miss
Malloy and her feature film Losing Ground, Collins explored new
dimensions of what narrative film could and should do. However, her
achievements in filmmaking were part of a greater life project. In
this critically imaginative study of Collins, L.H. Stallings
narrates how Collins, as a Black woman writer and filmmaker, sought
to change the definition of life and living. The Afterlives of
Kathleen Collins: A Black Woman Filmmaker's Search for New Life
explores the global significance and futurist implications of
filmmaker and writer Kathleen Collins. In addition to her two
films, Stallings examines the broad and expansive and varying forms
of writing produced by Collins during her short life time. The
Afterlives of Kathleen Collins showcases how Collins used
filmmaking, writing, and teaching to assert herself as a
poly-creative dedicated to asking and answering difficult
philosophical questions about human being and living. Interrogating
the ideological foundation of life-writing and cinematic
life-writing as they intersect with race and gender, Stallings
intervenes on the delimited concepts of life and Black being that
impeded wider access, distribution, and production of Collins's
personal, cinematic, literary, and theatrical works. The Afterlives
of Kathleen Collins definitively emphasizes the evolution of film
and film studies that Collins makes possible for current and future
generations of filmmakers.
Known for creating classic films including His Girl Friday, The Big
Sleep, Bringing Up Baby, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Howard Hawks
is one of the best-known Hollywood 'auteurs', but the important
role that music plays in his films has been generally neglected by
film critics and scholars. In this concise study, Gregory Camp
demonstrates how Hawks' use of music and musical treatment of
dialogue articulate the group communication that is central to his
films. In five chapters, Camp explores how the notion of 'music' in
Hawks' films can be expanded beyond the film score, and the
techniques by which Hawks and his collaborators (including actors,
screenwriters, composers, and editors) achieve this heightened
musicality.
Onyeka Nwelue: A Troubled Life is a portrait of the writers
predicaments and triumphs as he courses through experiences that
are sometimes grim, and other times, spectacular.
Jia Zhangke is praised as "the most internationally prominent and
celebrated figure of the Six-Generation of Chinese filmmakers".
This book provides an examination the content and forms of Jia's
featured films and analyzes their merits and faults. Jia's films
often narrate the lives of ordinary Chinese people against the
backdrop of the political-economic changes. The author conducts an
in-depth analysis of how this change have ferociously impinged upon
the characters' living conditions since China integrated itself
with the world economy in the high tide of accelerated
globalization since the 1970s. The author focuses on discussing the
"politics of dignity" expressed by Jia's allegorical renditions to
explore the director's political unconsciousness and
cultural-political notions. This book maps ten of Jia Zhangke's
films onto three major themes: Jia's filmmaking and China in the
market society; truth claims and political unconscious;
"post-socialist modernity" in the age of globalization. This book
will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese film
studies, as well as other disciplines, such as political science,
sociology, anthropology, etc.
"Eye-opening and addictively readable." Total Film Who and what
decides if a film gets funded? How do those who control the purse
strings also determine a film's content and even its message?
Writing as the director of award-winning feature films including
Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People and The Road to
Guantanamo as well as the hugely popular The Trip series, Michael
Winterbottom provides an insider's view of the workings of
international film funding and distribution, revealing how the
studios that fund film production and control distribution networks
also work against a sustainable independent film culture and limit
innovation in filmmaking style and content. In addition to
reflecting upon his own filmmaking career, featuring critical and
commercial successes alongside a 'very long list' of films that
didn't get made, Winterbottom also interviews leading contemporary
filmmakers including Lynne Ramsay, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Asif
Kapadia and Joanna Hogg about their filmmaking practice. The book
closes with a vision of how the contemporary filmmaking landscape
could be reformed for the better with fairer funding and payment
practices allowing for a more innovative and sustainable 21st
century industry.
Andrey Tarkovsky was the most important Russian filmmaker of the
post-war era, and one of the world's most renowned cinematic
geniuses. He directed the first five of his seven films - Ivan's
Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror and Stalker - in the
Soviet Union, but in 1982 defected to Italy, where he made
Nostalgia. His final film, The Sacrifice, was produced in Sweden in
1985. Tarkovsky's films are characterized by metaphysical themes,
extended takes, an absence of conventional dramatical structure and
plot, and a dream-like, visionary style of cinematography. They
achieve a spiritual intensity and transcendent beauty that many
consider to be without parallel. This book presents extended
sequences of stills from each of the films alongside synopses and
cast and crew listings. It includes reflections on Tarkovsky's work
from fellow artists and writers including Jean-Paul Sartre and
Ingmar Bergman, for whom Tarkovsky was 'the greatest, the one who
invented a new language.' Extracts from Tarkovsky's own writings
and diaries offer a wealth of insights into his poetic and
philosophical views on cinematography, which he described as
'sculpting in time'. The book also reproduces many personal
Polaroid photographs that confirm the extraordinary poetic vision
of a great artist who died aged only 54, but who remains a potent
influence on artists and filmmakers today.
In 1978 animation director Yoshiyuki Tomino set forth to change the
Japanese animation industry. For decades prior, Japanese science
fiction had churned out numerous tales of semi-autonomous robots
that would often come to the aide of humanity, but as someone who
worked on a number of those works, Tomino came to the realization
that he wanted to see a more realistic robot narrative. His vision
was one where the robot while just slightly more human in
appearance, was utilized more as a tool manipulated by man. With
renowned artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko by his side, and occasionally as
his artistic rival, Tomino would change the way the whole world
came to see Japanese animation and the broader toy and comics
industries built around it. This evolution would be a war in its
own right! Battles were fought in the offices of the animation
studio! Conflicts were equally as heated in the recording booth!
The six chapters assembled in The Kubrick Legacy showcase important
trends in the evolution of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's artistic
legacy. In the 20 years since his death an enormous range of
information and scholarship has surfaced, in part from the Kubrick
estate's public preservation, archiving, exhibition and
promulgation of the auteur's staggering collection of research
materials and film artefacts. These essays from international
scholars chart incarnations of the official Kubrick exhibition of
extensive artifacts touring the globe for the past decade; the
filmmaker's lasting impact on established authors with whom he
collaborated; the profound influence of Kubrick's use of existing
music in film scores; the exponential rise of conspiracy theories
and (mis)interpretation of his work since his death; the repeated
imitation of and homage to his oeuvre across decades of
international television advertising; and the (re)discovery of
Kubrick on screen in both documentary form and dramatic
characterization. The Kubrick Legacy provides a tantalizing,
critical snapshot of the enduring impact and influence of one of
the twentieth century's most enigmatic and consummate screen
artists.
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