Before the sun rises, an artist and her daughter slip out of their cottage into the morning air to explore and record the treasures of their North Carolina barrier island. They sketch, paint, and observe the sights around them and as night falls they return to their cottage, bringing back pieces of their island home to compile this scrapbook of a special time and place.

Today, the director is considered the leading artistic force behind a film. The production of a Hollywood movie requires the labor of many people, from screenwriters and editors to cinematographers and boom operators, but the director as author of the film overshadows them all. How did this concept of the director become so deeply ingrained in our understanding of cinema? In Hollywood's Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra's mantra "one man, one film," the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild's struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood's Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.

Today, the director is considered the leading artistic force behind a film. The production of a Hollywood movie requires the labor of many people, from screenwriters and editors to cinematographers and boom operators, but the director as author of the film overshadows them all. How did this concept of the director become so deeply ingrained in our understanding of cinema? In Hollywood's Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra's mantra "one man, one film," the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild's struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood's Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.

Who decides how, when, and where Americans fall in love and get married? Virginia Wexman's acute observations about movie stars and acting techniques show that Hollywood has often had the most powerful voice in demonstrating socially sanctioned ways of becoming a couple. Until now serious film critics have paid little attention to the impact of performance styles on American romance, and have often treated "patriarchy," "sexuality," and the "couple" as monolithic and unproblematic concepts. Wexman, however, shows how these notions have been periodically transformed in close association with the appearance, behavior, and persona of the stars of films such as "The Maltese Falcon," "The Big Sleep," "Way Down East," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Sunset Boulevard," "On the Waterfront," "Nashville," "House of Games," and "Do the Right Thing."

The author focuses first on the way in which traditional marriage norms relate to authorship (the Griffith-Gish collaboration) and genre (John Wayne and the Western). Looking at male and female stardom in terms of the development of "companionate marriage," she discusses the love goddess and the impact of method acting on Hollywood's ideals of maleness. Finally she considers the recent breakdown of the ideal of monogamous marriage in relation to Hollywood's experimentation with self-reflexive acting styles. "Creating the Couple" is must reading for film scholars and enthusiasts, and it will fascinate everyone interested in the changing relationships of men and women in modern culture.

In outstanding films that are sharply focused on unusual women Jane Campion has gained worldwide admiration and respect. This New Zealand director first attracted international attention with her 1989 film "Sweetie," an acerbic study of two sisters in a wildly dysfunctional family. She followed this in 1990 with the television miniseries "An Angel at My Table," based on the autobiography of New Zealand author Janet Frame. Subsequently released in theatres, the film chronicles the early trials of the young writer. Poor, timid, and physically awkward, Frame was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and was scheduled for a lobotomy, but her success as a writer enabled her to escape this fate and won her fame and acceptance. In 1993 in yet another story about an extraordinary woman, Campion made the award-winning film "The Piano." It starred Holly Hunter as the Victorian mail-order bride who refuses to speak. Arriving in New Zealand with her young daughter, the young Scottish widow confronts isolation in the wilderness and communicates only via her piano until she finds real love in her husband's neighbor, played by Harvey Keitel. Campion next adapted Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady," starring Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, a young American heiress seduced by a decadent pair of expatriates living in Italy.

In this collection of interviews Campion speaks of these films that have given women a revival as a strong screen presence. Campion tells of her early life in Wellington and of her training as a filmmaker in the 1980s at the Australian School of Film and Television. She speaks of those who have influenced her style and her experiences in making movies.

Campion received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1993 and was the first woman director to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Virginia Wright Wexman, a professor of English and Associate Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at University of Illinois, Chicago, has published "Creating the Couple," "Roman Polanski," and "Letter from an Unknown Woman," as well as articles in "Film Quarterly" and "Cinema Journal."

Mikey loves everything about Christmas except one thing--deciding what gift he wants. As Christmas nears he frantically flips the pages of his mother's department store catalogs, looking for a toy that he wants most. Turning to his best friend Charlie for ideas, he finally finds the answer. But will he get what he wants this year? The Christmas Secret is an inspiring Christmas story written in a tone reminiscent of Christmas past--recommend for children and adults alike

Join this very adventurous little bear cub, as she wanders too far from the den in the snow covered mountains of Maine.