Skip E. Lowe's memoirs of growing up in Hollywood, traveling all over the world as an entertainer and hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Sexual romps and heartbreaking adventures, this is a memorable, sexy, and poignant look at the lives of the stars when the camera is turned off. Follow the remarkable adventures of Skip E. Lowe through the glory of early Hollywood, New York, Europe, multiple wars, decades of globe-trotting, and non-stop sexual adventures. Artist salons with Paul Bowles, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams... buying produce for Marlon Brando, showering with James Dean, crashing with Barbara Hutton in Tangiers, cooking for Troy Donahue- here is a funny, poignant, and sexy look at the real people behind the celebrity names- from someone who partied, sheltered, and jumped in bed with the best of them. At times outrageously shocking, at times painfully touching, this a memorable read if you have ever wondered about the lives of the Hollywood stars.
Jeffrey Richards examines the cultural, social, economic and technological circumstances that dictated the rise and decline of each successive cycle of Ancient World epics, from the silent film era, to the "golden age" of the 1950s, right up to the present day (Gladiator, 300, Rome). Analysis reveals that historical films are always as much about the time in which they are made as they are about the time in which they are set. The ancient world is often used to deliver messages to the contemporary audience about the present: hostility to totalitarian regimes both Fascist and Communist, concern at the decline of Christianity, support for the new state of Israel, celebrations of equality and democracy, and concern about changing gender roles. The whole adds up to a fresh look at a body of films that people think they know, but about which they will learn a good deal more.
Can looking at disaster and mass death destroy us? Forgetting Lot’s Wife provides a theory and a fragmentary history of destructive spectatorship in the twentieth century. Its subject is the notion that the sight of historical catastrophe can destroy the spectator. The fragments of this history all lead back to the story of Lot’s wife: looking back at the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, she turns into a pillar of salt. This biblical story of punishment and transformation, a nexus of sexuality, sight, and cities, becomes the template for the modern fear that looking back at disaster might petrify the spectator. Although rarely articulated directly, this idea remains powerful in our culture. This book traces some of its aesthetic, theoretical, and ethical consequences. Harries traces the figure of Lot’s wife across media. In extended engagements with examples from twentieth-century theater, film, and painting, he focuses on the theatrical theory of Antonin Artaud, a series of American films, and paintings by Anselm Kiefer. These examples all return to the story of Lot’s wife as a way to think about modern predicaments of the spectator. On the one hand, the sometimes veiled figure of Lot’s wife allows these artists to picture the desire to destroy the spectator; on the other, she stands as a sign of the potential danger to the spectator. These works, that is, enact critiques of the very desire that inspires them. The book closes with an extended meditation on September 11, criticizing the notion that we should have been destroyed by witnessing the events of that day.
Journalist and filmmaker Bill Krohn has been the Los Angeles correspondent for the French magazine Cahiers du cinéma for over forty years. Letters from Hollywood brings together thirty-four of his essays, many of them appearing in English for the first time. Focusing most pieces on a particular director and film, Krohn uses his inside knowledge of the studio system to illuminate an art that is also a multibillion-dollar business. He connects currents in French film criticism and theory with an unfolding account of American cinema past and present, offering penetrating insights into directors and their work. Beginning with Allan Dwan, who learned how to make movies before Hollywood was born by watching D. W. Griffith, Krohn presents a panorama that encompasses Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and Sergio Leone, Star Wars and I Love Lucy. He covers everything from gangsters to gremlins, from blockbusters to no-budget cult films like Moon Over Harlem and Plan 9 from Outer Space, in a style that is accessible to anyone who loves movies, or has a passion for writing about them.
Film Studies: A Global Introduction reroutes film studies from its Euro-American focus and canon in order to introduce students to a medium that has always been global but has become differently and insistently so in the digital age. Glyn Davis, Kay Dickinson, Lisa Patti and Amy Villarejo’s approach encourages readers to think about film holistically by looking beyond the textual analysis of key films. In contrast, it engages with other vital areas, such as financing, labour, marketing, distribution, exhibition, preservation, and politics, reflecting contemporary aspects of cinema production and consumption worldwide. Key features of the book include: clear definitions of the key terms at the foundation of film studies coverage of the work of key thinkers, explained in their social and historical context a broad range of relevant case studies that reflect the book’s approach to global cinema, from Italian "white telephone" films to Mexican wrestling films innovative and flexible exercises to help readers enhance their understanding of the histories, theories, and examples introduced in each chapter an extensive Interlude introducing readers to formal analysis through the careful explication and application of key terms a detailed discussion of strategies for writing about cinema Films Studies: A Global Introduction will appeal to students studying film today and aspiring to work in the industry, as well as those eager to understand the world of images and screens in which we all live.
A teenager in Depression-era Montana with finds danger and adventure with a gangster’s watch in this coming-of-age tale. From the nationally bestselling author of Painted Horses, Malcolm Brooks returns with a soaring, spirited novel set during the summer of Amelia Earhart’s final flight—a tale of American ingenuity and optimism set against the backdrop of a deepening Great Depression . . . The summer of 1937 will be a turning point for fourteen-year-old Houston “Huck” Finn. When he and a friend find a dead body in a local creek, a rare Lindbergh flight watch on its wrist, it seems like a sign. Huck is building his own airplane, a fact he has concealed from his mother. That summer also marks the arrival of his cousin Annelise, sent to live with the family under mysterious circumstances. As it turns out, she has had flying lessons—another sign. As Huck’s airplane takes shape, so does his burgeoning understanding of the world, including the battle over worldliness vs. godliness that has split Annelise from her family, and, in a quieter way, divides Huck’s family too. And meanwhile, there’s the matter of the watch, which it turns out the dead man’s cohort of bank robbers would very much like back. In Brooks’ trademark “lush, breathtaking prose” (San Francisco Chronicle on Painted Horses) and with a winking nod to the Sam Clemens who inspired its hero’s nickname, Cloudmaker is a boisterous, heartfelt novel that brings to life the idealism, inventiveness, traditionalism, and deep contradictions of the American spirit. Praise for Cloudmaker “A sweeping yet personal coming-of-age story. . . . Evocative . . . in pitch-perfect dialect that will immerse readers firmly in Brooks’s beloved American West.” —Shelf Awareness “With a nod to Ivan Doig’s straightforward folksy style, this impressive second novel . . . tells an earnest, heartfelt family story with laugh-out-loud humor, deep-seated family conflicts, and distressing coming-of-age crises. Enthusiastically recommended.” —Library Review (starred review) “Tender friendships and passionate pursuits combine in Cloudmaker—a rich, evocative, soaring novel rooted in particulars and populated with characters so nuanced and real you can’t help but admire and miss them long after you’ve turned the last page.” —Erin Lindsay McCabe, author of USA Today bestseller I Shall Be Near To You “Epic in scope, beautifully crafted in its prose, and always—always—adoring of its cast of unforgettable characters, Cloudmaker is a stunner of a novel. A book that absolutely soars.” —Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Little Faith
As Charlton Heston put it: ‘There’s a temptingly simple definition of the epic film: it’s the easiest kind of picture to make badly.’ This book goes beyond that definition to show how the film epic has taken up one of the most ancient art-forms and propelled it into the modern world, covered in twentieth-century ambitions, anxieties, hopes and fantasies. This survey of historical epic films dealing with periods up to the end of the Dark Ages looks at epic form and discusses the films by historical period, showing how the cinema reworks history for the changing needs of its audience, much as the ancient mythographers did. The form’s main aim has always been to entertain, and Derek Elley reminds us of the glee with which many epic films have worn their label, and of the sheer fun of the genre. He shows the many levels on which these films can work, from the most popular to the specialist, each providing a considerable source of enjoyment. For instance, spectacle, the genre’s most characteristic trademark, is merely the cinema’s own transformation of the literary epic’s taste for the grandiose. Dramatically it can serve many purposes: as a resolution of personal tensions (the chariot race in Ben-Hur), of monotheism vs idolatry (Solomon and Sheba), or of the triumph of a religious code (The Ten Commandments). Although to many people Epic equals Hollywood, throughout the book Elley stresses debt to the Italian epics, which often explored areas of history with which Hollywood could never have found sympathy. Originally published 1984.
The mafia has always fascinated filmmakers and television producers. Al Capone, Salvatore Giuliano, Lucky Luciano, Ciro Di Marzio, Roberto Saviano, Don Vito and Michael Corleone, and Tony Soprano are some of the historical and fictional figures that contribute to the myth of the Italian and Italian-American mafias perpetuated onscreen. This collection looks at mafia movies and television over time and across cultures, from the early classics to the Godfather trilogy and contemporary Italian films and television series. The only comprehensive collection of its type, Mafia Movies treats over fifty films and TV shows created since 1906, while introducing Italian and Italian-American mafia history and culture. The second edition includes new original essays on essential films and TV shows that have emerged since the publication of the first edition, such as Boardwalk Empire and Mob Wives, as well as a new roundtable section on Italy’s “other” mafias in film and television, written as a collaborative essay by more than ten scholars. The edition also introduces a new section called “Double Takes” that elaborates on some of the most popular mafia films and TV shows (e.g. The Godfather and The Sopranos) organized around themes such as adaptation, gender and politics, urban spaces, and performance and stardom.
