IT'S ONLY A MOVIE is as close to an autobiography by Alfred Hitchcock that you could ever have. Drawn from years of interviews with her subject, his friends and the actors who worked with him on such classics as THE BIRDS, PSYCHO and REAR VIEW WINDOW, Charlotte Chandler has created a rich, complex, affectionate and honest picture of the man and his milieu. This is Hitchcock in his own voice and through the eyes of those who knew him better than anyone could.
Hollywood movies are famous for promoting negative stereotypes of all kinds, especially against minorities, women, Southerners, and Christians. To what extent are biographical films selected for production according to certain biases, conscious or unconscious, among the Hollywood elite? An expert on the U.S. film industry gives readers brief synopses of Hollywood biopics produced and/ or released from 1912 through 1994. This survey provides the basis for discussion and analysis. Tracking these one-sided depictions over a longer period of time, the patterns of bias - and the source of the problem - become more clear. The problem appears to be that most of the people who have green-light authority in the U.S. film industry - for either the production and/or distribution of a motion picture - share a common ethnic/religious/cultural background. Thus, the stories of their own cohort and those of all other ethnic, religious and/or cultural groups (whose members seldom achieve positions of power in Hollywood) are being filtered through the cultural sensibilities of a single group. John Cones suggests that the solution could lie in increasing diversity at the highest levels in the U.S. film industry.
One of the New York Times Best True Crime of 2022 A “spellbinding, thriller-like” (Shelf Awareness) history about the invention of the motion picture and the mysterious, forgotten man behind it—detailing his life, work, disappearance, and legacy. The year is 1888, and Louis Le Prince is finally testing his “taker” or “receiver” device for his family on the front lawn. The device is meant to capture ten to twelve images per second on film, creating a reproduction of reality that can be replayed as many times as desired. In an otherwise separate and detached world, occurrences from one end of the globe could now be viewable with only a few days delay on the other side of the world. No human experience—from the most mundane to the most momentous—would need to be lost to history. In 1890, Le Prince was granted patents in four countries ahead of other inventors who were rushing to accomplish the same task. But just weeks before unveiling his invention to the world, he mysteriously disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. Three and half years later, Thomas Edison, Le Prince’s rival, made the device public, claiming to have invented it himself. And the man who had dedicated his life to preserving memories was himself lost to history—until now. The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures pulls back the curtain and presents a “passionate, detailed defense of Louis Le Prince…unfurled with all the cliffhangers and red herrings of a scripted melodrama” (The New York Times Book Review). This “fascinating, informative, skillfully articulated narrative” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) presents the never-before-told history of the motion picture and sheds light on the unsolved mystery of Le Prince’s disappearance.
Exhaustively researched and accessibly written, D.W. Griffith: Master of Cinema is a remarkably comprehensive biography of the legendary director and his days creating his craft at the American Biograph Company between 1908 through 1913. Meticulously detailed, utilizing a wealth of archival documents and photographs, the book effectively details Griffith’s place as a film pioneer. Even a casual film fan can see the lines being drawn from the techniques Griffith developed to modern cinematic experience. Ira Gallen’s exploration of Griffith’s family and his early life sets the stage for his career, and give great context for who he would become. His intricate details about early stage and film paint such a vivid and evocative picture of the time that you will be truly drawn into another world while reading it.
The success of movies like The Artist and Hugo recreated the wonder and magic of silent film for modern audiences, many of whom might never have experienced a movie without sound. But while the American silent movie was one of the most significant popular art forms of the modern age, it is also one that is largely lost to us, as more than eighty percent of silent films have disappeared, the victims of age, disaster, and neglect. We now know about many of these cinematic masterpieces only from the collections of still portraits and production photographs that were originally created for publicity and reference. Capturing the beauty, horror, and moodiness of silent motion pictures, these images are remarkable pieces of art in their own right. In the first history of still camera work generated by the American silent motion picture industry, David S. Shields chronicles the evolution of silent film aesthetics, glamour, and publicity, and provides unparalleled insight into this influential body of popular imagery. Exploring the work of over sixty camera artists, Still recovers the stories of the photographers who descended on early Hollywood and the stars and starlets who sat for them between 1908 and 1928. Focusing on the most culturally influential types of photographs—the performer portrait and the scene still—Shields follows photographers such as Albert Witzel and W. F. Seely as they devised the poses that newspapers and magazines would bring to Americans, who mimicked the sultry stares and dangerous glances of silent stars. He uncovers scene shots of unprecedented splendor—visions that would ignite the popular imagination. And he details how still photographs changed the film industry, whose growing preoccupation with artistry in imagery caused directors and stars to hire celebrated stage photographers and transformed cameramen into bankable names. Reproducing over one hundred and fifty of these gorgeous black-and-white photographs, Still brings to life an entire long-lost visual culture that a century later still has the power to enchant.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter of On the Waterfront recounts his life, his career, and “how Hollywood became the dream factory it still is today” (Kirkus Reviews). When Seymour Wilson “Budd” Schulberg moved from New York to Los Angeles as a child, Hollywood’s filmmaking industry was just getting started. To some, the region was still more famous for its citrus farms than its movie studios. In this iconic memoir, Schulberg, the son of one of Tinseltown’s most influential producers, recounts the rise of the studios, the machinations of the studio heads, and the lives of some of cinema’s earliest and greatest stars. Even as Hollywood grew to become one of the country’s most powerful cultural and economic engines, it retained the feel of a company town for decades. Schulberg’s sparkling recollections offer a unique insider view of both the glitter and dark side of the dream factory’s early years. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Budd Schulberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.
Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was one of the most popular and beloved stars of the American silent screen. Remembered primarily as a comedienne in such films as Ella Cinders (1926) and Orchids and Ermine (1927), Moore's career was also filled with dramatic roles that often reflected societal trends. A trailblazing performer, her legacy was somewhat overshadowed by the female stars that followed her, notably Louise Brooks and Clara Bow. An in-depth examination of Moore's early life and film career, the book reveals the ways in which her family and the times in which she lived influenced the roles she chose. Included are forewords written by film historian Joseph Yranski, a friend of the actress, and by Moore's stepdaughter, Judith Hargrave Coleman.
A favorite locale of such film pioneers as D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford, the historic borough of Fort Lee was the first center of the American motion picture industry. Studios lined both sides of Main Street, and enormous film laboratories fed the nickelodeon market with thousands of reels of comedies and cliffhangers. Broadway stars and producers came here to make many of their first feature-length films; but by the 1920s, Theda Bara, Fatty Arbuckle, and Douglas Fairbanks were gone. Yet even after the studios closed down, the film industry was still the backbone of the local economy, with hundreds working behind the scenes in the printing, storage, and distribution of movies being made in Hollywood.
A narrative account of Elizabeth Taylor's career, with particular attention paid to how the consummate movie star influenced and crafted her image over the years.
The biopic presents a profound paradox—its own conventions and historical stages of development, disintegration, investigation, parody, and revival have not gained respect in the world of film studies. That is, until now. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? boldly proves a critical point: The biopic is a genuine, dynamic genre and an important one—it narrates, exhibits, and celebrates a subject's life and demonstrates, investigates, or questions his or her importance in the world; it illuminates the finer points of a personality; and, ultimately, it provides a medium for both artist and spectator to discover what it would be like to be that person, or a certain type of person. Through detailed analyses and critiques of nearly twenty biopics, Dennis Bingham explores what is at their core—the urge to dramatize real life and find a version of the truth within it. The genre's charge, which dates back to the salad days of the Hollywood studio era, is to introduce the biographical subject into the pantheon of cultural mythology and, above all, to show that he or she belongs there. It means to discover what we learn about our culture from the heroes who rise and the leaders who emerge from cinematic representations. Bingham also zooms in on distinctions between cinematic portrayals of men and women. Films about men have evolved from celebratory warts-and-all to investigatory to postmodern and parodic. At the same time, women in biopics have been burdened by myths of suffering, victimization, and failure from which they are only now being liberated. To explore the evolution and lifecycle changes of the biopic and develop an appreciation for subgenres contained within it, there is no better source than Whose Lives Are They Anyway?
