Mike Nichols and the Cinema of Transformation

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Author :
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476616426
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Mike Nichols and the Cinema of Transformation by : J.W. Whitehead

Download or read book Mike Nichols and the Cinema of Transformation written by J.W. Whitehead and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-05-21 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mike Nichols burst onto the American cultural scene in the late 1950s as one half of the comic cabaret team of Nichols and May. He became a Broadway directing sensation, then moved on to Hollywood, where his first two films—Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Graduate (1967)—earned a total of 20 Academy Award nominations. Nichols won the 1968 Oscar for Best Director and later joined the rarefied EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) club. He made many other American cinematic classics, including Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), and his late masterpieces for HBO, Wit (2001) and Angels in America (2003). Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh regard him with reverence. This first full-career retrospective study of this protean force in the American arts begins with the roots of his filmmaking in satirical comedy and Broadway theatre and devotes separate chapters to each of his 20 feature films. Nichols’ permanent achievements are his critique of the ways in which culture constructs conformity and his tempered optimism about individuals’ liberation by transformative awakening.

Mike Nichols

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399562249
Total Pages : 720 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Mike Nichols by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Mike Nichols written by Mark Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle finalist • One of People's top 10 books of 2021 • An instant New York Times bestseller • Named a best book of the year by NPR and Time A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges—some of the worst largely unknown until now—by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends. Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he was sent along with his younger brother to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed. The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem. Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.

Mike Nichols

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0399562265
Total Pages : 689 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Mike Nichols by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Mike Nichols written by Mark Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time • A National Book Critics Circle finalist • One of People's top 10 books of 2021 • An instant New York Times bestseller • Named a best book of the year by NPR and Time A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges—some of the worst largely unknown until now—by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends. Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he was sent along with his younger brother to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed. The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem. Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.

Focus On: 100 Most Popular English-language Film Directors

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Author :
Publisher : e-artnow sro
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 2028 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Focus On: 100 Most Popular English-language Film Directors by : Wikipedia contributors

Download or read book Focus On: 100 Most Popular English-language Film Directors written by Wikipedia contributors and published by e-artnow sro. This book was released on with total page 2028 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Focus On: 100 Most Popular United States National Medal of Arts Recipients

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Author :
Publisher : e-artnow sro
ISBN 13 : 4057664149
Total Pages : 2015 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (576 download)

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Book Synopsis Focus On: 100 Most Popular United States National Medal of Arts Recipients by : Wikipedia contributors

Download or read book Focus On: 100 Most Popular United States National Medal of Arts Recipients written by Wikipedia contributors and published by e-artnow sro. This book was released on with total page 2015 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A Study Guide for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (lit-to-film)

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Author :
Publisher : Gale, Cengage Learning
ISBN 13 : 1410392732
Total Pages : 21 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis A Study Guide for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (lit-to-film) by : Gale, Cengage Learning

Download or read book A Study Guide for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (lit-to-film) written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (lit-to-film), excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

Showman of the Screen

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Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813168724
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis Showman of the Screen by : A. T. McKenna

Download or read book Showman of the Screen written by A. T. McKenna and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short, immaculately dressed, and shockingly foul-mouthed, Joseph E. Levine (1905--1987) was larger than life. He rose from poverty in Boston's West End to become one of postwar Hollywood's most prolific independent promoters, distributors, and producers. Alternately respected and reviled, this master of movie promotion was responsible for bringing films as varied as Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), Hercules (1958), The Graduate (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and A Bridge Too Far (1977) to American audiences . In the first biography of this controversial pioneer, A. T. McKenna traces Levine's rise as an influential packager of popular culture. He explores the mogul's pivotal role in many significant industry innovations from the 1950s to the 1970s, examining his use of saturation release tactics and bombastic advertising campaigns. Levine was also a trailblazer in promoting European art house cinema in the 1960s. He made Federico Fellini's 81⁄2 (1963) a hit in America, feuded with Jean-Luc Godard over their production of Contempt (1963), and campaigned aggressively for Sophia Loren to become the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign language performance for her role in Two Women (1960). Despite his significant accomplishments and prominent role in shaping film distribution and promotion in the post-studio era, Levine is largely overlooked today. McKenna's in-depth biography corrects misunderstandings and misinformation about this colorful figure, and offers a sober assessment of his contributions to world cinema. It also illuminates Levine's peculiar talent for movie- and self-promotion, as well as his extraordinary career in the motion picture business.

New Wave, New Hollywood

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501360388
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis New Wave, New Hollywood by : Nathan Abrams

Download or read book New Wave, New Hollywood written by Nathan Abrams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a period of film history, The American New Wave (ordinarily understood as beginning in 1967 and ending in 1980) remains a preoccupation for scholars and audiences alike. In traditional accounts, it is considered to be bookended by two periods of conservatism, and viewed as a (brief) period of explosive creativity within the Hollywood system. From Bonnie and Clyde to Heaven's Gate, it produced films that continue to be watched, discussed, analysed and poured over. It has, however, also become rigidly defined as a cinema of director-auteurs who made a number of aesthetically and politically significant films. This has led to marginalization and exclusion of many important artists and filmmakers, as well as a temporal rigidity about what and who is considered part of the 'New Wave proper'. This collection seeks to reinvigorate debate around this area of film history. It also looks in part to demonstrate the legacy of aesthetic experimentation and political radicalism after 1980 as part of the 'legacy' of the New Wave. Thanks to important new work that questions received scholarly wisdom, reveals previously marginalised filmmakers (and the films they made), considers new genres, personnel, and films under the banner of 'New Wave, New Hollywood', and reevaluates the traditional approaches and perspectives on the films that have enjoyed most critical attention, New Wave, New Hollywood: Reassessment, Recovery, Legacy looks to begin a new discussion about Hollywood cinema after 1967.

Phases of the Moon

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Author :
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474441130
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Phases of the Moon by : Craig Ian Mann

Download or read book Phases of the Moon written by Craig Ian Mann and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the first academic monograph dedicated to developing a cultural understanding of the werewolf film.

ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May

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Author :
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474440207
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May by : Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Download or read book ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May written by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-24 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning from obscurity to notoriety, the films of director, screenwriter, actor and comic Elaine May have recently experienced a long-overdue renaissance. Although she made only four films - A New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Mikey and Nicky (1976) and Ishtar (1987) - and never reached the level of acclaim of her frequent collaborator Mike Nichols, May's work is as enigmatic, sophisticated and unceasingly fascinating as her own complicated, reluctant star persona. This collection focuses both on the films she has directed, and also emphasises her work with other high profile collaborators such as John Cassavetes, Warren Beatty and Otto Preminger.

Mike Nichols

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Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0399562265
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Mike Nichols by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Mike Nichols written by Mark Harris and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle finalist • One of People's top 10 books of 2021 • An instant New York Times bestseller • Named a best book of the year by NPR and Time A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges—some of the worst largely unknown until now—by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four consecutive hit plays, won back-to-back Tonys, ushered in a new era of Hollywood moviemaking with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and followed it with The Graduate, which won him an Oscar and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever. At thirty-five, he lived in a three-story Central Park West penthouse, drove a Rolls-Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, and Richard Avedon as friends. Where he arrived is even more astonishing given where he had begun: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he was sent along with his younger brother to America on a ship in 1939. The young immigrant boy caught very few breaks. He was bullied and ostracized--an allergic reaction had rendered him permanently hairless--and his father died when he was just twelve, leaving his mother alone and overwhelmed. The gulf between these two sets of facts explains a great deal about Nichols's transformation from lonely outsider to the center of more than one cultural universe--the acute powers of observation that first made him famous; the nourishment he drew from his creative partnerships, most enduringly with May; his unquenchable drive; his hunger for security and status; and the depressions and self-medications that brought him to terrible lows. It would take decades for him to come to grips with his demons. In an incomparable portrait that follows Nichols from Berlin to New York to Chicago to Hollywood, Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion. Among the 250 people Harris interviewed: Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tom Hanks, Candice Bergen, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Lorne Michaels, and Gloria Steinem. Mark Harris gives an intimate and evenhanded accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art.

Turner Classic Movies: The Essentials

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Author :
Publisher : Running Press Adult
ISBN 13 : 0762459468
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (624 download)

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Book Synopsis Turner Classic Movies: The Essentials by : Jeremy Arnold

Download or read book Turner Classic Movies: The Essentials written by Jeremy Arnold and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At head of title: TCM Turner Classic Movies.

Mike Nichols

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 019937581X
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Mike Nichols by : Kyle Stevens

Download or read book Mike Nichols written by Kyle Stevens and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With iconic movies like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, and Carnal Knowledge, Mike Nichols was the most prominent American director during the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism argues that he overhauled the style of psychological realism, and, in doing so, continues to shape the legacies of Hollywood cinema. It also reveals that misreadings of his films were central to foundational debates at the emergence of Cinema Studies as a discipline, inviting new reflections on critical dogma. Focusing on Nichols' classic movies, as well as later films such as Silkwood, The Birdcage, and Angels in America, Kyle Stevens demonstrates that Nichols' realism lies not in the plausibility of his characters but in their inherent mystery. By attending to the puzzling words and silences, breaths and laughter, that comprise these characters, Stevens uncovers new insights into the subversive potential of a range of cinematic elements, and reveals how Nichols' satirical oeuvre, and Hollywood itself, participated in several of the nation's most urgent social, political, and philosophical advances.

Five Came Back

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698151577
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis Five Came Back by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Five Came Back written by Mark Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a Netflix original documentary series, also written by Mark Harris: the extraordinary wartime experience of five of Hollywood's most important directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II and were changed by it forever Here is the remarkable, untold story of how five major Hollywood directors—John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra—changed World War II, and how, in turn, the war changed them. In a move unheard of at the time, the U.S. government farmed out its war propaganda effort to Hollywood, allowing these directors the freedom to film in combat zones as never before. They were on the scene at almost every major moment of America’s war, shaping the public’s collective consciousness of what we’ve now come to call the good fight. The product of five years of scrupulous archival research, Five Came Back provides a revelatory new understanding of Hollywood’s role in the war through the life and work of these five men who chose to go, and who came back. “Five Came Back . . . is one of the great works of film history of the decade.” --Slate “A tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war.” --The New York Times

Reinventing Cinema

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Author :
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813548543
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis Reinventing Cinema by : Chuck Tryon

Download or read book Reinventing Cinema written by Chuck Tryon and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-29 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, movies have played an important role in our lives, entertaining us, often provoking conversation and debate. Now, with the rise of digital cinema, audiences often encounter movies outside the theater and even outside the home. Traditional distribution models are challenged by new media entrepreneurs and independent film makers, usergenerated video, film blogs, mashups, downloads, and other expanding networks. Reinventing Cinema examines film culture at the turn of this century, at the precise moment when digital media are altering our historical relationship with the movies. Spanning multiple disciplines, Chuck Tryon addresses the interaction between production, distribution, and reception of films, television, and other new and emerging media.Through close readings of trade publications, DVD extras, public lectures by new media leaders, movie blogs, and YouTube videos, Tryon navigates the shift to digital cinema and examines how it is altering film and popular culture.

Pictures at a Revolution

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 9781594201523
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Pictures at a Revolution by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Pictures at a Revolution written by Mark Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the cultural revolution behind the making of 1967's five Best Picture-nominated films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde, in an account that discusses how the movies reflected period beliefs about race, violence, and identity. 40,000 first printing.

Down and Dirty Pictures

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439127107
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Down and Dirty Pictures by : Peter Biskind

Download or read book Down and Dirty Pictures written by Peter Biskind and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “dishy…superbly reported” (Entertainment Weekly) New York Times bestseller, Peter Biskind chronicles the rise of independent filmmakers who reinvented Hollywood—most notably Sundance founder Robert Redford and Harvey Weinstein, who with his brother, Bob, made Miramax Films an indie powerhouse. As he did in his acclaimed Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind “takes on the movie industry of the 1990s and again gets the story” (The New York Times). Biskind charts in fascinating detail the meteoric rise of the controversial Harvey Weinstein, often described as the last mogul, who created an Oscar factory that became the envy of the studios, while leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. He follows Sundance as it grew from a regional film festival to the premier showcase of independent film, succeeding almost despite the mercurial Redford, whose visionary plans were nearly thwarted by his own quixotic personality. Likewise, the directors who emerged from the independent movement, such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and David O. Russell, are now among the best-known directors in Hollywood. Not to mention the actors who emerged with them, like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurman. Candid, controversial, and “sensationally entertaining” (Los Angeles Times) Down and Dirty Pictures is a must-read for anyone interested in the film world.