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books : filmmaking.......
Sidney Lumet Making MoviesWoody Allen : A Biography by John Baxter
"Complex, shy and anti-social, lonely guy and womanizer, intellectual sex symbol and angst-ridden comic - all the contradictory elements that make up fillmmaker Allen - are explored in more than 500 pages. And so are the dynamics of Allen's creative processes." from review by Michael Farkash, Hollywood Reporter, May 2, 2001Directed by Dorothy Arzner by Judith Mayne
Alan Ball. American Beauty: The Shooting Script
Marcie Begleiter. From Word To Image : Storyboarding And The Filmmaking Process
Bernie Brillstein. Where Did I Go Right? : You're No One In Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead
"More than a collection of .. anecdotes, the book offers some profound insights -- not just on the entertainment business, but on human nature, the lure of power, and the balance between creativity and organizational ability: all told with candor, in Brillstein's unmistakable, and frequently hilarious voice." (Brillstein is founding partner of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment) [review from Beverly Hills 213]Peter Biskind. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock-'N'-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
Biskind did hundreds of interviews with people who make the president look accessible: Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Geffen, Beatty, Kael, Towne, Altman. He also spoke with countless spurned spouses and burned partners, alleged victims of assault by knife, pistol, and bodily fluids. Rather more responsible than some of his sources, Biskind always carefully notes the denials as well as the astounding stories he has compiled. He tells you about Scorsese running naked down Mulholland Drive after his girlfriend, crying, "Don't leave me!"; grave robbing on the set of Apocalypse Now; Faye Dunaway apparently flinging urine in Roman Polanski's face while filming Chinatown; Michael O'Donoghue's LSD-fueled swan dive onto a patio; Coppola's mad plan for a 10-hour film of Goethe's Elective Affinities in 3-D; the ocean suicide attempt Hal "Captain Wacky" Ashby gave up when he couldn't find a swimsuit that pleased him; countless dalliances with porn stars; Russian roulette games and psychotherapy sessions in hot tubs. But he also soberly gives both sides ample chance to testify. [Amazon.com]Tim Burton Burton on Burton
"Burton once said that he is glad that he never had a particular goal in life, suggesting that by not pursuing one thing, he's been able to do all kinds of things. "The tricky thing about being in the entertainment industry," Burton [said] "is that basically no matter how much money is involved, how good the life is, the thing that still compels you is that thing inside." [barnesandnoble.com bio]Linda Buzzell, M.A., MFCC. How to Make It in Hollywood: All the Right Moves
"Successful people know how to create support for their efforts. Unsuccessful people keep themselves isolated. Failing to build a support system for your career is a serious form of self-sabotage, especially in the entertainment industry..."Gabriel Byrne Pictures in My Head "..executive producer of the Academy Award-nominated 'In the Name of the Father,' leads readers through his career from stage to screen and his current interests in direction and production, and shares his impressions of Hollywood, New York, and his native Ireland."
Jane Campion. Interviews
Frank Capra (Editor), Richard Schickel. The Men Who Made the Movies : Interviews With Frank Capra, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincente Minnelli, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh...
Charles Champlin, et al. George Lucas: The Creative Impulse: Lucasfilm's First Twenty Years
"George Lucas has the best toys of anybody I have ever know, which is why it's so much fun playing over at George's house. ... Lucasfilm touches our lives from so many different directions, descending upon our eyes, our ears and our children. George has never stopped asking, 'Any ideas?' and the whole world has been a better place for it." from Foreword by Steven SpielbergRoger Corman. How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime
David Cronenberg. Cronenberg on Cronenberg
Cameron Crowe Conversations With Wilder "A world-class director interviews the Master, and every line is fascinating. As with Zen and the Art of Archery and other texts about mastery, the shock of pleasure in reading this enlightened and affectionate conversation is the utter simplicity that comes with true mastery. There is laughter too, as with anything first-rate in this form. Wilder and Crowe don't waste time on theory or generalities, and the result--as in their film work--is truth, pure and simple" -Mike Nichols
On Cukor by Gavin Lambert
Carlos de Abreu Opening Doors to Hollywood: How to Sell Your Idea Story, Book, Screenplay, Manuscript
Carole Desbarats Atom Egoyan
Beti Ellerson Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television
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The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans Once considered Hollywood's "Golden Boy," Robert Evans [produced or helped produce] Rosemary's Baby, The Odd Couple, Harold and Maude, The Godfather, Love Story, The Conversation, Chinatown, Marathon Man, Black Sunday, and Urban Cowboy, among others. Most of these accomplishments were accompanied by legendary fights, in which Evans passionately battled over artistic decisions. ...
"He is symbolic of a unique time in Hollywood and moviemaking," said [Brett Morgen, co-director and co-producer of the movie The Kid Stays in the Picture]. "He showed the kind of independent spirit that we think of with these smaller films now, and he was doing that in a studio system. Bob was a huge risk taker." ...
"The moral of the story is never quit. You have to be able to withstand all of that rejection, particularly in the acting world. Bob shows you to never give up. It's 60 years [since Evans began] and he's still got it. He's still in the picture. The essence of the man has not changed. He's incredibly charming and seductive and lives life to the fullest."
[from article Still in the Picture by Jamie Painter Young, backstage.com July 31, 2002]
Mario Falsetto Personal Visions : Conversations With Contemporary Film Directors 17 filmmakers discuss their creative visions, their careers and the state of today's film industry: Neil Jordan; Michael Radford; Tom DiCillo; Atom Egoyan; Alan Rudolph; Lynne Stopkewich; Alison Maclean etc
Mia Farrow. What Falls Away: A Memoir "Drawn by dreams, and some mysterious brew of talent, determination, looks, and luck, our parents came from towns and cities across the United States and Europe too, to their positions in the Hollywood constellation. Once there, in that rarefied setting, it was easy to lose touch with origins, roots, people, perspective."
Terry Gilliam. Gilliam on Gilliam
William Goldman Which Lie Did I Tell : More Adventures in the Screen Trade [Kirkus Reviews:] "Another entertaining hybrid of memoir and screenwriting advice from the two-time Academy Awardwinning writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This sequel to Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade (1983) picks up where the original left off, detailing his Hollywood experiences since the early 1980s and offering new insights into the screenwriter's art." ///
"Bill Goldman has done it again with his highly entertaining and self-deprecating humor. He's one of the best writers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. He takes Hollywood apart -- which, in this case, is a very good thing." -- Clint EastwoodBettina Gray. The Search for Reality: The Art of Documentary Filmaking
Mollie Gregory. Women Who Run the Show: How a Brilliant and Creative New Generation of Women Stormed Hollywood
Documentary film producer and director Gregory interviews over 100 powerful women who've made their mark in film in this hefty book. She organizes it by decade; thus, the 1970s chapter is called "Beachhead," the '80s is "Securing the Perimeter" and the '90s is "Breakthrough." She investigates the barriers women like The Sting producer Julia Phillips came up against and lauds the accomplishments of Mimi Leder, who directed The Peacemaker. Dense and very thorough. [from Publishers Weekly review]Peter Guber, Peter Bart. Shoot Out : Surviving the Fame and Misfortune of Hollywood
"Writing in a direct, refreshing and honest style, Bart (Variety's editor-in-chief and a former v-p for production at Paramount) and Guber (the founder and head of Mandalay Entertainment and one-time production head at Columbia Pictures) offer an intimate view of the film industry and its unending economic, political and artistic clashes. While a reliable guide to the mechanics of movie making, the book is best at telling fascinating illustrative anecdotes... This isn't a tell-all expo a la Julia Phillips's You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, but rather an informal, highly entertaining step-by-step survey of how all the parts of filmmaking fit together. From a succinct history of how TV spots and trailers have been developed to the problem of casting and managing megastars (e.g., Bruce Willis ended up in the huge hit The Sixth Sense because he needed an $18 million loan to get out of an independent film), the authors convey with irony and good humor the reality that "[t]he so-called `creative industries' are big business," but despite the huge economic stakes involved, "the vision keepers will win in the end." [Publishers Weekly]
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Doris Day***** Molly Haskell. Holding My Own in No Man's Land
[Oxford University Press review:] "..challenges the conventional feminist wisdom that the classic films of the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties were made by an industry which was controlled by men and which victimized women.
Instead, she says that women were better served by the notoriously tyrannical studio system than they are in the "newer, freer, hipper Hollywood of the present."
A fascinating interview with Doris Day points out that, despite her current image as a symbol of all that was repressive about the suburban Fifties, she played a series of roles as - and was herself - a successful career woman who worked because she enjoyed it. In another brilliant portrait, Haskell describes the mesmerizing power the sultry, self-parodying
sex symbol Mae West had on screen, and the financial clout she had off screen.And she writes about Howard Hawks's screwball comedies, such as His Girl Friday and Man's Favorite Sport from the Thirties, where assertive women were equal to men, and more than held their own in the battle of the sexes.
[The book] ranges from interviews with Hollywood legends such as Gloria Swanson and John Wayne, to portraits of brilliant comediennes such as Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, to ruminations on literary figures such as Truman Capote and his Holly Golightly,and Jane Austen's Emma.
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Viki King How To Write A Movie In 21 Days: The Inner Movie Method [publisher:] "Viki King is a writer, script consultant, and lecturer. .. she has written for prime-time TV shows.. has wide clientele of screenwriters... lectures at the University of California at Los Angeles .. conducts seminars nationally." [interview]
Camille Landau, Tiare White What They Don't Teach You at Film School : 161 Strategies for Making Your Own Movie No Matter What "Camille Landau and Tiare White are graduates of the USC film school and the American Film Institute. Together they have made over 30 short films, many of which have won awards in festivals throughout the world."
Frederick Levy Hollywood 101 : The Film Industry [the author:] "Why I wrote this book... I was just 17 years old when I first moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film business. At that time, I didn't know a soul and I had to start at the very bottom and work my way up. Today I am the Vice President of a feature film production company and have worked on such films as TITANIC and REINDEER GAMES. Making it in Hollywood IS possible and I've written this guidebook to help others follow and achieve their show business dreams."
Art Linson. What Just Happened? : Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line
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"In this latest addition to the spate of Hollywood tell-alls, the producer of The Untouchables and Fight Club details the planning, handholding and power games involved in making movies. ... Although Linson's book lacks the polish of William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade or the all-around savvy of Peter Bart and Peter Guber's Shoot Out, it provides a decent bird's-eye view on what a producer actually does and the pressures it involves. [Publishers Weekly]
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| "I
wanted to let the audience and the industry know about these
spectacular women and their achievements. I hope to encourage young
women to go where too few have gone before -- making movies -- and
fully exploit all the opportunities today's film industry offers."
Helena Lumme |
Great Women of Film celebrates 30 maverick women who have made a difference in the motion picture industry. From actors to directors to producers and screenwriters, cinematographers and film editors to composers and lyricists, production designers and costume designers to makeup artists and visual-effects technicians ... features incisive interviews, entertaining anecdotes, and personal reflections... | photos l-r: Helena Lumme, Kasi Lemmons, Jodie Foster photos and quotes from book site by Helena Lumme, Mika Manninen |
Helena Lumme. Screenwriters : America's Storytellers in Portrait "salutes the men and women who have created hundreds of America's most beloved films. For the first time in the history of the much-documented film industry, this landmark book celebrates - in spectacular photographs and in the screenwriters' own unforgettable words - 47 of the film world's best writers including 18 Academy Award winners and 36 nominees for Best Screenplay."[on Ida Lupino:] Annette Kuhn. Queen of the 'B's
David Lynch Lynch on Lynch "I don't want to give the impression that I sit around thinking up horrible things. I get all kinds of different ideas and feelings. If I'm lucky, they start organizing themselves into a story--then maybe some ideas come along that are too eerie, too violent, or too funny, and they don't fit that story. So you write them down and save them for two or three projects down the road. There's nowhere you can't go in a film -- if you think of it, you can go there."
David Mamet. On Directing Film
According to David Mamet, a film director must, above all things, think visually. Most of this instructive and funny book is written in dialogue form and based on film classes Mamet taught at Columbia University.Penny Marshall : An Unauthorized Biography by Lawrence Crown
Mike Medavoy. You're Only as Good as Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot
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 .. .. Something of a one-man studio, Meyer produced, directed, financed, wrote, edited and shot 23 tantalizing but teasing films that pioneered a genre of skinflicks with much violence and large-busted women but little sex. The titles of the X-rated fare that made him millions are descriptive -- "The Immoral Mr. Teas," "Erotica," "Wild Gals of the Naked West," "Heavenly Bodies," "Mudhoney," "Mondo Topless," "Common Law Cabin," "Supervixens" and "Europe in the Raw." |
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wonder that Time magazine critic Richard Corliss called Meyer's films
"bosomacious melodramas" or that Meyer came to be viewed as an auteur. His movies were discussed in classes at Yale and Harvard, and purchased by such respectable institutions as the New York Museum of Modern Art. > from obituary - Russ Meyer, 82; Iconic Sexploitation Filmmaker - By Myrna Oliver, Los Angeles Times Sept 22, 2004 > photo at right : Russ Meyer directs Francesca (Kitten) Natividad on the set of "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens." Stan Berkowitz/LAT
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Movies of the 90s by Jürgen Müller [publisher review:] ...With a total of 140 movies covering the years 1991 to 2000,
this guide takes you from The Silence of the Lambs to Shall We Dance? to Magnolia,
covering a wide range of genres, budgets, and cultures, and revealing details
from behind the scenes. ... full of photos and film stills.Zhang Ziyi in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" // related article: Warrior Women On Screen
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Julia Phillips. You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
John Pierson. Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes : A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema "John Pierson--who is responsible for getting films such as Michael Moore's Roger & Me and Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It produced--provides an account of what goes on behind the scenes in independent filmmaking. "Mr. Pierson covers his territory with urgency and conviction."--New York Times Book Review.
Satyajit Ray Our Films Their Films "The late Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray veered from the oft-traveled route of his compatriots and eschewed the conventions of Indian movies, which are mostly two-and-a-half-hour melodramas featuring the latest star, pop songs, and dances. Ray's was a more serious, socially conscious cinema examining contemporary issues. His first features, the famous Apu trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apu Sansar), introduced Indian film to the West and made Ray a cultural hero in India. These essays written over a period of 25 years reflect Ray's insights into Indian cinema, his own career, and such other great filmmakers as Charles Chaplin, Jean Renoir, the Italian neorealists, Akira Kurasawa, and John Ford."
Judith Redding Film Fatales: Independent Women Directors
Robert Rodriguez Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player
James Russell Screen & Stage Marketing Secrets [review by a Literary Agent:] "There should be a written guide so screenwriters can learn how to submit scripts, professionally... [this] is the book!" // [screenwriter:] "I was surprised to discover many things I was doing wrong... [this] is the only book for writers to insure query letters and scripts are submitted professionally. The book absolutely increases the impact of your query letters, log lines and script writing in a powerful way."
Delia Salvi. Friendly Enemies: Maximizing the Director-Actor Relationship
[publisher:] Professor, acting coach, and actress Delia Salvi shows today’s young film and television directors how to overcome the obstacles and meet the challenges of working with actors effectively and successfully. Based on the popular course she teaches at UCLA, seven comprehensive chapters provide proven guidance on such key topics as understanding the actor, the director’s preparation, casting, rehearsals, and working on the set. An additional chapter features directors’ notes, character analysis, and a scene breakdown from a section of the movie classic On the Waterfront.
Finally, Friendly Enemies features fascinating one-on-one interviews with entertainment professionals including: Burt Brinckerhoff, well-known producer and director of the successful television series Seventh Heaven and director of over 46 legendary television shows; Tom Holland, Emmy-winning director of Malcolm in the Middle, as well as The Larry Sanders Show and Twin Peaks; Geena Davis, star of The Accidental Tourist, Thelma and Louise, and A League of Their Own; Anthony Franciosa; Barry Primus, who has recently appeared in the films Life as a House and 15 Minutes, as well as such television shows as The Practice, X-Files, and Law and Order.
Delia Salvi is a full professor at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television. She is also a professional acting coach whose students include Geena Davis, Craig Berko, and Mia Sara.
John Sayles Sayles on SaylesMartin Scorsese Scorsese on Scorsese | Martin Scorsese: Interviews
Steven Soderbergh, Richard Lester. Getting Away With It
[Amazon.com summary:] "..a hilarious, insightful conversation between two visionary directors, Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester, about the manifold joys and hardships of being a filmmaker."Donald Spoto. The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
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The Whole Equation : A History of Hollywood - by David Thomson So much writing about the movies is sub-literate piffle of either the academic or the journalistic kind. The sheen and sparkle of Thomson's prose, the way it gracefully asserts his particular sensibility, deserve celebration. That said, however, I think the conceit driving his book -- Fitzgerald's romantic belief that there actually is a "whole equation" that will explain the movies -- is nonsense. ... a fact that Fitzgerald himself more or less acknowledged when he wrote that Hollywood could be understood "only dimly and in flashes."
What Thomson has given us... is one of those flashes, a bright flicker of lightning illuminating a darkling plain, the monuments of which are almost universally of a particular kind.
> from review by Richard Schickel, Los Angeles Times Dec 12 2004
> related books :
Movies : The history of an art and an institution - by Richard Schickel
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film - by David Thomson~ ~ ~ ~
Michael Tobias. The Search for Reality: The Art of Documentary Filmaking
"..a deeply personal anthology of thirty-six essays and two interviews, written by leading artists and professionals, all about the theme of creating documentary films. The filmmakers include people like David Wolper, Frederick Wiseman, Albert Maysles, Godfrey Reggio, the Swedish filmmaker Stefan Jarl, the Australian Jeremy Hogarth, and Tobias himself. Virtually every aspect of the art is talked about: history, artistic vision, business, communicating with the public, films as tools for social change, and much more." [review by by Michael K. Pastore]Christine Vachon. Shooting to Kill : How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter
Agnes Varda by Alison Smith
Richard Walter Escape from Film School (fiction)
[from Kirkus review:] "The chairman of UCLA's film- and television-writing program debuts with (what else?) the story of a hapless film student who stumbles into fortune and, eventually, modest fame. Queens-born Stuart Thomas is fleeing the Vietnam-era draft when he bursts into the University of Southern California's Department of Cinema in August of 1966. He's just looking for a place to hide, but he winds up with a student deferment and work on a student-made porn film." // "Sassy, savvy, and super-quick, Richard Walter's mind is a pleasure to follow in any context, and his perspective on the biz only heightens the fun!" -- screenwriter Ron Bass
*<videos / dvds:AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies: American Film Institute (CBS Television Special)
A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
The Making of "Jurassic Park" - James Earl Jones
Visions of Light - The Art of Cinematography - Conrad L. Hall
<<< more*videos
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