Correspondence, ​1945-1984

Akira Kurosawa - Something ​Like an Autobiography
"A ​first rate book and a joy to read.... It's doubtful that a complete understanding of the director's artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to detective fiction." --Variety "For the lover of Kurosawa's movies...this is nothing short of must reading...a fitting companion piece to his many dynamic and absorbing screen entertainments." --Washington Post Book World

Donald Spoto - Rebel
There's ​only one true form of greatness for a man. If he can bridge the gap between life and death... if he can live on after he's died... then maybe he was a great man. Whatever's the truth, you've got to live fast. - James Dean America's most enduring symbol of rebellious youth, James Dean has held the fascination of the public since his tragic death at the age of twenty-four more than forty years ago. In the first complete, fully documented biography of this enigmatic hero, Donald Spoto offers a startlingly revelatory look at the short, greatly misunderstood life of an icon who remains frozen in time. With the cooperation of dozens of family members, friends, lovers, directors and co-stars, Spoto vividly describes Dean's electrifying rise to stardom from his humble roots and midwestern childhood; he delves deeply into the tragic dath of Dean's mother when he was nine and his tumultuous relationship with his father, the devastating effects of which would be played out for the rest of his life. Donald Spoto, author of internationally bestselling biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, describes James Dean's on-and-off screen exploits while filming the classics East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. His authoritative new biography offers an illuminating perspective on the boy/man who remains the eternal teenage rebel.

John Baxter - De ​Niro
According ​to prolific film biographer Baxter (The Hollywood Exiles, etc.), "Rage is Robert De Niro’s gift to the cinema." In this unauthorized, carefully researched biography, Baxter traces the enigmatic actor’s life, starting with his formative years in Greenwich Village, where De Niro tagged along with Italian street gangs and had a complicated relationship with his gay artist father, a fact that Baxter suggests has greatly informed the actor’s choice of morally conflicted characters. Using numerous interviews and anecdotes, Baxter sketches a picture that is never quite flattering, but is empathetic and fascinating. He tells De Niro’s story through the prism of the actor’s most notable cinematic endeavors (including Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) as well as through his biggest failures. As a result, the book is equal parts life story and film analysis. This works to great effect, since De Niro’s artistic choices, many of which involved physical transformations and psychological sparring with his fellow actors, reveal as much, if not more, about his own character as any exposition on the actor’s life experience. As Baxter portrays him, De Niro appears more comfortable being anyone other than himself. His total immersion into characters such as Travis Bickle spooked his co-stars but won him great acclaim, despite what the author describes as a career decline that began with The King of Comedy. In subsequent years, Baxter notes, De Niro has rested on his reputation, choosing mediocre but commercially viable projects that would, in turn, fund his entrepreneurial pursuits in his beloved lower Manhattan neighborhood. De Niro remains one of cinema’s most enduring presences, a human puzzle, perhaps even unto himself.

Ismeretlen szerző - François ​Truffaut
From ​"The 400 Blows" to "Jules and Jim" to "The Last Metro", Francois Truffaut (1932-1984) practically defined the French cinema of his era and was one of the founders of the New Wave which took the industry by storm in the late 1950s. His endlessly touching and romantic films - always tinged by a touch of reflective sadness - made him one of France's favorite and most successful directors. This book traces Truffaut's career and includes rare images drawn from his archives.Every book in "Taschen's Basic Film" series features: an introduction to the director and coverage of every film he or she directed; over 100 scenes from the movies, shots of the director at work, and film posters, with explanatory captions; rare images from around the world; informative text by acknowledged experts; and, a chronology, filmography, and bibliography.

Jurgen Muller - Movies ​of the 30s
Escaping ​reality: the wonderful world of cinema during the Great Depression From Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) to Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), this tome explores a diverse and fascinating era in world cinema. The stock market crash of 1929 had left the America?and the globe?in a devastating depression that would not begin to lift until World War II. With so many jobless, penniless, broken people singing the blues, is it any wonder that Hollywood strove to distract viewers from their misery with comedies like Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), Capra's feel-good Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and the Marx Brothers? hilarious Duck Soup (1933), thrillers such as Hitchcock's seminal The 39 Steps (1935) or Hawks's Scarface (1932), or the epic romantic classic Gone with the Wind (1939)? While American moviegoers flocked to the theaters to escape their troubles and find solace in the magical world of Hollywood movies, filmmakers in Europe were experimenting with new techniques in a medium that had only recently gained sound; Fritz Lang's German Expressionist M (1931) and Jean Renoir's anti-war masterpiece La Grande Illusion (1937) greatly enhanced cinema as an art form, while Leni Riefenstahl's visually stunning Olympia (1936-38) pushed the limits of the medium's technical capacities. It's clear that while the 1930s was a time of poverty and struggle for many people, the world of cinema was much enriched. Film entries include: ? Synopsis ? Film stills and production photos ? Cast/crew listings ? Trivia ? Useful information on technical stuff ? Actor and director bios Plus: a complete Academy Awards list for the decade The editor: J?rgen M?ller studied art history in Bochum, Paris, Pisa, and Amsterdam. He has worked as an art critic, a curator of numerous exhibitions, a visiting professor at various universities, and has published books and numerous articles on cinema and art history. Currently he holds the chair for art history at the University of Dresden, where he lives. M?ller is the series editor for TASCHEN's Movies decade titles.

Jurgen Muller - Movies ​of the 50s
At ​a time when people were terrified of UFOs and Communism, the movie industry was busy producing movies that ranged from film noir to suspense to grandiose musicals; apparently the paranoid public in the 1950s wanted family entertainment and dark, brooding pictures in equal doses. The result is a decade's worth of truly monumental cinema, from Hitchcock masterpieces (Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window) to comedy classics (Tati's Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot) to groundbreaking nouvelle vague films (Godard's Breathless, Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows) and profound, innovative dramas such as Antonioni's L?Avventura, Fellini's La Strada, John Huston's Misfits, and Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Though censorship kept sex safely off-screen, sexy stars such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe provided plenty of heat in Rebel Without a Cause, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes respectively. A survey of the most important films of the 1950s

Jurgen Muller - Movies ​of the 60s
Viva ​María! Positioned precariously between the uptight 50s and the freewheeling 70s, the 1960s marked a turbulent time in the film industry. Though the term "feminism" may not have been ready for prime time, the 1960s were dominated by women’s liberation; from Jane Fonda’s Barbarella to Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde, screen females graduated from decorative accessories to complex, kick-ass personas. Now that audiences were more and more glued to their TV sets and the abolition of the Production Code loosened up the rules about what was "permissible" in cinema, filmmakers had more freedom to explore the possibilities of film as an art form. As was often the case, the Europeans were more daring—the French with Nouvelle Vague directors like Godard and Truffaut, and the Italians with such innovative films as Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Antonioni’s Eclipse—but by the mid-60s the Americans also showed signs of exercising creative liberties, especially in films from young underground directors such as Russ Meyer, John Frankenheimer, and Sam Peckinpah. Meanwhile, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music ushered out the grandiose Hollywood musical era with a bang, the Spaghetti Western became an instant phenomenon, and Bond—James Bond—first appeared on-screen. In true pop art form, the movies of the 60s blurred the lines between art, mass market, and popular culture into a colorful, psychedelic oblivion. Dig it?

Michael Feeney Callan - Robert ​Redford - The Biography
Among ​the most widely admired Hollywood stars of his generation, Redford has appeared onstage and on-screen, in front of and behind the camera, earning Academy, Golden Globe, and a multitude of other awards and nominations for acting, directing, and producing, and for his contributions to the arts. His Sundance Film Festival transformed the world of filmmaking; his films defined a generation. America has come to know him as the Sundance Kid, Bob Woodward, Johnny Hooker, Jay Gatsby, and Roy Hobbs. But only now, with this revelatory biography, do we see the surprising and complex man beneath the Hollywood façade. From Redford’s personal papers—journals, script notes, correspondence—and hundreds of hours of taped interviews, Michael Feeney Callan brings the legendary star into focus. Here is his scattered family background and restless childhood, his rocky start in acting, the death of his son, his star-making relationship with director Sydney Pollack, the creation of Sundance, his political activism, his artistic successes and failures, his friendships and romances. This is a candid, surprising portrait of a man whose iconic roles on-screen (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Natural) and directorial brilliance (Ordinary People, Quiz Show) have both defined and obscured one of the most celebrated, and, until now, least understood, public figures of our time.

Charles Chaplin - My ​Autobiography
As ​a child, Charlie Chaplin was awed and inspired by the sight of the glamorous vaudeville stars passing by his home, and from then on he never lost his ambition to become an actor. Chaplin’s film career as the Little Tramp adored by the whole world is the stuff of legend, but this frank autobiography shows another side: his childhood of grinding poverty in the south London slums and early debut on the music hall stage, his lucky break in America, the struggle to maintain artistic control over his work, the string of failed marriages, and eventual exile from Hollywood after persecution for his left-wing politics and personal scandals. My Autobiography is an evocative and compelling account of one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable lives. ‘Tells so much about this curious, difficult man … a wonderfully vivid imagination’ The New York Times With an Introduction by David Robinson

Simon James - London ​Movie Guide: Walks, Tours and Locations
London ​is one of the most vibrant and versatile film locations in the world and has provided some of the most stunning settings in film history. This comprehensive guide spans decades of cinema in London, from Brief Encounter (1945) to Sherlock Holmes (2009) A delight for both film buffs and London enthusiasts, this practical guide is organized area-by-area - from the heart of the city to the suburbs - so the reader can explore locations close to where they live, work and play. Films range from classic and cult films such as Alfie, A Clockwork Orange and Withnail and I to more recent blockbusters such as Harry Potter and Bridget Jones, and includes the very latest movies filmed in the metropolis, including The Other Boleyn Girl, Sherlock Holmes and Run, Fatboy, Run. Incorporating annotated maps of film hotspots around town, it is now easier than ever to walk, tour and relive your favourite movie moments in London.

Tony Williams - The ​Cinema of George A. Romero
The ​Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead is the first in-depth study in English of the career of this foremost auteur working at the margins of the Hollywood mainstream in the horror genre. In placing Romero's oeuvre in the context of literary naturalism, the book explores the relevance of the director's films within American cultural traditions and thus explains the potency of such work beyond 'splatter movie' models. The author explores the roots of naturalism in the work of Emile Zola and traces this through to the EC Comics of the 1950s and on to the work of Stephen King. In so doing, the book illuminates the importance of seminal Romero texts such as Night of the Living Dead (1968), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1992). This study also includes full coverage of Romero's latest feature, Bruiser (2000), as well as his screenplays and teleplays.

Mark Twain - Roughing ​It
Mark ​Twain's semi-autobiographical travel memoir, "Roughing It" was written between 1870-1871 and subsequently published in 1872. Billed as a prequel to "Innocents Abroad," in which Twain details his travels aboard a pleasure cruise, "Roughing It" documents Twain's early days in the old wild west between the years 1861-1867.

Woody Allen - Getting ​Even
The ​classic, with 316,000 copies sold to date.

J. M. Coetzee - Summertime
South ​African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee's forays into postmodernism haven't always been entirely convincing but Summertime, the third instalment of his 'fictionalised memoir' trilogy, is an impressively audacious piece of writing in which he imagines he is dead. An English biographer who never met Coetzee visits five people who were significant in his subject's life between 1972 and 1977, when Coetzee was establishing himself as a writer. The transcripts of those interviews make up the bulk of the book - and few of the reminescences are positive, about Coetzee's dispassionate exercise in taking himself apart is certainly a thought-provoking approach to a memoir, thogh how much is true (and whether he really thinks people would describe him so disparagingly) is impossible to ascertain. Having Coetzee, in the guise of an interviewee, analyse his own early work also seems indulgent. But there is a relentlessly inwuisitive aspect to this experiment that is quite gripping. (Siobhan Murphy)

Joseph Conrad - Heart ​of Darkness
'The ​reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.' When Charles Marlow agrees to captain a steamer up the Congo in search of the elusive ivory trader Mr Kurtz, it becomes a terrifying journey into both the unknown and his own subconscious. As he travels deeper and deeper into the dense jungle, he begins to sense the presence of this extraordinary and terrible man, and to question the horrifying realities of European imperialism and of human nature itself.

Kenneth Branagh - Beginning
In ​"Beginning," Academy Award nominee Kenneth Branagh charts the ups and downs of a life in acting - a young career that has made him the most acclaimed actor of his generation. Opening with his childhood in working-class Belfast, in a neighborhood of drinkers and dreamers, Branagh describes the fires of early ambition that drew him to the stage and to the plays of Shakespeare. At age twenty-four he founded his own actor's troupe with the goal of performing those plays; at twenty-eight, he directed and starred in the movie of "Henry V," the role that won him international fame. "Beginning" is crammed with colorful anecdotes and insights into the actor's and director's craft, including: Stories about Olivier, Gielgud, Finney, Jacobi, and a private audience with Prince Charles to research the role of Henry VAd-libbing Shakespeare when props are missingThe differences in performing on stage, television, and large-screen filmsA near-miss in landing the role of Mozart in the film "Amadeus": an actor's dream turned nightmareRaising millions from scratch and filming "Henry V" in seven weeksWritten with great humor and a natural storyteller's gift, "Beginning" is an intriguing book for anyone interested in theater and film.

Mark White - Kenneth ​Branagh
From ​humble beginnings, Kenneth Branagh drove himself to dizzy heights of accomplishment. With a West End hit at twenty-one, a lead with the RSC by twenty-three and his own theatre company by twenty-six, no actor of his generation achieved so much so rapidly. And yet no actor has received such relentless criticism. Based on extensive research and numerous interviews, Mark White traces the vicissitudes of Branagh's career, examining his meteoric rise and the accompanying backlash.

Cormac McCarthy - The ​Gardener's Son
In ​the Spring of 1975 the film director Richard Pearce approached Cormac McCarthy with the idea of writing a screenplay. Though already a widely acclaimed novelist, the author of such modern classics as The Orchard Keeper and Child of God, McCarthy had never before written a screenplay. Using nothing more than a few photographs in the footnotes to a 1928 biography of a famous pre-Civil War industrialist as inspiration, the author and Pearce together roamed the mill towns of the South researching their subject. One year later McCarthy finished The Gardener's Son,a taut, riveting drama of impotence, rage, and ultimately violence spanning two generations of mill owners and workers, fathers and sons, during the rise and fall of one of America's most bizarre utopian industrial experiments. Produced as a two-hour film and broadcast on PBS in 1976, The Gardener's Son recieved two Emmy Award nominations and was shown at the Berlin and Edinburgh Film Festivals. This is the first appearance of the film script in book form. Set in Graniteville, South Carolina, The Gardener's Son is the tale of two families: the Greggs, a wealthy family that owns and operates the local cotton mill, and the McEvoys, a family of mill workers beset by misfortune. The action opens as Robert McEvoy, a young mill worker, is having his leg amputated -- the limb mangled in an accident rumored to have been caused by James Gregg, son of the mill's founder. McEvoy, crippled and isolated, grows into a man with a "troubled heart"; consumed by bitterness and anger, he deserts both his job and his family. Returning two years later at the news of his mother's terminal illness, Robert McEvoy arrives only to confront the grave diggers preparing her final resting place. His father, the mill's gardener, is now working on the factory line, the gardens forgotten. These proceedings stoke the slow burning rage McEvoy carries within him, a fury that ultimately consumes both the McEvoys and the Greggs.

Sir Roger Moore - My ​Word is My Bond - A Memoire
The ​quintessential suave hero, Roger Moore has had an extraordinary career that has spanned seven decades, from early television to the golden age of Hollywood and on to international superstardom. Dashing, handsome and every inch the archetypal English gentleman, he is unforgettable as The Saint, as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders! and, of course, as James Bond, making seven blockbusting films as arguably the most debonair of the 007s. For the first time, Roger shares his recollections of playing some of the world's most famous roles alongside a host of legendary stars. With myriad stories from his personal life - from his childhood in London and experiences during the Second World War, to the happy and turbulent times in his later life. Along with anecdotes about his encounters with the stars and his wonderful memories from the heyday of Hollywood, My Word is My Bond is as frank, funny and disarmingly charming as the legend himself.

Marx József - Szabó ​István - Filmek és sorsok
Szabó ​István rendezői névjegye 1960-ban 1 Koncert című vizsgafilmje volt. Azonnal feltűnést keltett. Egy olyan korszakban, amikor Magyarországon a rendezőktől elvitatták az írókkal, képzőművészekkel és zenészekkel egyívású művész rangját. Még az olyan jelentős rendezőktől is, mint Szőts István, Radványi Géza vagy Bán Frigyes, Gertler Viktor, Fábri Zoltán és Máriássy Félix. Ők csak "mesteremberek" voltak, akiket egy hatalom mézesmadzaggal vagy szigorral saját céljai érdekében használt fel. A filmesek azonban már ekkor is ravasz emberek voltak: hiába íratták le a cenzorok ötvenszer-százszor, hogy mi hangozzék el a filmben, a képekre, a színész arcára és az őt körülvevő környezetre nem tudták ráerőszakolni egyébként önmaguk előtt sem mindig világos elvárásaikat. Már amikor Szabó István gimnazista volt, ami pedig az 50-es évek első felére esett, a magyar film több lett, mint lehetőség. Fábri Zoltán Körhintája, benne Törőcsik Mari és Soós Imre tiszta arca, magasan fölébe emelkedett a történetnek, amelynek egyébként a szövetkezetesítést kellett volna propagálnia. Amikor Szabó István pályát választott, elmúlt egy felfedezők kora: tudta már, hogy mi a film, arról azonban fogalma sem volt, hogy miként készül. Ez szerénységre ösztönözte, és Mestere, Máriássy Félix iránti tiszteletre. Holott túlcsorduló öntudata is lehetett volna: akit 1956-ben a Színház- és Filmművészeti Főiskolára felvettek, fejjel magasabbnak érezhette magát korosztálya átlagánál. Nem, a híres Máriássy-osztály nem a látszatok híve volt, hanem a munkáé. Továbbá rájöttek arra, hogy a zárt szakmába együtt könnyebben tudnak bekerülni, mint egyenkint. Felismerésüknek 1960-ban szervezeti kereteket is teremtettek: ez volt a Balázs Béla Stúdió, amely ugyan a kulturális politikai játszma egyik alapja volt, de többre vitte, mint létrehozói gondolták. Felemelkedését olyan művek is elősegíteték, mint Szabó István itt készített két filmje, a Variációk egy témára és a Te. A tehetség utat tört, és Szabó István - nemzedékéből elsőként - játékfilmet rendezhetett. 1966. február 11-én, a rendező huszonhetedik születtsnapja előtt néhány nappal, a közönség elé került egy figyelemre méltó film, az Álmodozások kora, amelyet például Locarnóban is jól fogadtak. Elindult egy pálya... ...Ó, ha ilyen egyszerű lett volna! Ha figyelmen kívül lehetne hagyni, hogy Szabó István az "apátlan nemzedék" tagja, ha nem kellene foglalkozni azzal, amit a kritikusok olykor mint Szabó István "magánmitológiáját" boncolgatták, ha nem tudnánk, hogy Szabó István már első filmjéig több rendszerváltást élt át, ha első filmjeinek újdonsága nem éppen a magyar filmben szokatlan személyesség lenne, nos akkor tényleg problémátlannak lehetne látni a pályakezdést és magát a több mint négy évtizedet átívelő és korántsem lezárt pályát. Akkor elég lett volna, ha feljegyzem mindazt, amit Szabó Istvánról a személyes munkakapcsolat révén tudok, és fölkérem az Olvasót, elemezzük együtt a filmeket, hiszen azok nemcsak a magyar, hanem a világ filmtörténetének is kihagyhatatlan alkotásai. Aztán rájönnénk, hogy elemzésünk száraz és féloldalas lett, mert - adatok hiányában - nem fordítottunk figyelmet az alkotói karakter és a körülmények gondos mérlegelésére. Hiába, neki kell veselkedni a kor és benne a Szabó Istvánra ható "filmszakmai ártalmak" föltárásának. Látnivaló ugyanis, hogy Szabó István egyszerre van bent a bennünket is körülvevő világban, és kint, egy olyan virtuális valóságban, amelyet a filmszalag rögzít, és a mozik sötétjében elevenedik meg. Választ kell keresni még egy olyan egyszerűnek látszó kérdésre is, hogy Szabó István miért csinál filmet. Az alapos kutatás végén magam is meglepődtem, hogy mennyire közhelyes az a kép, amely az "Oscar-díjas" Szabó Istvánról alakult ki, és mennyire eleven és összetett az a személyiség, amely egyik legjelentősebb kortársunkról talán a könyv lapjain is megszületett. 2002. március Marx József Marx József, kritikus és esztéta. 1971 és 1990 között a Budapest Stúdió dramaturgja, az Objektív Stúdió vezetője, a Magyar Filmintézet igazgatója volt. A Vince Kiadó jelentette meg 2000-ben Jancsó Miklós két és több élete című életrajzi esszéjét.