The rise and fall, life and death, of notorious Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate auteur Michael Cimino were as dramatic as any of his films – and with agent, producer and novelist on his resume, Charles Elton is extremely well qualified to tell his story of art, commerce and ambition.
There’s something of Citizen Kane about this book, its subject ending up alone in his mansion in the Hollywood hills surrounded by the manuscripts of unrealised projects; but there’s no equivalent of Charles Foster Kane’s “Rosebud”, the childhood key which could unlock the adult personality. “I am not who I am,” Cimino once said, “and I am who I am not.” He remains an enigma to the last, and Elton becomes a character in his own narrative – a biographical Philip Marlowe, following clues and tracking down witnesses, asking difficult questions and getting no easy answers. The result of his detective work is a classic of its kind: unconventional, unpredictable and unexpectedly haunting.
The first biography of critically acclaimed then critically derided filmmaker Michael Cimino-and a reevaluation of the infamous film that destroyed his careerThe director Michael Cimino (1939-2016) is famous for two films: the intense, powerful, and enduring Vietnam movie The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979 and also won Cimino Best Director, and Heaven's Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. Originally budgeted at $11 million, Cimino's sprawling western went off the rails in Montana. The picture grew longer and longer, and the budget ballooned to over $40 million. When it was finally released,…
Where Michael Cimino tried to fight the system, Ed Zwick has always worked within it: a maker of intelligent mainstream entertainment, in the mold of his mentor Sydney Pollack – now something of an endangered species in the studio ecosystem.
As well as being an accomplished director, Zwick has also co-written many of his movies (sometimes uncredited), and since those movies include Glory, The Siege, The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond, it’s no surprise that his creative autobiography is elegant, engaging, vivid and candid. He also co-created, with frequent collaborator Marshall Herskovitz, the TV series Thirtysomething, and spent a decade bringing Shakespeare in Love to the screen (worth the cover price all on its own), making this not just a savvy memoir and a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes tales, but an invaluable “How to” (and, equally importantly, how not to) of directing, producing, screenwriting and showrunning.
This heartfelt and wry career memoir from the director of Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Legends of the Fall, About Last Night, and Glory, creator of the show thirtysomething, and executive producer of My So-Called Life, gives a dishy, behind-the-scenes look at working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
"I'll be dropping a few names," Ed Zwick confesses in the introduction to his book. "Over the years I have worked with self-proclaimed masters-of-the-universe, unheralded geniuses, hacks, sociopaths, savants, and saints."
He has encountered these Hollywood types during four decades of directing, producing, and writing projects that have collectively…
In his 2017 Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler collected together capsule biographies of 99 overlooked and underrated writers, and included himself as number 100: “A typical example of the late 20th century mid-list author”. There was, however, nothing typical about Christopher Fowler.
Between 1984 and his death in 2023 at the age of 69, Fowler wrote some 45 novels, two graphic novels, three short story collections and three autobiographies: Paperboy, Film Freak and this funny, moving – and posthumously published – final volume. He also wrote, in his previous career as a film marketer, the tagline for a sci-fi/horror thriller called Alien: “In space, no one can hear you scream”.
Fowler’s own work straddled the horror and thriller genres – and crime, in his popular and long-running series of “Bryant & May” novels about London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit – so it’s appropriate that his valedictory memoir mixes cancer chronicle, pandemic journal and writing handbook with intimate portraits of his partner, friends and family. Sardonic, empathetic, always clear-eyed and never self-pitying, Word Monkey alone should guarantee that its author will not soon be forgotten.
'A delight . . . a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom.' ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The Shadows of London
'Perceptive, wise and illuminating . . . an unmissable farewell.' Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES
'The most hilarious, life-affirming book you'll read this year.' SAGA magazine
'Wit and wisdom that make every page turn . . . what a fine talent the world has lost.' STARBURST
This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'.
It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing…
William Boyd is a defining author of our time, writing whole-life stories that have resonated with millions of passionate readers.
In this probing series of exclusive interviews, author and screenwriter Alistair Owen talks to Boyd about his works and the life that has inspired them, revealing the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the novels.
Their conversations are a deep dive into film, art, theatre, literature, and the life of a writer. This is one of Britain’s most revered authors on what it is to write in a variety of forms.
