Here are 10 books that The New Biographical Dictionary of Film fans have personally recommended if you like
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.
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I am a film fan and scholar who has a joyful yet complex relationship with Hollywood. I have basked in the classics of Hollywood’s Golden Age (1930s-1950s) from my teen years on, including the musical delights of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the screwball comedies of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, the magnificent Universal monsters, and the deliciously dark creativity of film noir. Reading about the history of Hollywood has helped me enjoy this pastime even more, learning everything from economics and politics to method and form. The more I know, the richer grows my interest in both the past and present of that unique institution we call Hollywood.
Film critic Molly Haskell provides an excellent narrative overview of the major eras, themes, and issues related to women in film, with particular emphasis on Hollywood’s best, worst, and most complex images and genres.
I especially like the section on “The Women’s Film” as it explains the form and function of melodramas, a.k.a. “the weepies,” which later became “the chick flick.” These films that focus on women’s lives and emotions both limit the way women were (and sometimes still are) portrayed on the big screen while simultaneously centering women’s lives in ways too few films have.
Join Haskell on a trip from the 1920s-1980s, full of strong, honest opinions on the images of women that mainstream Hollywood has offered.
A revolutionary classic of feminist cinema criticism, Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape remains as insightful, searing, and relevant as it was the day it was first published. Ranging across time and genres from the golden age of Hollywood to films of the late twentieth century, Haskell analyzes images of women in movies, the relationship between these images and the status of women in society, the stars who fit these images or defied them, and the attitudes of their directors. This new edition features both a new foreword by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis and a new introduction…
It all goes back to growing up in the 1970s, when PBS would show the same handful of classic foreign movies over and over—Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini. And there was the rest of TV, too, where I discovered John Ford, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and much more. On the late late show, you could usually find Casablanca. I saw Kubrick’s 2001 a few years after it came out and was knocked out by the first mainstream movie that asked its viewers to wonder—to actively speculate in awestruck fashion about what was happening on screen. The movies have always been a passion for me. The movie screen is where we dream and float away and sink within ourselves all at once. As the critic David Thomson put it, “Not even heroin or the supernatural ever went this far.”
If I had to pick the two most basic, and most enthralling, essays for understanding American movies, they would be Warshow’s "The Westerner" and "The Gangster," both included in this book. Warshow, who died tragically young, also gives us the two finest pieces ever written about Chaplin, in which he argues that the flaws and stresses in Chaplin’s film art somehow make it more, not less, impressive. Add Warshow’s properly skeptical account of Soviet cinema—he is appreciative, but also aware of how Communist ideology distorted Soviet film—and you have the very best from a star among the New York intellectuals.
This collection of essays, which originally appeared as a book in 1962, is virtually the complete works of an editor of Commentary magazine who died, at age 37, in 1955. Long before the rise of Cultural Studies as an academic pursuit, in the pages of the best literary magazines of the day, Robert Warshow wrote analyses of the folklore of modern life that were as sensitive and penetrating as the writings of James Agee, George Orwell, and Walter Benjamin. Some of these essays--notably "The Westerner," "The Gangster as Tragic Hero," and the pieces on the New Yorker, Mad Magazine, Arthur…
I have taught philosophy and film for almost 40 years, first at Ohio State and then at Notre Dame. My focus had been German cinema, but I was drawn to Hitchcock for three reasons: first, he received his origins in Weimar Germany and owes much to German expressionism; second, his films are so cinematically beautiful and effective that I began teaching them again and again, and the students loved them; finally, I thought it worthwhile and a fun project to address the extent to which his films raise deep and engaging philosophical questions.
With the exception of the prefatory material, which one can skip, this is one of the very best books on Hitchcock.
It is beautifully written and attentive to cinematic details and larger themes. It offers rich interpretations of several central films, with the first half focused on close interpretation and the second half, written later in Wood’s career, more orientated toward Marx, Freud, and gay studies.
Though the book is uneven, it contains some of the best analyses one will ever read of Hitchcock’s major films.
When "Hitchcock's Films" was first published, it quickly became known as a new kind of book on film - one that came to be considered a necessary text in the Hitchcock bibliography. When Robin Wood returned to his writings on Hitchcock's films and published "Hitchcock's Films Revisited" in 1989, the multi-dimensional essays took on a new shape - one that was tempered by Wood's own development as a critic. This new revised edition of "Hitchcock's Films Revisited" includes a substantial new preface in which Wood reveals his personal history as a film scholar - including his coming out as a…
It all goes back to growing up in the 1970s, when PBS would show the same handful of classic foreign movies over and over—Bergman, Truffaut, Fellini. And there was the rest of TV, too, where I discovered John Ford, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and much more. On the late late show, you could usually find Casablanca. I saw Kubrick’s 2001 a few years after it came out and was knocked out by the first mainstream movie that asked its viewers to wonder—to actively speculate in awestruck fashion about what was happening on screen. The movies have always been a passion for me. The movie screen is where we dream and float away and sink within ourselves all at once. As the critic David Thomson put it, “Not even heroin or the supernatural ever went this far.”
Virtually any volume in the BFI Film Classics series—now sadly defunct--is worth recommending. But I’m especially fond of this one, about Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu)--my favorite movie along with Kubrick’s 2001 (a very different kind of film!). Perkins explores each of the film’s characters, bringing out the full dimensions of Renoir’s humanism, his grand comic flair, and the bittersweet aura of this great movie completed as World War II was about to engulf Europe.
Renoir's famous and controversial comedy of manners has a troubled history. Victor Perkins presents here a sensitive socio-historical study of Renoir's revised edition of the film, released 20 years after its premiere; shaped by the profundity and originality of its form.
I am a nonfiction writer who aims to bring heart to my writing. If I can move the reader and enable them to connect to their inner world, then I consider that I have been successful. As I consider my purpose is rehabilitating women whom history has mistreated, my way into these misunderstood women is to examine their inner lives. What moves them and how they manage to survive and surmount their own heartbreak is the question that I am most interested in.
I can not praise Edward St Aubyn highly enough. He is one of my favourite authors; I love his writing because it is heart-stoppingly true and affecting.
He portrays dysfunctional family dynamics with blistering accuracy, and I felt less alone reading this because I have been haunted by my own ancestral patterns repeating themselves through generations. I not only find St Aubyn laugh-out-loud funny, but he is also a brilliant observer of social mores.
Somehow, this book manages to be anti-spiritual while being one of the most spiritually aware books I have read. I love that St Aubyn does not try to make himself likable as a writer. There’s a ruthless fearlessness to his truth that I admire, which adds to his humanity.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mother's Milk is the fourth of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick.
The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife Mary consumed by motherhood, his mother in thrall to a New Age foundation, and his young son Robert understanding far more than he should. But even as the family struggles against the pull of its ever-present past, a new generation brings…
I am a recovered (not “recovering”) addict and writer. These days I write historical fiction because I enjoy an escape from present-day reality, and research is fun. But I started writing as a way to make sense of my chaotic world and in hopes of healing myself. Something was broken inside me, and I didn’t know how to fix it. So I wrote about the shadowy realms of my life and kept on writing until somehow I was able to let go of the past and create a different life, one which would not land me upside down in a ditch with my neck broken and my tires spinning.
Of this set of books, the first two are my faves. Who needs horror when it’s right here in St. Aubyn’s horrific childhood with his creepy father?
It becomes perfectly understandable why the young Edward dove into a life of utter self-destruction. When he becomes a drug addict, his sheer self-obliteration reaches epic proportions. I have to admit, I was awed. It’s not so much the stories of his sick father and oblivious mother or his gleeful romp through degradation that compelled me to keep reading. It’s the writing. These are the best descriptions of drug use that I’ve ever come across.
The writing reminded me of my favorite movie, Trainspotting, which managed to visually convey the effects of heroin addiction in a similar way.
Filmed for Sky Atlantic, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Patrick Melrose Novels is the complete collection of Edward St Aubyn's award-winning novels of childhood trauma and aristocratic decandence. This Picador Classics edition features an introduction by Zadie Smith.
Patrick slid back down in his chair and sprawled in front of the view. He noticed how his tears cooled as they ran down his cheeks. Washed eyes and a tired and empty feeling. Was that what other people meant by peaceful?
Collected here together in a single volume are the complete Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St Aubyn, Never Mind, Bad News,…
I’m an academic who has written medical textbooks and medical research papers, but I also have an enduring passion for murder mysteries. As Hugh Greene I have written the bestselling Dr. Power mystery series which follows forensic psychiatrist Dr. Power and Detective Lynch solving murders and exploring the minds that executed these crimes.
I love the supernatural element to this much-loved murder mystery.
This mystery pushes against the constraints of Knox’s Ten Commandments for detective fiction by involving the supernatural, but the Commandments are never wholly transgressed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle drew on the folklore of Devon where the book is set.
He drew on the legend of the cursed squire of Buckfastleigh and a hellhound, a variant of the local Yeth hound, a spectral black dog. The folklore infuses the mystery with a ghostly and altogether wonderful hinterland. Dartmoor becomes a liminal space where the living and the dead are mingled. Conan Doyle used this otherworldly backstory to return his classic detective Sherlock Holmes to the living.
Conan Doyle’s many readers had recently mourned the death of Holmes in The Final Problem. Conan Doyle chooses to set this novel in 1899, preceding events in The Final Problem. The Hound of the Baskervilles…
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face distorted with shock and horror, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are faced with a sinister and difficult puzzle. A fearsome creature stalks the wild and barren hills of Dartmoor. Is it a demon from the spirit world? Will it defeat their skill and courage? Who is the tall, mysterious figure seen lurking on the moor at night? Can Holmes save Sir Henry, the new owner of Baskerville Hall, from the ancient family curse? Or will the terrifying hound claim yet another victim?
I don’t believe in ghosts, but fascination with the supernatural has been with me since childhood, my inquiring mind constantly seeking answers. Research through books and documentaries and talking to people on the subject leads me to conclude there has to be a scientific and rational explanation for every paranormal happening. Theories abound, none are conclusive, but one accepted theory stands out, and this is explored and expanded upon in my novel White Stones. The books chosen here are excellent examples in the world of the supernatural and paranormal and are worth reading whether you believe in ghosts or not. Some just might make you change your mind.
Who wants to live forever? Or, as in this contemporary novel, for 500 years or more? In his unique style and wit, Matt Haig explores the many pitfalls and heartaches that living an extra-long life poses along with some of the positives his central character Tom must endure. Yes, it is a time-travel story, if at times a little too long and with much inward-self psychology, but one that brings elements of history, real-life characters, and at times shocking revelations by creating a scenario reversing a real human genetic condition, making the reader think: what if? We’ve all thought at times how wonderful it would be to live forever. After reading this novel, I know what my answer will be.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library.
"A quirky romcom dusted with philosophical observations....A delightfully witty...poignant novel." -The Washington Post
How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live?
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he…
While I love books that reflect strong family values, I don’t like sugary sweetness to the point of unrealism. I prefer to read about real people who can make fun of themselves and the world. That sarcastic and biting edge seems to tap into a deeper honesty about life while making me roll around on the floor and break all my furniture.
Before Amy Adams made Sunshine Cleaning, a movie about a crime scene cleaner, Christy Barritt created Gabby St. Claire who took on the same job after dropping out of forensic science school. While cleaning a crime scene, Gabby finds a murder weapon the police missed. She realizes the wrong person was put in jail and that powerful people want to keep it that way. Like my book, Hazardous Duty is written in first person using humor and larger-than-life characters to drive the mystery forward. I love the deep connection with the character’s interior life (with all her insecurities) that I get when I read a first-person novel.
Gabby St. Claire dropped out of school on her way to completing a degree in forensic science. Instead, she did the next best thing: she started her own crime scene cleaning business. When a routine cleaning job uncovers a murder weapon the police overlooked, she realizes that the wrong person is in jail. But the owner of the weapon is willing to do anything to keep Gabby quiet. With the help of her neighbor, Riley Thomas, Gabby plays detective. But can Riley help her before another murder occurs?
My idyllic childhood while following my father, a US Air Force JAG officer, around the country and around the world did not prepare me to understand and recognize an abusive relationship. I had never seen or experienced abuse until I married. After twenty years of emotional abuse, which eventually led to domestic violence, I was able to leave it behind. It is only with therapy that I came to understand the early warning signs, why I had ignored them and why I stayed so long. While preparing to write A Sparrow Falls, I read many personal accounts of domestic violence and child abuse and conducted an interview with a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Here is another book I added to my TBR list while researching my book—and another that sat there for years. But the similarities don’t end there. This is a coming-of-age story about clannish poor whites in the rural south. In both books the protagonist is a child growing up in a dysfunctional family. Again, I found a YouTube interview in which the author spoke of the love he has for his grandparents who were unconventional in their behavior.
It is my view that children from dysfunctional families often think their lives are normal.
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Coming November 2020 as a major motion picture from Netflix starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close
'The political book of the year' Sunday Times
'A frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir ... A superb book' New York Post
'I bought this to try to better understand Trump's appeal ... but the memoir is so much more than that. A gripping, unputdownable page-turner' India Knight, Evening Standard
J. D. Vance grew up in the hills of Kentucky. His family and friends were the people most of the world calls rednecks, hillbillies or white trash.
