Directors Books

I found two volumes of this "Conversations With Filmmakers Series" at a university library in Japan, and as soon as I could, I bought both for my personal library: Jim Jarmusch and Peter Greenaway. The reason: I think that, if you do a map of contemporary filmmaking, the North Pole and the South Pole would be these two gentlemen. Everything else is somewhere in between. I don't know if any of these two directors is actually so clear, so witty and so self aware, or if it is just good editing work, but very few times you'll find books of film criticism to be so insightful, so revealing and yet, so simple. I know this sounds vulgar, but I'd give up stuff like Film Semiotics if only the University Press of Mississippi had published more books of these series. I just ordered a third book: Akira Kurosawa.

"I consider myself a minor poet who write fairly small poems. I'd rather make a movie about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China."- Jim Jarmusch

Over the last few years, University Press of Mississippi has released several book under their "Conversations with Filmakers Series." Past directors in the series have included Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean-Luc Godard, and Quentin Tarantino. I've read just about all of them, and I have to say this one, about American independent film director Jim Jarmusch, is one of my favorites.

The book consists of seventeen interviews of Jarmusch ranging from 1981 to 2000. During that time, Jarmusch has released independent classics starting with Stranger In Paradise(1984), Down By Law(staring a young Robert Benigni-1986), Mystery Train(1989), Dead Man(1995), and Ghost Dog:Way of the Samurai(1999).
These series of interviews reveal some of the meaning and influences that helped shape those films.

For those who might not know, Jarmusch is not only a brillaint director but he is also a facinating conversationalist. In the interviews, he describes his backgroung starting in Akron, Ohio and his early college years studying abroad in Paris, France. As an "outsider" studying in a foreign country, Jarmusch was never able to forget that feeling, and you can tell that when you watch his movies.

What's fascinating about Jarmusch is his mixing of "high' and "low" cultures which permeates his films. In the interviews, he admits being obsessed with the Japanese director Ozu and, at the same time, being influenced by the TV show "The Honeymooners."

I've been waiting for years on a biography about Jarmusch. Although this not a biography(or autobiography or that matter),
it is an excellent introduction this director's life and work. I recommend it to not only Jarmusch nuts, but to anybody who interested in American Independent movies.

This book is a must for all libraries, a comprehensive record of everything John Huston directed, wrote and thought about cinema. Indespensible for all Huston fans.

This book is a must for all libraries, a comprehensive record of everything John Huston directed, wrote and thought about cinema. Indespensible for all Huston fans.

First I must say that John Landis is by far one of the most enthusiastic film makers still around today. He has also directed some of my most favorite films, ANIMAL, HOUSE, BLUES BROTHERS, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, to name a few. All great films and all extremely successful. I highly recommend this book as the text is great but the photos are ever better as they are not your normal press packet shots, but John's personal photos that no one has ever seen, truly inspiring.

I love this book and if you love film, you will go nuts for this amazing recap of one of my favorite film directors.

I was delighted to discover that the first book I've ever seen on legendary director John Landis was not only informative but really funny! Profusely illustrated, this book is really made up of long interviews with Landis and his collaborators including Dan Aykroyd, Elmer Bernstein, Harold Ramis, Chris Miller, Jamie Lee Curtis, B.B. King and many others. There are also essays about Landis movies by such fantastic filmmakers as David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro, Sam Raimi, Frank Oz, Costa Gavras and many others. And articles by film critics Christopher Frayling, Dave Kehr, Bill Khron, and more. Even an interview that Landis did with Jack Arnold for CAHIERS DU CINEMA in the eighties. And I was amazed to find it so up to date it talks about Landis most recent documentary (which aired on HBO in December) MR. WARMTH, THE DON RICKLES PROJECT. An extremely well produced book with tons of photos and illustrations, most of which I had never seen before. A truly great surprise and one of the best movie related books I've ever bought.

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This is an entertaining and interesting book for anyone interested in the older hollywood. Great stories about working with stars (Bette Davis & Kirk Douglas are both fascinating) and working for Howard Hughes is also riviting.

Fleischer's career as a director and his reputation as a solid journeyman has been overshadowed by some wretched films during his last decade. Nevertheless, Fleischer's firsthand account of his years in and out of Hollywood--Fleischer is a classic-case "survivor story"--fleshes out the personality behind 4 decades of solid entertainment. His tangles with the likes of Howard Hughes and Kirk Douglas are just the tip of the iceberg. This should be standard reading for anyone who gives two shakes about classic Hollywood and for anyone who wants to understand the industry during its more "lost period" in the '60s. Fleischer has hit big on several projects, but it is his humility and depth of understanding of human behavior that characterizes this memoir more than any laundry list of his accomplishments. Of course, keep in mind, for every Amityville 3D, there is a Compulsion, or Boston Strangler, or Barabbas, or 20k Leagues. If anyone brings up Mandingo, hit back with The Narrow Margin. If anyone brings up the more canonized film books, keep this brilliant memoir on hand as a trump card.

Sally Dumaux has worked several years researching the elusive life story of King Baggot, the first King of the Movies. Her work has paid off beautifully in a wonderful biography of this nearly-forgotten early screen idol. Her attention to detail and devotion to the subject shows on every page. Silent film buff and casual film fan alike will enjoy reading this insightful story that opens up the whole world of early film. Sally, you did it! ENJOY!

Southern California librarian Sally Dumaux has written an exacting and sometimes marvelous biography of silent-film actor King Baggot. His history is murky; almost all of his 300 movies have long since turned to dust. King Baggot's remarkable journey from juvenile to super-star; and his eventual decline, is "un-reeled" here for the very first time. Baggot was born in St. Louis in 1879. He wanted to play soccer. He became a Broadway actor. In 1909, after finishing summer stock, he signed a contract with IMP Productions to appear in the new craze, the "flickers". Carl Laemmle's IMP soon morphed into Universal Pictures(an active studio today). King Baggot's first movie was "Awakening of Bess". Picture World reported that "It was so popular amongst the theaters that within a few hours of its release, reviewers were unable to see a copy of it in New York City". Soon Baggot, Mary Pickford, and Thomas Ince had traveled to exotic Cuba for location filming. Baggot starred in films for the next 12 years. You can still watch his "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(1913)". "Ivanhoe", filmed in England the same year, has disappeared. Universal began moving production to California in 1915. Baggot refused to re-locate. This set him at odds with the studio. And 1920's audiences were fickle. Baggot starred in his last leading role in 1921. He became a director, and helmed 1925's famous "Tumbleweeds" starring William S. Hart. But with the coming of sound in 1928, Baggot was eased out of directing as well. His decline is well documented with newspaper articles and movie pressbooks. Baggot became a character actor in increasingly smaller roles. In 1936, MGM contracted him for the epic "San Francisco". Sadly he appears nowhere in the final film. A DUI arrest and the break-up of his marriage were further complications. King Baggot died quietly in a hotel in Venice, Cal., in the summer of 1948. One or two stock newspaper obituaries mentioned his passing. It was almost a non-event. In 1917, Baggot was listed as one of the top 3 performers in the world. But if you ask today's movie fan about King Baggot, they'll shake their head and say: "I never heard of him."

This book is pricey, but it is a must-read if you are interested in early films and nickelodeon films. Lubin is best-known for duping all his competitors' films in the early 1900's, and staging "reproductions" of famous boxing matches that Edison had the exclusive rights to film. If that is all that you know about Lubin, then you really don't know him at all.

Lubin taunted Edison's patent trust early on in trade ads nearly as much as Carl Laemmle did in the early 1910's. He gleefully filed patents on (mostly) useless inventions just to keep Edison's patent lawyers at bay. Lubin was the only Jewish mogul allowed to join the patent trust when General Film was formed. After that, he was staunchly loyal to Edison.

And if not for failing health and some bad decisions, Lubin might have been the last patent trust firm still standing. Lubin was smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall, and started early producing feature films. They were not just longer short films, but planned as features. Some were planned as disaster-genre films, long before these became a staple in the 1970s. For one feature, a huge city-block set was rigged to fall apart as an earthquake scene. For another feature, two trains were actually crashed head-on.

Beside's Lubin's Philadelphia studio, he had studios in other parts of the country. The most modern one was in Betzwood, Pennsylvania. After Lubin's company went belly-up, films were still produced there for several years. The book has an extra chapter documenting these films.

Lubin's Jacksonville, Florida studio made a lot of cheap comedies. Their main claim to fame is the discovery of comedian Oliver Hardy, from Georgia. Romaine Feilding's western studio churned out lots of high quality Western films. Lubin's main studio boasted a cafeteria, and everybody on the lot got a cheap meal.

I don't want to give the whole book away, but Lubin made a few mistakes that cost him dearly. While he went into features in a big way in the early teens, he never stopped churning out one-reel potboilers for nickelodeons. While they made great money for a few years, by the mid-teens he had too many companies making one-reelers for dwindling audiences. He also ended up with too many studios, with all of their extra overhead. Like Laemmle at Universal, he gave jobs to many of his sons-in-laws and relatives, and this began to hurt when his finances were short.

The book is very well researched, will many, many footnotes. There's lots of photos, that will make you actually want to see some Lubin films. I can highly recommend it. Joe Eckhardt runs a Betzwood Film Festival every year in Pennsylvania, that spotlights films made by Lubin and others there.

Joseph P. Eckhardt should be congratulated for this wonderful biography of pioneering film-maker Siegmund Lubin. I had assumed the book to be interesting, if probably a bit technical, and was not prepared for how entertaining the text would be. Using humor, understanding and affection for his subject, Eckhardt describes Lubin's rise from poor immigrant to King of the Movies; his battles with Thomas Edison; the creating of Lubinville, the producer's plant in Philadelphia, and, later, the move to suburban Betzwood. The benevolent mogul had enough chutzpah for two Goldwyns, it appears, and although he might not have paid his actors the salaries they could claim elsewhere, many nevertheless chose to stay in the congenial atmosphere of Lubinville. Like all the other pioneers, Lubin's era was over by the late 1910s, but until then, the German immigrant had entertained millions with his little "fillums." "The King of the Movies" is of course not only a biography of Siegmund Lubin himself, but an invaluable insight into the Lubin Mfg. Co., arguably the until now least understood of the early film companies.

For those of us, old enough to remember the "I search for Adventure" TV series, this is a fascinating book. We finally find out the background and the detailed travails of a great explorer. The discovery of the ancient tomb in the Peruvian desert has remained a secret that his partner Batanero has already taken to his grave. It reads well and adenture after adventure keeps the reader's interest until the last page is turned. It is too bad that the films have not been preserved.

Memoirs of a real-life professional explorer---a sort of "Indiana Jones with a dash of Lara Croft" who abandoned an acting career highlighted by study at the Pasadena Playhouse to travel abroad filming exotic and dangerous locales, which he then fashioned into programs for early broadcast television and the lecture circuit. This volume focuses on Latin America of the 1950's and includes a varied cast of characters from a former driver for the German general Erwin Rommel to an intrepid female journalist of the time, one Barbara Holbrook who clearly left a strong impression on the author.

David Attenborough's 'Life on Air' gives a fascinating insight into the work of a true gentle man of the airwaves.

The book is entirely readible with several unexpected laughs in store.

A master at understating his own achievements, Attenborough tells the story of his work with the BBC, spanning an incredible fifty years. Often facing the worst inconveniences of tropical insects for days on end to get illusive shots of nature's wonders, he has tirelessly laboured to bring precious knowledge to the world of the richness of our planet.

Highly recommended.

While mentioning several highpoints in his childhood, David Attenborough's book mainly covers his working career upon graduation from university. Most people will be familiar with his animal and natural world documentaries from the late 80s onwards. I was surprised that he almost fell into the BBC and that he first started his involvement in natural history in the 1950s. He covers in great detail the problems encountered in broadcasting live from the studio during the infancy of television and the limitations of filming in the wild with basic equipment. David Attenborough, besides being famous for his documentaries, is also one of TV's pioneers. For a long time as well, he was senior management within the BBC and largely responsible for a lot of the programming that that boradcaster produced in the 60s and 70s. This surprised me as I was only familiar with his later documentary work.

Told with a lot of humour, the reader will meet all manner of fascinating people and animals in every corner of the world. This man has done more in his life than any of us will ever do and he has shared it with us on screen and in this marvellous book.

Anyone in a spiritual direction or other Christian Caring relationship, such as Steven Minister, or any one-on-one listening ministry, would benefit from the principles of supervision. We need to be able to discriminate between our own issues, which are activated by listening to another person, and to reflect on our needs outside of our ministering relationship. This requires another objective party to help us access our interior space to find what has shifted in us as a result of our supporting another person's healing and growth. This happens in a completely different setting than the one in which we provide support for another. This book presents a complete description of support through supervision of the listener/healer/care giver to serve in a God-centered way, without our own issues entering into the process directly. We keep our issues aside until our supervision time, when we clear away the clutter and prepare ourselves to serve God and other in a relaxed and centered way, not needing to be filled up, or having to control the process ourselves, but remaining in touch with God's direction for us and for the care receiver.

Conroy has given spiritual directors and trainers of spiritual directors a fine handbook on supervision of spiritual directors. The first half of the book is an insightful section on the dimensions of supervision which sets the parameters and foundations for this essential "continuing education process." The second half is a series of learning experiences, followed by appendices outlining various formats for developing spiritual directors. The book is well-organized and includes numerous checklists, charts, and outlines that distill the author's wisdom. There are realistic case studies and examples. Although Conroy's approach is rooted in Ignatian spirituality, the book has much to offer, no matter what the reader's tradition. We rely on this book in our training program for spiritual directors at a Catholic seminary, especially the intial chapters dealing with the rationale and process of supervision. I would recommend this book for any spiritual director or trainer of directors who wants to develop a contemplative presence.