Individual actors Books
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Directing: A Miscellany
Book Synopsis"Simon Usher is one of the most clear headed thinkers about theatre in this country. He taps onto a well of experience spanning four decades with grace and ferocious honesty. He writes with precision and wit and insight. There is no more essential book for anybody working in or hoping to work in theatre." Simon Stephens ‘Only direct if you can do nothing else.’ ‘Directors: People with incurable cases of writer’s block.’ ‘Direct plays whose authors know more than you do.’ Not so much a how-to-direct book but reflections on a long career directing plays. Presented in the form of aphorisms, apercu, questions, maxims, dialogues and miniature essays aimed at the vocational rather than the career director. Usher emphasizes the reality of life as a theatre director. Directing vocationally is a state of mind, an attitude to life, a philosophical adventure. Directing: A Miscellany is about survival: how to remain creative in good times and bad; how to remain alive as a director in any circumstance. Commenting extensively on the process of acting, Shakespeare and the classics, working with writers and designers, directing techniques, the trials and tribulations of working with others, the book is an aid to reflection for readers.
£13.62
Titan Books Ltd The Autobiography of James T. Kirk
Book SynopsisThe Autobiography of James T. Kirk chronicles the greatest Starfleet captain's life (2233-2371), in his own words. From his youth spent on Tarsus IV, his time in the Starfleet Academy, his meteoric raise through the ranks of Starfleet, and his illustrious career at the helm of the Enterprise, this in-world memoir uncovers Captain Kirk in a way Star Trek fans have never seen.Trade Review“A fascinating look at the exploits of one of pop culture’s greatest and most wonderfully flawed heroes” - Pop Culture Vulture"Looking for the perfect holiday gift for the Trek fan in your life? This might just be it...A fantastic book." - Nerdophiles“Another great touch was the addition of "editor's notes" throughout the narrative that lent a feeling of verisimilitude to the pages of the book. Little things that Kirk gets wrong in the book that are "corrected" by the editor make this feel like a real autobiography. Also, a full color insert of pictures in the middle of the book from Kirk's life, including his Academy graduation photo and travel documents to Tarsus IV, lend even more credibility.” - Trekcore"The Autobiography of James T. Kirk" is a wonderful addition to the stories of the fabled captain who sat in that center seat aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise for longer than any other leader in Starfleet history." - The News Hub"An accomplished, stirring tribute to a beloved sci-fi series that will captivate fans and newcomers alike." - Kirkus - Starred Review"A cause to celebrate for any fan." - City of Films"For readers like me, who loved that show and remember it with extreme fondness, it is an absolute treat of a book. I read it in one sitting, mostly with a smile on my face. And occasionally with a pang in my heart." - Reading Reality "The Autobiography of James T. Kirk serves as the perfect accompaniment for any fan looking to revisit the series with a refreshing new perspective on the well-known and beloved character." - Hypable“If you are a Star Trek fan, you will enjoy this book. In fact, the bigger a fan you are, the more you will appreciate it.” - Popmatters“Read it and get ready to enjoy Star Trek: The Original Series in a whole new way” - Redshirts Always Die
£999.99
John Blake Publishing Ltd Fifty Shades of Jamie Dornan: A Biography
Book SynopsisHe was known as The Golden Torso, the underwear model who famously dated Keira Knightley. But Jamie Dornan has always dreamed of being an actor - and as star of the hotly-anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey movie he has finally sealed his position in Hollywood. From his role as S&M hero Christian Grey in the adaptation of EL James' hit novel to playing a serial killer in BBC series The Fall and Abe Goffe in New Worlds, Jamie is carving a name for himself playing characters with a serious passionate side. But the path to success has been far from easy for the Northern Irish actor. His personal life has had as many twists and turns, highs and devastating lows as the shows that are making him famous. Son of a doctor, Jamie and his two sisters had what looked like a charmed childhood growing up in a sprawling family home in an affluent area of Belfast, attending a top boarding school with dreams of treading the boards like his legendary great aunt Greer Garson. But looks can be deceiving and behind the sports trophies and amateur acting triumphs, there was a series of personal tragedies, the burden of which Jamie still carries with him today. He later struggled to cope with life in the limelight as an internationally famous model in his twenties dating an actress and winning hordes of female fans the world over posing alongside Kate Moss and Eva Mendes. Now married and father to a baby daughter, the Bafta-nominated star has a new set of challenges on his hands. In this, his first biography, Louise Ford, reveals Jamie's successes and struggles both on and off screen and explores what the future holds for the model turned actor who once doubted he could ever have it all.
£13.26
John Blake Publishing Ltd Chris Pratt: The Biography
Book SynopsisCHRIS PRATT is now one of the world's most sought-after actors. As the breakout star of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and The Lego Movie (two of 2014's biggest box-office hits), as well as landing the lead role in the 2015 Jurassic Park franchise re-boot, Jurassic World, his meteoric rise to fame is proof that anything is possible in Hollywood. Chris's journey to the movie-star A-list may just make him the ultimate 'zero to hero', but it certainly wasn't an overnight success story. A chance encounter transformed Chris's life from living in a van and waiting tables to make enough money to survive, to the bright lights of Los Angeles and his first tentative steps into the acting world. After years as a supporting player in both comedy and dramatic roles, on television (Everwood, Parks and Recreation) and in movies (The Five-Year Engagement, Delivery Man), Chris finally started to attract superstar buzz after appearing in three Best Picture Oscar-nominated films between 2011 and 2013. Along the way he's shown that nice guys don't always finish last, juggling a successful movie career and life as a devoted family man, and somehow finding time to develop killer abs along the way.
£14.11
£13.99
£999.99
Devonfire Witness Statements: Making The Bill 1988
£16.99
Devonfire Oh, What A Lovely Memoir
£16.99
John Blake Publishing Ltd Hugh Laurie - the Biography
Book SynopsisHugh was born in Oxford, and his father, WGRM 'Ran' Laurie, was a doctor who won a gold medal in the coxless pairs at the 1948 Olympics. Hugh followed in his father's footsteps as a rower at Cambridge, but when he was forced to hang up his oars he joined the famous Cambridge Footlights and there began a career in comedy. It was at university that he met Stephen Fry, and the pair forged a hilarious partnership that continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Hugh has also enjoyed great success on the big screen; starring in Sense and Sensibility, 101 Dalmatians, Monsters vs Aliens and the three Stuart Little films. But it is the character of irascible doctor Gregory House, in the US TV drama House, that has brought global fame. He has won two Golden Globes for the role and received a prestigious Emmy nominations in 2005, and continues to receive critical acclaim for his performance in the show - especially for his near-perfect American accent. With worldwide fame and an OBE to his name, Hugh Laurie is undoubtedly one of Britain's best-loved actors.
£13.26
Telos Publishing Ltd Peter Cushing The Reluctant Globetrotter
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Best Global Publishing Ltd The Seagull
£13.63
Zeticula Ltd Jessie Kesson: Writing Her Life
Book SynopsisJessie Kesson is forever associated with her first novel, the fictionalised autobiography of her early years, The White Bird Passes. Born illegitimate in a Workhouse and raised in an Elgin slum, she was removed from her beloved but neglectful mother and sent to an orphanage in Kirkton of Skene. There she throve and shone, but was refused any chance of higher education, and ended up a year in a mental hospital. After marriage, she became a cottar wife around North East Scotland, before moving to London, where she combined writing novels and radio plays with jobs from cleaning a cinema to producing Woman's Hour. The first edition of her authorised biography won the National Library of Scotland/Saltire Research Book of the Year in 2000. It revealed an extraordinary woman making her life and art out of all life threw at her, overcoming and transforming it all. This second edition at last reveals the truth about her ever-absent father, here named.
£14.95
£23.52
HarperCollins Publishers Cary Grant: A Class Apart
Book SynopsisThe ultimate biography of this ever-popular star and icon, from a young Cambridge don who has already made his name with a much praised biography of Marilyn Monroe. Cary Grant made men seem like a good idea. Tall, dark and handsome with a rare gift for light comedy, he played a leading man who liked to be led, a man of the world who was a man of the people. Cary Grant was Hollywood’s quintessential democratic gentleman. Born in England as Archie Leach, made famous in America as Cary Grant, he was a star for more than 30 years, in more than 70 movies, his popularity still intact when he brought his career to a close. He was never replaced: nobody else talked like that, looked like that, behaved like that. He was a class apart. Cary Grant never explained how he came to play ‘Cary Grant’ so well. ‘Nobody is every truthful about his own life,’ he said. ‘There are always ambiguities.’ This book explores the ambiguities in the life and work of Cary Grant: a working class Englishman who portrayed a well-bred American; the playful entertainer who became a powerful businessman; the intimate stranger who was often the seduced male. Thorough and meticulously researched, this book is a dazzling and entertaining account of Cary Grant’s broad and enduring appeal.
£12.34
John Blake Publishing Ltd Miranda Hart - the Unauthorised Biography
Book SynopsisFor the first time, author Sophie Johnson reveals the story behind Miranda's rise to fame. The comedian was born in Torquay in 1972, yet despite graduating with a degree in politics, she always wanted to be a comedian. In 2002 she performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and her early career was followed by Jennifer Saunders, who cast Miranda in an Ab Fab Christmas special. TV roles such as The Vicar of Dibley, Nighty Night, Hyperdrive and Not Going Out followed - before Miranda Hart's Joke Shop was commissioned by BBC Radio 2 in 2008, leading to the development of the smash hit series Miranda, which made her a household name. Since then, Miranda has branched out into straight acting, with a highly-acclaimed role in BBC drama Call the Midwife. She is the newest comedy legend to capture the imagination of the public - this is her full story.
£13.26
Midnight Marquee Press, Inc. Do You Want it Good or Tuesday? from Hammer Films to Hollywood
£20.00
Midnight Marquee Press, Inc. Christopher Lee: Tall, Dark and Gruesome
£20.00
Midnight Marquee Press, Inc. Paul Naschy: Memoirs of a Wolfman
£19.00
Midnight Marquee Press, Inc. Tuesday's Child: The Life and Death of Imogen Hassall
£19.00
The Noverre Press The Birth of the Ballets Russes
£18.58
The Noverre Press Master of the Russian Ballet - The Memoirs of Enrico Cecchetti
£18.58
Chaplin Books Inside King Kong: A Journal
£13.26
Dean Street Press Robert Shaw: The Price of Success
£12.34
Dean Street Press Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake
£12.34
Stan's Cafe Of All The People In All The World
£9.68
Light Bulb Quizzes The Supernatural Quiz Book Season 10: 500 Questions and Answers on Supernatural Season 10
£13.62
Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Fractal A Tale of Three Interventions
£15.57
Tidalwave Productions Orbit
£17.08
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Performing Ruins
Book SynopsisThis book engages with the relationship between ruins, dilapidation, and abandonment and cultural events performed within such spaces. Following the author’s fieldwork in the UK, Bosnia Herzegovina, Poland, Germany, Greece, and Sicily, chapters describe, investigate, and reflect upon live performance events which have taken place in sites of decay and abandonment. The book’s main focus is upon modern economic ruins and ruins of warfare. Each chapter provides several case studies based upon the author’s own site visits and interviews with actors, directors, producers, curators, writers, and other artists. The book contextualises these events within the wider framework of Ruin Studies and provides brief summaries of how we might understand the ruin in terms of time, politics, culture, and atmospheres. The book is particularly preoccupied with artists’ reasons and motivations for placing performance events in ruined spaces and how these work dramaturgically.Table of Contents1. Introduction: Ruining the Project, Subjectivities, Fields and Methods.- 2. Ruins in Context - Context in Ruins.- 3. Performing the Antiquary: Classical Ruins in the Greek Imaginary.- 4. Nature’s Ruins.- 5. Dissonance and Contestation: Ruining Heritage and its Alternatives.- 6. Legacies of War: Performing Balkan Ruins.- 7. Ruins of Capital.- 8. After Communism and the Cold War: a Ruined Inheritance.- 9. Conclusion: Ruining the Ruin or Pausing at a Partial View.-
£85.49
Brill Exploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices
Book SynopsisExploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices critically examines a longstanding colonial fascination with the black female body as an object of sexual desire, envy, and anxiety. Since the 2002 repatriation of the remains of Sara Baartman to post-apartheid South Africa, the interest in the figure of Black Venus has skyrocketed, making her a key symbol for the restoration of the racialized female body in feminist, anti-racist and postcolonial terms. Edited by Jorunn Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt, and Željka Švrljuga, this volume considers Black Venus as a product of art established and potentially refigured through aesthetic practices, following her travels through different periods, geographies and art forms from Baudelaire to Kara Walker, and from the Caribbean to Scandinavia. Contributors: Kjersti Aarstein, Carmen Birkle, Jorunn Svensen Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt, Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen, Ljubica Matek, Margery Vibe Skagen, Camilla Erichsen Skalle, Željka Švrljuga.
£104.00
Brill Exploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices
Book SynopsisExploring the Black Venus Figure in Aesthetic Practices critically examines a longstanding colonial fascination with the black female body as an object of sexual desire, envy, and anxiety. Since the 2002 repatriation of the remains of Sara Baartman to post-apartheid South Africa, the interest in the figure of Black Venus has skyrocketed, making her a key symbol for the restoration of the racialized female body in feminist, anti-racist and postcolonial terms. Edited by Jorunn Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt, and Željka Švrljuga, this volume considers Black Venus as a product of art established and potentially refigured through aesthetic practices, following her travels through different periods, geographies and art forms from Baudelaire to Kara Walker, and from the Caribbean to Scandinavia. Contributors: Kjersti Aarstein, Carmen Birkle, Jorunn Svensen Gjerden, Kari Jegerstedt, Ulla Angkjær Jørgensen, Ljubica Matek, Margery Vibe Skagen, Camilla Erichsen Skalle, Željka Švrljuga.
£47.20
Brill John Bell, Shakespeare and the Quest for a New Australian Theatre
Book SynopsisThis book about the work of actor director John Bell is essential reading for anyone interested in Australian theatre and in Shakespearean performance. Adrian Kiernander lucidly explains how, for over five decades, Bell has revived and reinvented theatre in Australia with his interpretations of radical new drama and particularly his innovative approach to staging Shakespeare’s plays.Table of ContentsSeries Editor’s Preface Acknowledgments Note on References Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One: A National Theatre Chapter Two: Acting Against Tradition Chapter Three: Directing New Australian Plays Chapter Four: Entrepreneur and Teacher Chapter Five: Australian Shakespeares Epilogue: Australian Shakespeare in the New Millennium Appendix: Table of Productions Bibliography Index
£68.80
Amsterdam University Press The Structures of the Film Experience by
Book SynopsisFor the first time this volume makes Jean-Pierre Meunier’s insightful thoughts on the film experience available for an English-speaking readership. Introduced and commented by specialists in film studies and philosophy, Meunier’s intricate phenomenological descriptions of the spectator’s engagement with fiction films, documentaries and home movies can reach the wide audience they have deserved ever since their publication in French in 1969.Trade Review"This is a very likeable scholarly project about Jean-Pierre Meunier, a Belgian film theoretician who wrote an important theoretical work on spectatorship over fifty years ago. It exemplifies the very best in contemporary cinema scholarship dedicated to completing its own history, and may it keep doing so."- Christophe Wall-Romana, University of Minnesota, H-France Review Vol. 21 (May 2021), No. 78 "Supplemented by insightful critical essays and an especially useful and informed introduction, this English translation of a pioneering phenomenological film theorist’s work is without doubt a major event in Anglophone film studies and the philosophy of film. Meunier’s writings are highly significant both historically and conceptually — and as the volume’s essays and interview further demonstrate, his nuanced account of moving-image experience is strikingly current and widely applicable."- Daniel Yacavone, The University of Edinburgh "The Structures of the Film Experience, originally published in 1969, provides unique insight into and even prefigures many of the concerns of contemporary phenomenological and cognitive film theory. Thus it is a welcome development to see this book translated into English. This volume contains not only Meunier’s book-in-translation, but also an introduction, a recent interview, and more than a dozen chapters by leading scholars who contextualize, explicate, and wrestle with Meunier’s ideas. This unique and well-designed volume thus makes a vital contribution to film theory."- Carl Plantinga, Calvin CollegeTable of ContentsJulian Hanich/Daniel Fairfax: Introduction Julian Hanich/Daniel Fairfax: "Every Theory Needs a Reference to Lived Experience": An Interview with Jean-Pierre Meunier Part I Jean-Pierre Meunier: The Structures of the Film Experience: Filmic Identification Introduction Part One: Introduction to the General Structures of Experience Chapter I: Perception I. The point of view of traditional psychology II. The findings of phenomenology Chapter II: Identification I. The origins of the concept II. Identification as the behavior of private intersubjectivity III. The principal aspects of identification a) The motor aspect b) The affective aspect c) The dramatic aspect d) Identification as the basis for the valorization (or devalorization) of other people IV. Fleeting and structuring identifications V. Identification, projection, introjection VI. Identification, mimicry and imitation VII. Identification and personality VIII. Identification, communication and information Part Two: The Film Experience Chapter I: Filmic Consciousness Faced with its Object I. The film as an object of perception II. Film, real and unreal III. The imaginary consciousness IV. The attitudes of filmic consciousness faced with its object a) The home movie b) The documentary film c) The fiction film V. From the home movie to the fiction film VI. Movement 1. The experience of movement 2. Movement in the cinema a) Movement in the home movie b) Movement in the documentary film c) Movement in the fiction film VII. Conclusion Chapter II: Filmic Behavior, Identification I. The types of filmic identification a) Identification in the 'home-movie attitude' b) Identification in the 'documentary attitude' c) Identification in the 'fiction attitude' II. The Differentiation of Identification According to Different Characters Chapter III: Towards Post-Filmic Behavior General Conclusion Part II Critical Essays, Historical Assessments, Phenomenological Expansions I: PLACING MEUNIER IN THE HISTORY OF FILM THEORY Dudley Andrew: Stages of an Encounter with Filmic Identification Daniel Fairfax: Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis: Jean-Pierre Meunier's Theory of Identification in the Cinema Robert Sinnerbrink: The Missing Link: Meunier on Imagination and Emotional Engagement II: ON THE HOME-MOVIE ATTITUDE Vivian Sobchack: 'Me, Myself, and I': On the Uncanny in Home Movies Marie-Aude Baronian: Remembering Cinema: On the film-souvenir III: ON IDENTIFICATION Christian Ferencz-Flatz: You Talkin' to Me? On Filmic Identification in Video-Selfies Victor Fan: Illuminating Reality: Cinematic Identification Revisited in the Eyes of Buddhist Philosophies Kate Ince: Whose Identification? A Brief Meditation on the Relevance of Jean-Pierre Meunier's The Structures of the Film Experience to Contemporary Feminist Film Phenomenology IV: REFERENTIALITY AND MEDIATION Guido Kirsten: Jean-Pierre Meunier's Modalities of the "Filmic Attitude": Towards a Theory of Referentiality in Cinematic Discourse Florian Sprenger: Phenomenology, Immediacy, and Mediation: On Derrida, Meunier and Landgrebe V: PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPANSIONS Jennifer M. Barker: Cinema and Child's Play Vinzenz Hediger: Engines of the Historical Imagination: Towards a Phenomenology of Cinema as Non-Art Julian Hanich: When Viewers Drift Off: A Brief Phenomenology of Cinematic Daydreaming List of Illustrations List of Contributors
£999.99
HarperCollins Publishers Cher
Book Synopsis
£17.09
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Still Just a Geek
Book Synopsis
£26.09
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Art of the Straight Line My Tai Chi
Book SynopsisA new book.
£24.00
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Paris
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Penguin Putnam Inc I Said Yes to Everything
Book Synopsis
£15.29
Random House USA Inc The Castle on Sunset
Book Synopsis
£14.80
iUniverse My Sister Marilyn A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£20.54
Hachette Australia Australias Sweetheart The amazing story of
Book SynopsisThis is the fascinating story of Mary Maguire, a 1930s Australian ingenue who sailed for Hollywood and a fabulous life, only to have her career cut short by scandal and tragedy. Packed with celebrity, history and gossip, AUSTRALIA''S SWEETHEART is perfect for readers of SHEILA and THE RIVIERA SET.Mary Maguire was Australia''s first teenage movie star and she captivated Hollywood in the mid 1930s. Mary lived on three continents and was celebrated in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Los Angeles and London. Her life was lived in parallel with seminal incidents of the twentieth century: the Spanish Flu; the Great Depression; the Bodyline series; Australia''s early radio, talkies and aviation; Hollywood''s Golden Era; the British aristocracy''s embrace of European fascism; London''s Blitz; and post-war American culture and politics. Mary knew everyone, from Douglas Jardine, Don Bradman, Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan, to William Randolph Hearst, Maureen O''Sullivan and Judy GarTrade ReviewMichael Adams' book is great fun!fun and informativefast-paced and gripping - BOOKS+PUBLISHING on Michael Adams' SKYFIREtreat yourself to a copy - AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW on Michael Adams' THE LAST GIRL
£17.99
Hachette Australia Truths from an Unreliable Witness Finding
Book SynopsisFiona O''Loughlin was raised in the generation of children who were to be seen, but not heard ... unless there were guests in the house. Then she''d watch everyone, telling stories, making each other laugh. This was where she discovered the rhythm of stories and the lubrication that alcohol leant the telling. Years later, as a mum of five, Fiona would become one of Australia''s most-loved comedians, performing gigs in New York, Montreal, Singapore, London, Toronto and Edinburgh. Fiona looked like she was living her dream - but she was hiding a secret in open sight, using alcoholism as material for her comedy and using comedy as an excuse for her alcoholism.Truths from an Unreliable Witness is a fiercely honest and wryly funny memoir of melancholy, love, marriage, the loss of love and marriage, homelessness, of hotel rooms strewn with empty mini-bar bottles of vodka, of waking from a two-week coma, of putrid drug dens and using a jungle to confront yourself. It is a
£13.49
Hachette Australia Finding My Bella Vita
Book SynopsisFor years Pia Miranda has been stopped in the street by calls of, ''Found you!'', forever linked to that character we all loved: Josie from Looking for Alibrandi. But playing Josie is only one small part of everything that has shaped the woman Pia has become.As a child, her Nonna would tell her stories of the small volcanic island off Sicily she called home. Cannoli, curses and lighting a candle at church were as much a part of Pia''s childhood as mouse plagues, her Aussie Nanna''s lemon slice and cheering on South Melbourne at the footy with her Grandfather.After chasing a childhood dream to become a ballet dancer (with a back-up plan of becoming a nun) she was cruelly shamed out of her leotard and into a new dream: acting. The rollercoaster ride of fame would see her travel the world and narrowly avoid a sky-high #MeToo moment. But after fame comes real life - work stress, career questions, money worries, relationships and heartbreak, love and marriage, illness and grief. Having grown up pinballing between her very Italian side and her very Australian side while trying to carve out a space all her own, Pia didn''t realise how the push and pull of tradition had made her world all the richer.Finally, setting foot on Vulcano to reconnect with her roots, Pia understands how all the parts of herself have made her the true survivor she is. Like her Nonna told her, every day on top of the earth is a good day. Finding My Bella Vitais a charming, honest and uplifting memoir full of heart and humour that reminds us all of the two things that matter most - love and family. (A good cannoli and some Vegemite toast also rate pretty highly!)''Like a long phone call with a friend . . . an intimate monologue from a talented storyteller with a self-deprecating and light touch'' BOOKS+PUBLISHING''Partly a grappling with the legacy of Alibrandi . . . it is also a contemplation of what it means to live a good life . . . rich with fond recollections of her upbringing'' THE GUARDIAN
£17.09
Edinburgh University Press Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French
Book SynopsisThis book is the first major study of a French silent cinema star. It focuses on Pierre Batcheff, a prominent popular cinema star in the 1920s, the French Valentino, best-known to modern audiences for his role as the protagonist of the avant-garde film classic Un Chien andalou. Unlike other stars, he was linked to intellectual circles, especially the Surrealists. The book places Batcheff in the context of 1920s popular cinema, with specific reference to male stars of the period. It analyses the tensions he exemplifies between the ''popular'' and the ''intellectual'' during the 1920s, as cinema - the subject of intense intellectual interest across Europe - was racked between commercialism and ''art''.Trade ReviewPhil Powrie and Eric Rebillard's examination of the actor Pierre Batcheff opens up unique pathways into terrains embracing both the woefully overlooked - stars in the silent and early sound era of French cinema - and the justifiably well worn - the surrealist cinematic landmark Un chien andalou (1929)! Powrie and Rebillard have done important groundwork in establishing key issues with regard to stars, performance, and masculinity in the silent/early sound era, and their efforts should serve to provoke further explorations in this area. -- Vicki Callahan, University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee French Studies Phil Powrie and Eric Rebillard's examination of the actor Pierre Batcheff opens up unique pathways into terrains embracing both the woefully overlooked - stars in the silent and early sound era of French cinema - and the justifiably well worn - the surrealist cinematic landmark Un chien andalou (1929)! Powrie and Rebillard have done important groundwork in establishing key issues with regard to stars, performance, and masculinity in the silent/early sound era, and their efforts should serve to provoke further explorations in this area.Table of ContentsPreface; 1. A short life; 1.1 Origins and childhood (1907-1922); 1.2 The rise of the star (1923-1926); 1.3 From the mainstream to the avant-garde (1927-1929); 1.4 The lacoudems (1930-1932); 1.5 An early death (1932); 2. Stardom in the 1920s; 2.1 Batcheff, the jeune premier, and the past; 2.2 Batcheff and transitional masculinity; 2.3 Batcheff and fan culture: the unwilling star; 2.4 Batcheff, Valentino and 'otherness'; 2.5 Batcheff as pin-up; 2.6 Batcheff as a surrealist star; 3. Beginnings; 3.1 Claudine et le poussin, ou Le Temps d'aimer (January 1924); 3.2 Le Double amour (June 1925); 3.3 Feu Mathias Pascal (July 1925); 4. Historical reconstructions; 4.1 Destinee (December 1925); 4.2 Napoleon vu par Abel Gance (April 1927); 4.3 Le Joueur d'echecs (July 1927); 4.4 Monte-Cristo (May 1929); 5. The Lover; 5.1 Le Secret d'une mere (July 1926); 5.2 Education de prince (June 1927); 5.3 Le Bonheur du jour (July 1927); 5.4 La Sirene des tropiques (December 1927); 5.5 L'Ile d'amour (February 1928); 5.6 Vivre (July 1928); 5.7 Le Perroquet vert (October 1928); 6. Comedy: Les Deux timides (December 1928); 6.1 Contemporary reception; 6.2 Adaptation and structure; 6.3 The trial; 6.4 Courtship; 6.5 The battle; 7. The Avant-garde: Un chien andalou (June 1929); 7.1 Contemporary reception; 7.2 Later academic commentary; 7.3 Parody of previous films; 7.4 Simonne Mareuil; 8. Un chien andalou: Parodying stardom; 8.1 The slit eye; 8.2 Dismemberment of the star: seeing behind the surface; 8.3 Hysteria, ethnicity, costume; 8.4 The gaze of the woman and masochism; 8.5 Anamorphosis; 9. Looking back; 9.1 Illusions (January 1930); 9.2 Le Roi de Paris (August 1930); 9.3 Les Amours de minuit (January 1931)/Mitternachtsliebe (September 1931); 9.4 Le Rebelle (August 1931); 9.5 Baroud (English version September 1932/French version February 1933); 10. Conclusion: uncanny bodies; 10.1 The lost object; 10.2 The automaton, the mannequin and the doll; 10.3 'Explosante-fixe'; Appendices; Summary biography; Interviews and star portraits; Filmscript (unfinished) from Knut Hamsun's Sult; Filmography; Bibliography.
£999.99
The History Press Ltd Roman Holiday
Book SynopsisThe first book to tell the glamorous story of Hollywood in Rome and the women who made it legendary
£12.34
The History Press Ltd Raising an Eyebrow
Book SynopsisA unique insight into life with Sir Roger Moore - written by his PA, his co-author, his onstage co-star, and his confidant
£12.34
Epic Ink Zendaya Is Life
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Running Press,U.S. Bogie Bacall
Book SynopsisHe adored me. I''d never had it before, and I''ll never have it again. I was lucky to have it at all. - LAUREN BACALL Ever since nineteen-year-old Lauren Bacall seductively taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in the most famous scene from 1941''s To Have and Have Not , fans have been fascinated by the palpable heat between these two movie legends. Their onscreen passion blossomed into a full-blown off-screen love affair, and culminated in a blissful marriage that lasted twelve years, until Bogart''s untimely death in 1957. Bogie & Bacall celebrates their love, with rare photos of the couple, along with tips and anecdotes that will inspire you to ignite your own legendary romance.
£10.99
