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FilmArts & Culture

And the award goes to . . .

Review by bookpagedev

Amid the usual flurry of sequins, excitement and suspense, Hollywood celebrates itself again this month with the 75th annual Academy Awards. You know the routine: the red carpet unrolls; the most tarnished stars shine. The secrets in those little white envelopes are disclosed. There’ll be tears, pageantry and fashion faux-pas, an overlong ceremony and endless thank-you’s. Ah, the traditions of Tinseltown! Yet each year, most of us endure the symptoms of celebrity the platitudes and attitudes, eccentricities and frippery with good-natured equanimity. Why? Because a season without Oscar is simply unthinkable.

BookPage pays tribute to the movies this month with a group of books sure to satisfy the most celebrity-obsessed cinemaphile.

A treasury of film trivia The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (Knopf, $35, 960 pages, ISBN 0375411283) by critic David Thomson has provided the final word in movie trivia for the past 25 years. International in scope, organized alphabetically and freshly updated with 300 new listings (for a total of 1,300 entries overall), this weighty reference volume contains brief biographies of actors and directors, tycoons and producers, including everyone from Rin Tin Tin to Steven Spielberg. Thomson, a London native who contributes regularly to The New York Times and Film Comment, supplies plenty of insider info birthdays, lists of films and other irresistible tidbits, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s middle name (the martial-sounding Wilhelm) and George Clooney’s birthplace (Maysville, Kentucky, of all places.) A word of warning: Thomson is fearlessly free with his opinions. Moviegoers may take exception to his unsparing evaluations of Ben Affleck (“boring, complacent, and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far”) and Gwyneth Paltrow (star of “a host of silly films”), but there’s no denying that the author’s criticisms are smart, discerning, often downright hilarious. Hollywood how-to Actors and executives, set builders and costume designers all share the spotlight in The American Film Institute Desk Reference. Produced by the American Film Institute, this authoritative guide to the industry offers the basics, from a timeline of movie history to an in-depth look at foreign film. The book is divided into fascinating categories. A chapter called “Movie Crafts” provides details on special effects, sound and music, while “Movie Basics” will tell you how to get started in the biz. A host of wonderful visuals brings the text alive. Edited by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey, authors of more than 30 books on cinema, this wonderfully comprehensive volume includes the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Best Films of the Past 100 Years. With an introduction by Clint Eastwood, it’s an engaging survey of the film world.

A mischievous look at the movies Richard Roeper, co-host of Ebert ∧ Roeper at the Movies, has compiled a humorous collection of movie-related lists that’s a must-have for any film freak. In Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and Other Surprising Movie Lists (Hyperion, $14, 304 pages, ISBN 078688830X), Roeper takes stock of Hollywood, skewering celebrity culture with his clever categories. Along with the usual best-of and worst-of rosters are lists that never existed until now, like “The Gross-Out Hall of Fame,” “Age Difference Between Michael Douglas and His Leading Ladies,” and “12 Actors and Actresses Who Took Their Clothes Off When They Should Have Kept Them On.” A mix of roguish comedy and expert criticism, this ingenious paperback covers almost every element of the movies. So you won’t have to, Roeper has indexed the best film portrayals of presidents (Harrison Ford in Air Force One; Bill Pullman in Independence Day), the worst singers turned actors (Madonna, Mariah Carey) and pop songs perennially used in the movies (Born to Be Wild; I Will Survive). From soundtracks to screen kisses to casting disasters, no aspect of the cinema is safe from the wisecracking Roeper. Frank, funny, masterminded by a movie authority, Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed is one mischievous little volume.

Amid the usual flurry of sequins, excitement and suspense, Hollywood celebrates itself again this month with the 75th annual Academy Awards. You know the routine: the red carpet unrolls; the most tarnished stars shine. The secrets in those little white envelopes are disclosed. There'll be…
FilmArts & Culture

And the award goes to . . .

Review by bookpagedev

Amid the usual flurry of sequins, excitement and suspense, Hollywood celebrates itself again this month with the 75th annual Academy Awards. You know the routine: the red carpet unrolls; the most tarnished stars shine. The secrets in those little white envelopes are disclosed. There’ll be tears, pageantry and fashion faux-pas, an overlong ceremony and endless thank-you’s. Ah, the traditions of Tinseltown! Yet each year, most of us endure the symptoms of celebrity the platitudes and attitudes, eccentricities and frippery with good-natured equanimity. Why? Because a season without Oscar is simply unthinkable.

BookPage pays tribute to the movies this month with a group of books sure to satisfy the most celebrity-obsessed cinemaphile.

A treasury of film trivia The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by critic David Thomson has provided the final word in movie trivia for the past 25 years. International in scope, organized alphabetically and freshly updated with 300 new listings (for a total of 1,300 entries overall), this weighty reference volume contains brief biographies of actors and directors, tycoons and producers, including everyone from Rin Tin Tin to Steven Spielberg. Thomson, a London native who contributes regularly to The New York Times and Film Comment, supplies plenty of insider info birthdays, lists of films and other irresistible tidbits, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s middle name (the martial-sounding Wilhelm) and George Clooney’s birthplace (Maysville, Kentucky, of all places.) A word of warning: Thomson is fearlessly free with his opinions. Moviegoers may take exception to his unsparing evaluations of Ben Affleck (“boring, complacent, and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far”) and Gwyneth Paltrow (star of “a host of silly films”), but there’s no denying that the author’s criticisms are smart, discerning, often downright hilarious. Hollywood how-to Actors and executives, set builders and costume designers all share the spotlight in The American Film Institute Desk Reference (DK, $40, 608 pages, ISBN 0789489341). Produced by the American Film Institute, this authoritative guide to the industry offers the basics, from a timeline of movie history to an in-depth look at foreign film. The book is divided into fascinating categories. A chapter called “Movie Crafts” provides details on special effects, sound and music, while “Movie Basics” will tell you how to get started in the biz. A host of wonderful visuals brings the text alive. Edited by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey, authors of more than 30 books on cinema, this wonderfully comprehensive volume includes the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Best Films of the Past 100 Years. With an introduction by Clint Eastwood, it’s an engaging survey of the film world.

A mischievous look at the movies Richard Roeper, co-host of Ebert ∧ Roeper at the Movies, has compiled a humorous collection of movie-related lists that’s a must-have for any film freak. In Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and Other Surprising Movie Lists (Hyperion, $14, 304 pages, ISBN 078688830X), Roeper takes stock of Hollywood, skewering celebrity culture with his clever categories. Along with the usual best-of and worst-of rosters are lists that never existed until now, like “The Gross-Out Hall of Fame,” “Age Difference Between Michael Douglas and His Leading Ladies,” and “12 Actors and Actresses Who Took Their Clothes Off When They Should Have Kept Them On.” A mix of roguish comedy and expert criticism, this ingenious paperback covers almost every element of the movies. So you won’t have to, Roeper has indexed the best film portrayals of presidents (Harrison Ford in Air Force One; Bill Pullman in Independence Day), the worst singers turned actors (Madonna, Mariah Carey) and pop songs perennially used in the movies (Born to Be Wild; I Will Survive). From soundtracks to screen kisses to casting disasters, no aspect of the cinema is safe from the wisecracking Roeper. Frank, funny, masterminded by a movie authority, Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed is one mischievous little volume.

Amid the usual flurry of sequins, excitement and suspense, Hollywood celebrates itself again this month with the 75th annual Academy Awards. You know the routine: the red carpet unrolls; the most tarnished stars shine. The secrets in those little white envelopes are disclosed. There'll be…
NonfictionFictionAudioMemoirFilmArts & Culture

Coming soon to a theater near you

Review by Becky Ohlsen

Who doesn't love to be able to walk out of a holiday blockbuster and say, "Well, not bad but the book was better"? Get a jump on the season's upcoming films by reading the great books that inspired them, several of which are available in new editions.

It would be impossible to read the entrancing prologue to The Hours by Michael Cunningham and not keep going. The novel, awarded both the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999, begins with an evocation of Virginia Woolf's suicide, then jumps to the contemporary era, where two women seek to escape their varied bonds through Woolf's writing. The film, with a screenplay by David Hare, stars Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore as the two women and Nicole Kidman as Woolf.

In About Schmidt by Louis Begley, Jack Nicholson again plays the unlikable guy who grows on you; this is said to be among his most affecting performances. Schmidt is an old-school lawyer, now retired, whose beloved wife has recently died. Always cool and distant toward his daughter, Schmidt now finds himself unable to accept the Jewish lawyer she married. The novel sets his pride and loneliness against warmly humorous social commentary as Schmidt's reserve is shaken by the two women who enter his life. The Ballantine Reader's Circle edition includes a reading group guide.

Was Chuck Barris, undisputed eccentric and the mastermind behind The Gong Show, really an undercover CIA assassin known as Sunny Sixkiller? So he claims in his characteristically nutzoid memoir, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, soon to be a major motion picture directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell as Barris. First published in 1982, the book has long been out of print; Talk Miramax's new trade paperback coincides with the film's December release and includes eight pages of film stills. The script was co-authored by fellow eccentric Charlie Kaufman, the man who brought us Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (see below).

Sticking with the theme of the zany memoir, Adaptation is screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's manic account of his effort to make a film adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. In the film, Orlean's true story of the orchid thief, John Laroche (Chris Cooper), has to compete with the screenwriter's self-obsessed fever dream sparked by his infatuation with the back-cover photo of Orlean (Meryl Streep). Nicolas Cage plays Kaufman and his imaginary twin brother, Donald, a character-within-a-character in a story-within-a-story. The film, both a wacked-out satire of Hollywood and a writer's quest for meaning, reunites Kaufman with Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze.

Occasionally you come across a book that makes you wonder at the deep wells of strength and gumption its author must draw from. Finding Fish by Antwone Quenton Fisher is one such book. Fisher was born in prison to a teenage mom and spent two years with a loving foster family before being moved to the home of the Pickett clan, where he endured 14 years of unimaginable abuse. At 18 he joined the Navy, and it almost certainly saved his life. His remarkable memoir has been adapted for the screen by first-time director Denzel Washington, who stars as the Navy psychiatrist who mentored Fisher.

In conjunction with the film Gods and Generals, directed by Ronald F. Maxwell (Gettysburg), Ballantine is releasing a new boxed set of the Civil War trilogy by Michael Shaara and his son, Jeff M. Shaara Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels and The Last Full Measure. Gods and Generals, a prequel to Gettysburg, documents one of this country's bloodiest eras and follows the rise and fall of legendary war hero Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang); Robert Duvall and Jeff Daniels also star. Also timed to coincide with the film is Gods and Generals: The Paintings of Mort Kunstlerfeaturing more than 65 works by the noted Civil War artist and text by historian James I. Robertson Jr.

 

Who doesn't love to be able to walk out of a holiday blockbuster and say, "Well, not bad but the book was better"? Get a jump on the season's upcoming films by reading the great books that inspired them, several of which are available in…

NonfictionFilmArts & Culture

Susan Orlean

Interview by Alden Mudge

Author Susan Orlean says she “certainly did not set out to write a book about a dog.” And, in a way, she hasn’t.

Yes, a dog—and not just any dog—is the grain around which this pearl of a book grows. But Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend is about so much more—world wars, movies, television, luck, devotion, the quest for immortality—that to call it simply a book about a dog is to diminish its nature and its appeal.

“Any book is a leap,” Orlean says during a call to the home in Columbia County, New York, that she and her husband and their young son will soon leave to spend a year in Los Angeles. “You have to go with your gut feeling that your curiosity is big enough and—fingers crossed and toes crossed—that the subject is big enough. An idea has to dilate the more you learn about it. There has to be the feeling of being off-kilter, of finding out things that just were not at all what you had expected. With Rin Tin Tin it felt instantly enormous. I went from thinking, oh, the television show from the 1950s, my god what a nostalgic moment, to oh my god, there was a real Rin Tin Tin? He was born in 1918? He was a silent film star? The idea grew and grew.”

Orlean traces the rise of a canine cultural hero, from the real-life pup found on a WWI battlefield to starring roles in movies and TV.

It grew so big, in fact, that the book offers a strangely riveting perspective on 20th-century America. Who knew, for example, that shortly after Pearl Harbor thousands of people donated their dogs to Dogs for Defense? One young donor, now an 81-year-old veterinarian in Louisiana, received a surprise call from Orlean, an intrepid reporter if ever there was one.

“Actually, my husband found him,” Orlean says. “He’s amazing at finding people. I thought he was probably dead. But all of a sudden my husband just handed me this phone number.” Orlean’s husband, John Gillespie, was a literature major who strayed into finance and became an investment banker. He is her first reader, shares her love of Faulkner and is the reason for their move to the West Coast.

Orlean, a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of seven previous books, including the bestseller The Orchid Thief, spent considerable time in Los Angeles researching her latest work. The original Rin Tin Tin and his descendants track the rise of American popular entertainment, from silent movies, to talkies, to television, and Orlean finds a way to swiftly and entertainingly chart the arc of those changes.

The Los Angeles area was also home to the two human stars of the book. Lee Duncan, who spent part of his childhood in an orphanage, found the original Rin Tin Tin as a newborn pup in a bombed-out German kennel in the waning days of World War I. The find transformed Duncan and gave him a single-minded sense of purpose to make his extraordinary dog into a star. Years later, Herbert “Bert” Leonard became similarly entranced by the idea of Rin Tin Tin and developed the popular television program. In Orlean’s telling, their stories are remarkable and moving.

“I felt enormous tenderness toward both of them because they were very flawed people with a tremendous capacity for loyalty and a kind of devotion that sometimes seemed very wrongheaded,” she says. “But I think what happens in life is that there are certain people who turn their lives into a vessel for carrying something forward that the rest of us then enjoy. I think Lee had a fundamental loneliness; even when he was an old man he seemed like the same little boy who lost his dog. Bert was a character, a very different type of guy with a messed-up personal life. But his principles were really admirable. They were both amazingly principled. They felt that there was something really special about this idea and this dog and it shouldn’t be cheapened or sold to the highest bidder.”

Orlean says she, too, came under the spell of Rin Tin Tin, the silent film actor. “When I read all these reviews saying he was an amazing actor I thought, well that’s so silly. Seeing the movies was amazing, because he really is credible. There are scenes where he’s suffering and you think, oh my god how could they do this to a dog? I mean, he is really good. And his face is very intelligent. German Shepherds are not goofy. They have a pretty serious face and it’s a really different emotion they convey just looking at you.”

Not only are German Shepherds not goofy, but Orlean discovered that they were bred into existence in 1899, and that their breeder fell afoul of the Nazis, who wanted to control the pedigree of their favorite dog.

“Isn’t that weird!” Orlean exclaims. “I almost died. You think of them as so classic, the ur-dog. And you think they’ve been around forever. The idea that they were engineered and within recent history was just amazing to me.”

It’s stories within stories like this one that make Rin Tin Tin such a compelling read. And thinking about these stories, she says, “resonated in a much deeper—forgive me if this sounds pretentious—sort of spiritual way. The only things that last forever are ideas that keep being carried forward, ideas that move us in some way. The first Rin Tin Tin lived a normal dog life, but the idea of this character and the idea that you could feel inspired and moved by this character kept being carried forward.

“I do think everybody is striving either overtly or not so overtly to live forever,” Orlean says. “Whether it’s by having children, writing a book or making a lot of money and naming something after themselves. The human impulse is to fight against mortality. So I think Lee and Bert were right, that Rin Tin Tin did live forever. And now I feel in my own way that I’m carrying it forward.”

Author Susan Orlean says she “certainly did not set out to write a book about a dog.” And, in a way, she hasn’t.

Yes, a dog—and not just any dog—is the grain around which this pearl of a book grows. But Rin Tin Tin: The Life…

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