The author of The Hollywood Exiles presents the first biography of the legendary filmmaker since his 1992 death, elucidating a complex, difficult man whose fantasy film world often seemed truer than real life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Flamboyant Italian director Federico Fellini kept a detailed dream diary which became the source for nearly all his later films, among them Casanova and 81/2. His immersion in Carl Jung's theories, obsession with the occult and reliance on psychics are among the revelations in Baxter's disarming, captivating biography. Drawing on interviews with Fellini (who died in 1993 at age 73) and his colleagues and friends, Baxter limns a self-doubting director, autocratic on the set and in his personal relationships, jealous of the success of his actress wife Giulietta Masina, and beset by anxiety about his public image, eventual death and sexuality. Son of an unresponsive father who was a traveling coffee salesman, Fellini was reared largely by dominating women. We learn that he and Giulietta led distant lives in a jaded marriage, and that he pursued passionate, nonphysical love relationships with Roberto Rossellini, Marcello Mastroianni and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Puncturing Fellini's self-mythologizing, Baxter links the soaring screen fantasies to the frustrated private individual. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Australian writer Baxter (Hollywood Exiles, LJ 4/15/76) specializes in the cinema of John Ford, Joseph von Sternberg, and Hollywood. His biography of Fellini was originally published in England shortly before the filmmaker's death in 1992 and has been expanded for U.S. publication to include coverage through Fellini's last days. Baxter reassembles the life and work of the flamboyant genius "through the written record and the reminiscences of colleagues and friends." One is charmed by Fellini's creative energy but also reminded of his cruelty, manipulation, and rivalry with collaborators (including his own wife, Giulietta Masina, the female lead in most of his famous films). For those interested in Fellini's film preproduction and his associations with Italian film industry contemporaries, this book is essential. For a more positive portrayal of Fellini, one needs to read Fellini on Fellini (LJ 7/76) and Hollis Alpert's Fellini: A Life (Atheneum, 1986). Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
Ming-ming Shen Kuo, Ball State Univ Lib., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Ming-ming Shen Kuo, Ball State Univ Lib., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
John Baxter was born in Sydney, Australia, but raised in a small country town called Junee. With little else to do, he went to the movies three times a week for most of his adolescence, which provided an instant education in Hollywood movies with which he was often able to embarrass film celebrities ("You SAW that thing?")
His second interest, however, was science fiction, which he began writing in his late teens. He sold stories to the same British and American magazines as J.G. Ballard and Thomas M. Disch, and in 1966 his first sf novel, THE GOD KILLERS, was published in both the US and Britain. He also edited the first-ever anthologies of Australian science fiction, and wrote the first history of the Australian cinema.
In 1969, he came to Europe, settled in London, and began writing books on the cinema, including a biography of the director Ken Russell, and studies of John Ford, Josef von Sternberg and the gangster and science fiction film genres, and working as an arts journalist for various magazines, and for BBC radio. He also served on the juries of European film festivals.
In 1974 he was invited to become visiting professor at Hollins College in Virginia, USA, where he remained for two years. While in America, he collaborated with Thomas Atkins on THE FIRE CAME BY; THE GREAT SIBERIAN EXPLOSION OF 1908,and wrote a study of director King Vidor, as well as completing two novels, THE HERMES FALL and BIDDING.
Returning to London, he published the technological thriller THE BLACK YACHT. In 1979 he moved to Ireland, and the following year returned to Australia, where he co-scripted the 1988 science fiction film THE TIME GUARDIANS, starring Carrie Fisher and Dean Stockwell. He also wrote and presented three TV series on the cinema, and produced and presented the ABC radio programme BOOKS AND WRITING.
In 1989 he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a screenwriter and film journalist. The following year, he met his present wife, Marie-Dominique Montel, and re-located in Paris.
After moving to France, John published biographies of Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Robert De Niro, as well as three books of autobiography, A POUND OF PAPER: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK ADDICT, dealing with his fascination for collecting books, WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS: SEX AND LOVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT, of which the SUNDAY TIMES of London wrote "it towers above most recent memoirs of life abroad," and IMMOVEABLE FEAST: A PARIS CHRISTMAS. His most recent book is CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, a guide to erotica in the 20th and 21st centuries. His translations of MORPHINE by Dubut de la Forest and FUMEE D'OPIUM of Claude Farrere will be published shortly by HarperCollins.
John is co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop and a frequent lecturer and public speaker. His hobbies are cooking and book collecting. He has a major collection of modern first editions. When not writing, he can be found prowling the bouquinistes along the Seine or cruising the Internet in search of new acquisitions.
His second interest, however, was science fiction, which he began writing in his late teens. He sold stories to the same British and American magazines as J.G. Ballard and Thomas M. Disch, and in 1966 his first sf novel, THE GOD KILLERS, was published in both the US and Britain. He also edited the first-ever anthologies of Australian science fiction, and wrote the first history of the Australian cinema.
In 1969, he came to Europe, settled in London, and began writing books on the cinema, including a biography of the director Ken Russell, and studies of John Ford, Josef von Sternberg and the gangster and science fiction film genres, and working as an arts journalist for various magazines, and for BBC radio. He also served on the juries of European film festivals.
In 1974 he was invited to become visiting professor at Hollins College in Virginia, USA, where he remained for two years. While in America, he collaborated with Thomas Atkins on THE FIRE CAME BY; THE GREAT SIBERIAN EXPLOSION OF 1908,and wrote a study of director King Vidor, as well as completing two novels, THE HERMES FALL and BIDDING.
Returning to London, he published the technological thriller THE BLACK YACHT. In 1979 he moved to Ireland, and the following year returned to Australia, where he co-scripted the 1988 science fiction film THE TIME GUARDIANS, starring Carrie Fisher and Dean Stockwell. He also wrote and presented three TV series on the cinema, and produced and presented the ABC radio programme BOOKS AND WRITING.
In 1989 he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a screenwriter and film journalist. The following year, he met his present wife, Marie-Dominique Montel, and re-located in Paris.
After moving to France, John published biographies of Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Robert De Niro, as well as three books of autobiography, A POUND OF PAPER: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK ADDICT, dealing with his fascination for collecting books, WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS: SEX AND LOVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT, of which the SUNDAY TIMES of London wrote "it towers above most recent memoirs of life abroad," and IMMOVEABLE FEAST: A PARIS CHRISTMAS. His most recent book is CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, a guide to erotica in the 20th and 21st centuries. His translations of MORPHINE by Dubut de la Forest and FUMEE D'OPIUM of Claude Farrere will be published shortly by HarperCollins.
John is co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop and a frequent lecturer and public speaker. His hobbies are cooking and book collecting. He has a major collection of modern first editions. When not writing, he can be found prowling the bouquinistes along the Seine or cruising the Internet in search of new acquisitions.
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