Customer Reviews

George Stevens: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)

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This book employs a concise interview approach, to one of America's greatest, and most respected directors. In all his work, from "Alice Adams", to "Swing Time", "Woman of the Year", to "Vivacious Lady", to "Gunga Din"...to his work with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy...and to his later series of Oscar winning masterpieces, including "Shane", "Giant", "A Place in the Sun"...this little book exposes a man of great humanity and integrity. Though it does not delve deeply into most of the films, it does delve into the personalities of some of the colleagues he knew well.

The book therefore is not definitive, nor is it intended to be. However, I would say it prompts the reader towards further questioning. It's one of those readings that whet the appetite for further reading. I would have liked to have asked much more about the films already mentioned. Others, like "The Diary of Ann Frank", and his monumental film, "The Greatest Story Ever Told", are dealt with in greater depth, with special interviews.

The interviews also cover his participation in WW II, as Ike's film maker of D-Day, the liberation of Paris, the concentration camps...and how this seminal experience forever changed George Stevens, and his career, in some very profound ways. And, his story, without being an autobiography, possesses the immediacy of the great director's own words...with the personal filter of a writer, being replaced by the questions of an interviewer. As a result, it is most satisfying to learn his view of his world, and his era...directly.

I highly recommend the book, not only because of the story of this extraordinary man...but also, because the tight interview format allows the reader to learn much...and fairly quickly...and with this knowledge, to research further.