Greta Garbo's uniquely photogenic beauty belies her great talent as an actress, as her performances in "Queen Christina" and "Camille" prove. A hint of a Garbo smile, touch, or glance conveyed volumes. She was languid, distant, and melancholy, yet in her love scenes she conveyed a passion and hunger that startled audiences and overturned American notions of eroticism and sexuality. Part of her fascination, too, is the mystery of her private lives and loves: "I want to be alone," she insisted, but she remains the world's divine woman. "The Movie Icon" series: People talk about Hollywood glamour, about studios that had more stars than there are in heaven, about actors who weren't actors but were icons. Other people talk about these things, TASCHEN shows you. "Movie Icons" is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars. For each title, series editor Paul Duncan has painstaking selected approximately 150 high quality enigmatic and sumptuous portraits, colorful posters and lobby cards, rare film stills, and previously unpublished candid photos showing the stars as they really are. These images are accompanied by concise introductory essays by leading film writers; each book also includes a chronology, a filmography, and a bibliography, and is peppered with apposite quotes from the movies and from life. All the icons in the first 20 books of the series were voted for by over 7500 TASCHEN readers in a special online poll!
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About the Author
David Robinson is a critic and historian of long experience. He was successively film critic for The Financial Times (London) and The Times (London). His books have included Buster Keaton, Hollywood in the Twenties, World Cinema, From Peepshow to Palace and the definitive Chaplin: His Life and Art. Robinson is currently director of the Giornate del Cinema Muto (the Pordenone International Film Festival), the most prestigious festival dedicated to film history.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tiny Garbo bible,
By Bryce David (Cyberspace) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Greta Garbo: Divine (Movie Icons) (Paperback)
I purchased this small book on Greta Garbo because Greta is my favorite actor. She radiated a quality unlike any other actor, past or present. I've seen all of her movies, except for "Torrent" and "Love" and this little book is like a perfect summation of her cinematic career. The photos are amazing. I've purchased other Garbo books and personally speaking, this one beats them all because it contains such amazing collection of photos from her movies or behind the scenes production shots. Garbo, more than any other star, was extremely photogenic and this kind of book was made just for a star like her. It's like a little pocket bible on the career of Garbo.
My favorite photos are on page 37 from Torrent; page 62 beautiful candid shot of Garbo and John Gilbert at a piano; page 77 from A Woman of Affairs, 92-93 Garbo with Lew Ayres; all the photos from Anna Christie: page 112-113 from Inspiration; pages 116 and 118-119 from Susan Lenox; all the photos from Mata Hari, certainly the one on page 125; page 140-141 from Queen Christina, which perfectly captures the tone of the movie. The photo on the back cover is also great. I wish I had a poster of it. The book is chock full of beautiful photos that it's difficult to say which one is the best. What's surprising is that some of the text was more informative than big wordy biographies on her. With quotes from actors who worked with her or even reprints of a couple of movie magazine articles, I learned a few extra things about Garbo and her films that I never knew about. Anyway, I actually carry this book around with me and whenever I'm bored or have time to kill, I just look at it and I'm swept away.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cinema Classic Favorites,
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This review is from: Greta Garbo: Divine (Movie Icons) (Paperback)
Just finished reading "Greta Garbo: Divine(movie Icons)(French and German Edition)and being a long time fan of Greta Garbo and her films, and having bought several books on Garbo throughout the years, I still was surprised to find more information about her and her early American movies in this smaller book that I did'nt know about. Like the fact that her co-star Ricardo Cortez did'nt like her in their first movie together, "The Torrent", and he really gave her a hard time because he wanted her part to be portrayed by a fellow actress girlfriend of his instead. Also just looking at the filming techniques from those early films of Garbo's, like carring the camera hoisted way on up in the air in a basket in order to film high over head shots really looked and probably was dangerous but it must have worked because it sure helped them in filming the beautiful, exotic Garbo movie "Wild Orchids" to perfection. Oh Garbo's beauty was just so rare. It was in a way good that she retired early in the forties because her acting style was too stylish and dare I say it "old fashion" for the war-time forties and never mind the more realistic, cynical modern second half of the 20th century. Still we the fans of really vintage, classic movies, are very lucky to still be able to view Garbo's and other-like master pieces of early cinema, over and over again to our hearts content. Hooray to all those early film makers. Thanks Amazon. Sincerely, Rosario Elaine Torres San Antonio, Texas
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