Roger Ebert's Book of Film: From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the finest writing from a century of film (Hardcover)

~ (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is the best film book of the mid-'90s and probably the best anthology of writing about the movies ever published. Choosing from the work of novelists and essayists as well as directors, actors, screenwriters and technicians, Ebert places the best that has ever been said or thought about the movies on parade. Here Graham Greene, Delmore Schwartz, and Susan Sontag sit down with Akira Kurosawa, Janet Leigh, and Budd Schulberg; Robert Stone, Julia Phillips, and Kenneth Anger shake hands with Louise Brooks, Gore Vidal, and John Updike. Beautifully organized with lively commentary by the editor, Roger Ebert's Book of Film is entertaining enough to inspire the casual peruser to do further reading and serious enough to be a staple of any good film library.

From Publishers Weekly

From one of the country's most popular movie reviewers comes this exhaustive and pleasingly eclectic selection of articles on film and filmmaking. Designed for selective browsing, the book contains a treasure-chest of fine works, and only the occasional well-meaning clunker. On the fictional side, the strange nature of fame and star identification is subtly exposed in a short excerpt from Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, while novelists Elmore Leonard and Michael Tolkin both cut deeply and satirically into the odious nature of the moviemaking business. While John Updike is coolly humbled by Doris Day, Norman Mailer complains he could have used a whole lot more sex in Last Tango. Surprisingly, a few genuine geniuses come across a little stiffly, notably Alfred Hitchcock and Buster Keaton. But happily, light relief is close at hand: join John Waters for a gutter-level saunter through Hollywoodland, or thrill to Kenneth Anger's refined sleazoid take on the slew of tabloid-ready deaths the movie business has produced over the years, among them Lupe Velez in 1944 and Robert Walker in 1951. Elsewhere Terry McMillan compares her native Michigan to Dorothy's Oz and Kansas, Joan Didion finds much to admire in John Wayne and the incomparable Libby Gelman-Waxner from Premiere magazine disses film noir in her own catty fashion. A wealth of lore and legend is provided.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393040003
• ISBN-13: 978-0393040005
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #301,728 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two thumbs up, 'way up..., January 9, 2003

By	yygsgsdrassil "yygsgsdrassil" (Crossroads America) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

If you love the movies, if you love good reading and if you love the combination of the two like I do, you will *loooooove* this: a collection of notes, essays, interviews and memoirs by the movie makers, critics and reveiwers, about the icons, the good, the bad and the dirty of Hollywood and the movies.

There's so much good stuff in this, I don't know where to start
to inform you about it. Let me try the bullet approach.

*The important movie critics, of course, are here. Pauline Kael

does a tango with Norman Mailer on the flick "Last Tango in Paris", Sarris and Tynan as well as Editor Ebert are included
here.

*There's a great Truman Capote piece where he and Marilyn Monroe
(in anti-Monroe drag) hang out and dish the dirt. Capote tries to get her to admit that she's seeing writer Arthur Miller.

*Julia Phillips tells of the coked up, spiked up, hyped up days before and after the time she won the Oscar for her producing The Sting.

*There's hilarious sections on WC Fields and Baby Leroy (WC spikes Leroy's orange juice bottle with gin--"the child was more or less restored to consciousness, but in the scene that followed Turog (the director) complained of his lack of animation.") and Groucho Marx' letters to Warners Bros. executives about what "A Night in Casablanca" entailed. (The executives took umbrage to the use of Casablanca in the title.
Groucho, took umbrage to how absurd these guys were so he took the absurdity to another level.)

*There's the Spike Lee "Do the Right Thing" notes which basically outlines the entire film, but are extremely interesting none the less, there's the infamous Gleave and Forest FAQ on Quintin Tarintino's "Pulp Fiction".

*John Waters dishes the dirt on the polyester, back door, wrapped in cellophane and tossed in the dumpster LA. Funny stuff

*Janet Leigh on Hitchcock and the infamous shower scene, Hitchcock on Hitchcock's style of directing, Mamet on Mamet's style of directing.

*Peter Bogdanovich does a excellent piece on Humphrey Bogart and the Bogey Mystique. You are gonna luv that one, trust me.

*Terry 'Waiting to Exhale' McMillian tells us what growing up in Michigan and having the "Wizard of Oz" come on television has meant to her and her family.

And I haven't even scratched the surface of the many pleasures of this great undertaking. There's Mae West, there's Doris Day, there's Orson Welles, there's Frederico Fellini, there's Cary Grant and there's essays from the great novels Hollywood Babylon, Get Shorty and The Player.

There's hours and hours of reading pleasure in this fantastic book. "For me, no other art form touches me the way movies do", says Ebert. I heartily concur and I appreciate that his love of the movies has inspired him to put together this collection.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely the best, October 8, 1997

By A Customer

I know, 10's a little high, but come on, where else am I gonna read Klaus Kinski's version of his hellish Aguirre shoot? Or Ebert's own interview with Lee Marvin, itself a small masterpiece of literary journalism. I was glad to see Kael's glowing review of "Last Tango" balanced with Mailer's vulgar ripping of same. The chapter from Kurosawa's autobiography led me find the entire volume at the local library. This book not only highlights our love for the movies, it inspires a new passion for the written word -- and a greater appreciation for film criticism of all types. (And, of course, there's a chapter devoted to "Pulp Fiction" -- of course!)

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining from titles to credits, January 4, 1997

By A Customer

The picture of Ebert on the cover of this book says it all: he's gazingup at the movie screen, captured, awed, almost grateful. This marvelousanthology is his happy acknowledgement that others feel the same way about movies. It's a collection of takes on the industry--be it a particular film, a favorite star, or the behemoth that is Hollywood--from very talented participants in it. The information is fascinating, but it's the palpable love and excitement for movies that really gets across. One example: after reading reviews of "Last Tango in Paris" by Pauline Kael and Norman Mailer, I ran to the video store to rent it. (And then I ran to the bookstore for more Mailer!) I also found eerie the remarkable prescience of people like Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy in their anticipation of how the industry would develop. Every single contribution to this book is colorful and fun. If you love movies, it's an important book to have.