In this anthology twenty-six contemporary fiction writers and poets offer short essays on a single movie that inspired, seduced, horrified, or fascinated them, giving readers a rare glimpse of the writer's perspective on film.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Though writing and making movies involve somewhat similar creative processes, we rarely read detailed commentary by novelists and poets about specific films. This collection, while not film criticism per se, is a fascinating look at how one set of creative minds can view another. All superbly written, the pieces here (16 new, 10 reprinted) take a variety of tacks on their topics. Salman Rushdie's re-visioning of The Wizard of Oz is a dazzling meditation on the meaning of home in both the film and his own life, while J.M. Coetzee's reflections on John Houston's The Misfits dwell on the harsh reality that while we may see this movie (and all film) as consciously constructed "art," it was a terrifying reality for the wild horses involved. Charles Baxter's nuanced and illuminating comparison between Davis Grubb's novel The Night of the Hunter and Charles Laughton's brilliant film version explores both works' complicated and frightening depiction of the destroyed human body. Perhaps the most impressive essay in the book is Stephen Dobyns's lengthy analysis of Fred Wiseman's shocking Titicut Follies, a once-banned 1966 documentary of life inside a Massachusetts correctional institution at Bridgewater. Dobyns communicates all the movie's horror, while standing at enough of a remove to let us see it as an insane comedy of human frailty. This evocative and challenging collection will captivate devot s of film and literature. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Jim Shepard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and is the author of six novels, including most recently Project X, and four story collections, including the forthcoming You Think That's Bad (March 2011). His third collection, Like You'd Understand, Anyway, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. Project X won the 2005 Library of Congress/Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, as well as the ALEX Award from the American Library Association. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, Harper's, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, DoubleTake, the New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Playboy, and he was a columnist on film for the magazine The Believer. Four of his stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories and one for a Pushcart Prize. He's won an Artists' Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches at Williams College and lives in Williamstown with his wife Karen, his three children, and two beagles.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Here we are now, entertain us,
By nadine granoff (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Writers at the Movies: 26 Contemporary Authors Celebrate 26 Memorable Movies (Paperback)
Alternately playful and earnest, erudite and silly, these are delightful essays and perfect vacation reading. Most of the authors use this as an opportunity for some sort of memoir, some are deft at film criticism, some spend too much time laboriously recounting a plot, but the vast majority of the pieces are astutely observed, unpretentious, and immediately likeable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent compilation,
By LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Writers at the Movies: 26 Contemporary Authors Celebrate 26 Memorable Movies (Paperback)
This is a truly superior collection of non-fiction pieces by well (and some not so well) known fiction writers on their favorite films. Writers represented here include Robert Coover, Susan Sontag, Francine Prose, Rick Moody, Stephen Dobyns, Charles Baxter, and 20 more; the films they've selected are a really interesting group of movies, ranging from, believe it or not, the Japanese 60s cheesefest Destroy All Monsters! to The Godfather to Titicut Follies, among others.
What's also interesting is the diversity in the length of the pieces. Richard Howard turns in a punchy little 2 pages on Robert Bresson's Un Homme Echappe (A Man Escaped), while Edward Hirsch (unknown to me) waxes at length--32 pages--on the film Stevie. Aside from those mentioned in the last sentence, directors represented include Chabrol, Buster Keaton, Vincent Gallo (the great Buffalo 66), Polanski, Fassbinder, Coppola, Wajda, Truffaut, Antonioni, Huston, Godard, and, interestingly, Samuel Beckett for the film version of Quadra. A fascinating read for film fanatics, or for those who love literary fiction--or just plain great prose. Definitely recommended!
5.0 out of 5 stars
26 writers + 26 movies = 1 great book,
By Steven Bailey "Cinemaven" (Jacksonville Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Writers at the Movies: 26 Contemporary Authors Celebrate 26 Memorable Movies (Paperback)
Reading Writers at the Movies is nearly as engrossing as seeing the movies that are the subjects of the book's 26 essays. Of course, that's probably to be expected when writers such as Susan Sontag and the infamous Salman Rushdie offer their takes on movie classics.The typical take on movie criticism is that anybody can be a critic, since everyone has an opinion. But when a writer who can appreciate the craft of character creation gets ahold of a movie (or should I say, vice versa), it can quickly illustrate the difference between an artist and a hack for hire. Rick Bass's critique of Buffalo '66--a movie that, as he confessed in his essay, I had no desire to see because of its gimmicky subject matter--vividly illustrates what I call The Pauline Kael Theorem: The feeling that, even if you don't agree with a review from a given critic, you're still thrilled to read his or her take on it. There's a wide variety of movies covered, too. The expected classics are here, such as The Wizard of Oz (Rushdie's take on it is, you should pardon the expression, one for the books) and The Godfather. But the book also covers some underrated gems (such as Frederick Wiseman's documentary Titicut Follies) and some critical howlers (Titanic) that will make you either look at old favorites in a new way or make you run out the video store in search of an unseen gem. This book should be required reading in courses on movies, criticism, or just plain old writing.
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