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The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (Hardcover)

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3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)

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  Kindle Edition, December 17, 2008 $13.18 -- --
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  Hardcover, October 8, 2002 -- $19.90 $3.97
  Paperback, November 15, 2004 $16.47 $15.32 $4.49

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When this book was first published in 1975, it ignited arguments among many film buffs who disagreed with London-born critic Thomson's strongly opinionated summations. This latest upgrade which includes 300 new entries promises to do the same. Thomson retitled it, he says, "because so much is fresh and different." Now that the reference includes talents who've shot to fame during the past decade or so, including Renee Zellweger ("great range") and Ben Affleck ("boring, complacent and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far"), it is truly massive, running the gamut from Abbott and Costello, who achieve the "lyrical, hysterical and mythic," to Ghost World's Terry Zwigoff, "a rare, individual voice". A critical minimalist, Thomson often nails the essence of a personality or career in less than a dozen words, such as Johnny Weissmuller: "No subsequent Tarzan ever matched him the loincloth was retired." He deftly distills entire movies down to single sentences, with Internet-like linkages. Since his Haley Joel Osment profile sneaks in a critique of Spielberg's A.I. ("Osment was uncannily good as the robot/puppet coming to life, but ultimately betrayed by the inability of his director to keep control of the very ambitious material"), the hypnotized reader feels compelled to seek his lengthier comments on Spielberg: "Schindler's List is the most moving film I have ever seen." After the publication of a 1994 edition, the Internet Movie Database became one of the book's major competitors, linking nearly a half million performers with over 260,000 titles, but one still turns to Thomson for witty writing and potent, razor-sharp insights. With an immense passion for pictures, he plunges past the IMDb into the very soul of film. Agent, Laura Morris. (Oct. 11) Forecast: Older readers will want to replace their earlier edition with this one, while an author tour, radio giveaways and advertising in the New York Times Book Review and Film Comment will attract a new generation.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal

First published in 1975 and updated in 1981 and 1994, this dictionary returns with 300 new entries, mostly on emerging actors and directors from the last decade (e.g., Luc Besson and Reese Witherspoon), bringing the total to 1300. Film scholar Thomson (Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick) offers extensive but not comprehensive coverage, with entries ranging from a couple of paragraphs to several pages. He seems to write about whoever interests him, leaving some unexplained gaps. For example, he profiles Jeff Bridges but not father Lloyd or brother Beau and includes a fine tribute to the late critic Pauline Kael but ignores Roger Ebert. The book contains a lengthy appreciation of TV talk show master Johnny Carson that probably doesn't belong here. Like other serious film writers his age, Thomson admits that he no longer finds movie-going the "transforming experience" it once was, adding "I think I have learned that I love books more than films." This probably shapes some of his outspoken opinions. For example, writing about Tommy Lee Jones's recent career, he says, "He became coarse or was it depressed? and you felt he had lost faith in the business as his checks grew bigger." Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies covers far more figures, in less detail than Thomson, though Thomson seems to value opinions as much as facts. Some readers may resent Thomson's dismissal of Paul Newman or John Ford's "appallingly hollow" Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley ("a monstrous slurry of tears and coal dust"). Halliwell's remains the first choice for a ready reference in film biography collections. If budget permits, large public libraries and college film collections should consider Thomson's book as a browsing title owing to its trenchant, sometimes witty, prose and its up-to-date coverage. Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 976 pages
  • Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 4th edition (October 8, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375411283
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375411281
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 2.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #688,104 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

41 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (41 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Misleading title; outrageously good book, February 16, 2003
By tentoone (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
If you're looking for a standard reference work, look elsewhere (Katz is probably your best bet). That said, this is one of the finest books I've discovered in years. You can read it from cover to cover and never get bored, which is impossible to say about any other reference book that I know of.

David Thomson is absolutely brilliant. I disagree with about half of what he writes here, but even when I disagree I respect his opinions and greatly admire the way in which he articulates them. Very often in these entries you will find that unexpected beauty and strangeness which is the hallmark of all great literature and all great art in general. Some of the passages are absolutely heartstopping. Here's Thomson on Jean Vigo:

"L'Atalante is about a more profound attitude to love than Gaumont understood. It is love without spoken explanation, unaffected by sentimental songs; but love as a mysterious, passionate affinity between inarticulate human animals."

Have you ever heard a more haunting, uncanny definition of love than this one? I certainly haven't. I read these words and then sat there like a fool in shock for five or six minutes, ruminating on their simple profundity.

Thomson is also not afraid to be nasty, which is refreshing in this age of mindless, frothy hype being spewed in all directions on just about everyone. Here he is on Roberto Benigni:

"Then came the thing called La Vite E Bella. As a matter of fact, I often echo that sentiment myself, but if there is anything likely to mar the bella-ness, it is not so much Hitlerism (I am against it), which is fairly obvious, as Benigni-ism, which walks away with high praise, box office, and Oscars. I despise Life Is Beautiful, especially its warmth, sincerity, and feeling, all of which I belive grow out of stupidity. Few events so surely signaled the decline of the motion picture as the glory piled on that odious and misguided fable."

Sometimes that nastiness reaches the heights of pure poetry. Here is Thomson on Richard Gere:

"There are times when Richard Gere has the warm affect of a wind tunnel at dawn, waiting for work, all sheen, inner curve, and posed emptiness. And those are not his worst times."

Lest you think that Thomson is merely a curmudgeonly old British [man], let me emphasize that in many other places (through most of the book, in fact), he displays a humanity and generosity of spirit that is nothing short of exemplary.

This book is not so much a reference on film as it is a meditation on life and everything in it. In these past hundred years movies have covered exactly that kind of encyclopedic range, both in their subject matter and in the lives of their makers. Thomson simply uses the world of cinema as a vehicle with which to explore the magnificent enigma of life and existence and somehow manages to pack more of that life into its 963 pages than any other book of any genre that I can think of. Opinionated, yes, but then again so is the Bible. A true desert island book. An absolute masterpiece.

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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the "must have" books about the movies., July 7, 2003
By Mykal Banta (Boynton Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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I have bought every edition of this book (this is the fourth) and find each one well worth the money. Thomson is the best writer among the movie critics, probably the best writer that has ever reviewed movies. His writing is so good, even when disagreeing with him, I still love reading the reviews or biographical sketches. He has a tremendous poetic economy with the English Language: consider the following:

About Bruce Dern in the film Coming Home:

". . . A rapturous embrace between Jane Fonda and Jon Voight was being watched by a wistful, suspicious Bruce Dern, his eyes lime pits of paranoia and resentment."

Or Basil Rathbone:

"The inverted arrow face, the razor nose, and a mustache that was really two fine shears stuck to his lip. Ladies looked fearfully at him, knowing that one embrace could cut them to ribbons."

Both these passages capture the essence of the star perfectly. Just perfectly. The book is full of this kind of superior writing.

The update has all the new stars, some who probably wish they were excluded. Who can not read a reviewer that says of Ben Affleck: ". . . Mr. Affleck is boring, complacent, and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far."

As I say, Thomson has a way of capturing things perfectly in a few words.

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31 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars a corrective, November 18, 2002
By A Customer
Boy does Thomson hate Fellini! That's fine, of course, but the author's cold bile (and British schoolboy elitism... he whacks Fellini over and over for daring to be born in a small town) make this almost useless as a real reference book. I guess it's fun to read as a cute, snotty film fan diary... but it's a thousand pages long! It should have come in a gift box, scribbled on damp, wadded cocktail napkins. Thomson hates John Ford, too. Again, fine. But he says that "The Last Hurrah" is Spencer Tracy's finest film (Ford directed it). Yet nowhere, NOWHERE, in the article on Ford is a single hint that there is a filmmaker present who could make Spencer Tracy's finest film. I guess the wounding thing is the hateful way that he mocks and ridicules we yokels who actually are stupid enough to enjoy Amarcord or La Dolce Vita. (He also seems completely ignorant, in his wild praise of Radio Days as an unprecedented, brilliant, sui generis masterpiece -- it's a great movie, but come on --, that the film is inconceivable without Amarcord... but that would mean that he would have to admit that Fellini, that unforgivably provincial clodhopper, had a style and some ideas.) Then again, this is a man who thinks Howard Hawks' last bowel movement should be preserved by the AFI (and surely "Man's Favorite Sport?", which Thomson cites as one of the screen's finest comedies, qualifies as a giant stinky...). He's right about a lot of things (Stanley Kramer [stinks]), but so what? And he's a fine, witty writer. Again, so what? Now I know what David Thomson thinks of Dorothy Gish. I can die a happy man.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Why it irritates me
I have been reading about different directors in the book and it has really started to irritate me. Maybe it is just impossible for anyone to write a dictionary like this because... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Thorkell August Ottarsson

5.0 out of 5 stars The Big Book of Film
Thomson writes the mini-essay like no one else. This book has info aplenty, but more than that it finds resonance in the most unexpected places. Read more
Published on January 4, 2007 by Peter L. Heyrman

2.0 out of 5 stars Opinionated, overwrought, self-important.
There is much ado about nothing in a good part of this book. Thomson has a habit of vast illuminations of celebrities that nobody has ever heard of, while ignoring many... Read more
Published on November 2, 2006 by F. Jarlett

3.0 out of 5 stars IT MAKES SO ME MAD!
To his credit Mr.Thomson loves motion pictures,it is his opinions that drive me crazy,especially in regards to legendary director John Ford,who was certainly a very complex... Read more
Published on June 4, 2006 by Kenneth Kapel

5.0 out of 5 stars For Movie Buffs
I recommend this book for all serious movie fans. It's a great reference containing brief biographies and film credits of most of the notable actors, directors, and producers... Read more
Published on March 2, 2006 by Robert Heiniger

2.0 out of 5 stars Smug as a bug in a rug
David Thomson is the sort of smug, pretentious critic you always wanted to smack around. Even the author's photograph on the book jacket oozes self-importance and ersatz... Read more
Published on February 8, 2006 by C. Boerger

1.0 out of 5 stars It's not a dictionary, but it is a total failure
As much we can say it's eccentric, unfortunately it apparently seems that Mr. Thomson never read any film encyclopedia, lexicon, biographical dictionary or any other kind of... Read more
Published on December 7, 2005 by tomsak

5.0 out of 5 stars Eccentric Gem
A sometimes maddening work that invents its own genre -- neither dictionary nor encyclopedia nor film criticism nor any other known category. Read more
Published on April 26, 2005 by Douglas Doepke

5.0 out of 5 stars Halliwell? Schmalliwell!
I love this book because it recognises the greatness of Cary Grant, Mitchum and Lee Marvin; because it raises up Hawks to his true place at the top while putting the humourless,... Read more
Published on March 22, 2005 by lowell duluth

5.0 out of 5 stars I bought this and the previous edition.
These books are absolute, cast iron and definitive insights into the movie world, whether Actors, Directors or Producers. Read more
Published on March 5, 2005 by S. Hebbron

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