THE SECRET LIFE OF MOVING SHADOWS-Pt.1 and Pt.2 are two more installments of essays about films by filmmaker Mark Rappaport. His films include The Scenic Route (1978), Impostors (1979), and, more recently, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992) and From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995). The articles, many of which appear for the first time in English and several of which have never been published, are extensively illustrated. Rappaport is also the author of the highly-praised collection, The Moviegoer Who Knew Too Much, and (F)au(x)tobiographies. Both also available as e-books.
Here’s what various renowned writers have to say about his books—
PHILLIP LOPATE
It seems almost unfair that such an accomplished filmmaker as Mark Rappaport should also be such a brilliant writer. This invocation of movie lore, so hilarious, so tender, so knowing and wise, gave me more pleasure than any recent book on the cinema. There are priceless channelings of Garbo, Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman and Anna Magnani, and the pieces in the author’s own voice are equally entertaining. The result is a triumphant blending of fiction and nonfiction; research, memory and imagination.
ALBERTO MANGUEL
Mark Rappaport's extraordinary gift is not only that he is able to see creatively, to bring critically into being what he sees, but to be able to put this vision into words, so that we too, on the other side of the page, can perceive what he, on this side of the screen, has so keenly perceived. The ancients knew that we require guides when venturing into the realm of shadows. Mark Rappaport is one of these rare enlightened and enlightening spirits.
JONATHAN ROSENBAUM
Until now, this superb collection of meta-fictions, meta-essays and cine-imaginings, (Rappaport’s) highly original form of cinephilia, has only been available in a French edition. Those who’ve been able to sample this wonderful book only in magazines or online sites can now have access to it all.
RAYMOND BELLOUR
Mark Rappaport has created a new and very personal form of film criticism in which fiction is a driving force. Cinema itself undergoes a metamorphosis and is re-born in these imaginative essays.
