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    Books on Film and other visual media

    Seems there should have already been a category like this but I couldn't find one.

    Matthew Specktor is a Hollywood kid. He was born there, lived there —or close by — most of his life and continues to do so. He's also like his parents — an agent, and a wannabe screenwriter — in the business, albeit only occasionally and often reluctantly.

    Always Crashing in the Same Car is a personal memoir of sorts. It's subtitled On Art, Crises, and Los Angeles, California. Which is a little hyperbolic. It's framed around a series of mini-bios. These are mainly of artists with connections to "The Industry," and/or the neighbourhood. Those who, like Speckor himself, experienced success, failure or neglect within it. They include: Eleanor and Frank Perry (writer/directors), Carole Eastman (screenwriter, actor), Thomas McGuane (author), Tuesday Weld (actor), Warren Zevon, (musician), Hal Ashby and Michael Cimino (directors), and Renata Adler (critic.) Off the top it's pretty clear some of these connections are tenuous to put it mildly. Zevon was brought up in the Hollywood area, but he had no connection with movies at all. McGuane, though he wrote screenplays and even directed a film of one of his books, is quoted as saying he "spent, maybe, fifteen days in Hollywood" in his life. Renata Adler, none at all, IIRC.

    Having said that, I confess I was totally sucked into this book. The subjects are among the foremost creators of my personal culture in my teens and twenties, so how could I not? The Swimmer (the Perry's), Five Easy Pieces and The Fortune (Eastman), Pretty Poison (Weld), Harold and Maude, Shampoo, even The Landlord (Ashby.) Brilliant all of them. They're definitely my people. What is odd about this book however is that all the subjects are at least a generation older than Specktor, or more. In fact most of them are dead. He never discloses why this is. It's true he grew up with movies, so was aware of the subjects from a younger age than most people his age. But that doesn't explain why more contemporary figures aren't included. It's curious. Anyway if you're at all into Hollywood of the the sixties his book absolutely hits the spot.

    #2
    That sounds worthwhile.
    I should start reading more books about film, as I'm increasingly interested in it. I've heard William Goldman's book is also fantastic.

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      #3
      He's written a couple hasn't he? Do you know which one is recommended?

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        #4
        Adventures in screenwriting?

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          #5
          I think I I get where your man is coming from. I grew up in the 90s where there were a load of really good indie films being made, but most of them pale next to the great early 70s pieces.

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            #6
            Yeah, there is that I guess. Though Specktor doesn't talk about the films in that sense, or much at all now I think about it, just the artists. It's a highly personal work, he references his parents and his relationship with them throughout the book. They are the same generation as his subjects, so it's almost as if the latter are also his relatives. Or he'd like them to be. The only one he's met seems to be Renata Adler, who he has irregular and brief contact with, but she's on the other side of the country. Tuesday Weld OTOH, lives a short drive away and there's no evidence they've been in direct touch. The book is mainly about place and people. His scholarship is exemplary, there are copious notes even the addresses of the different places in and around Hollywood he's lived in, which is kinda of weird but clearly important to him.

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              #7
              Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
              Adventures in screenwriting?
              That one.

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                #8
                Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures are well worth a read. Gossipy accounts of hellspawn egos, some of whom managed to make some of the greatest cinema of the 20th century. Easy Riders is by far the better book, not only because the films are far better but also because Down and Dirty Pictures is obsessed with grosses and points and the disgusting bastard Weinstein brothers loom over almost every page (even if the rapey stuff never made the cut due to lawyers).
                Last edited by Lang Spoon; 08-01-2022, 15:38.

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                  #9
                  I've got two or three books of Pauline Kael's New Yorker reviews that I dig out once in a while, magnificent writing.

                  Even when she's skewering a film I like there's value in it: eg her poisonous hate for 2001 made me re-evaluate how I felt about it, and as a story it is in the end a sophomoric piece of nonsense for all its attempt at Profundity, prog rock as cinema. I still love it for Turnbull's effects and the sinister as fuck/heartbreaking HAL, possibly the only properly human character and performance in any of Kubrick's films ever.

                  Raising Kane and other essays is a book I rarely come back to though, her talent was definitely best served in short form.

                  it's quite depressing none of her stuff is on Kindle, guess that means no one reads her anymore.
                  Last edited by Lang Spoon; 08-01-2022, 14:06.

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                    #10
                    I have several of Kael's Kompendiums too. They are excellent. Interestingly Specktor discusses how Renata Adler got herself blacklisted by the New Yorker, where she'd once been an editor, for heavily criticising Kael.

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                      #11
                      I really liked this book when I found it and lovingly recount 2 anecdotes from it in a lecture on 'spectatorship and audiences':
                      1) a guy saw The Birds in a crumbling Liverpool fleapit and was sat near a ventilation grille through which a pigeon fell just as the birds peck through the doors and attack the heroine;
                      2) an usherette was shining her torch in the aisle and saw a pair of pants, asking nearest female punter if they were hers- "No, mine are in my handbag", she replied
                      Seeing In The Dark by Breakwell, Ian; Hammond, Paul at AbeBooks.co.uk - ISBN 10:  1852421665 - ISBN 13:  9781852421663 - Serpent's Tail - 1990 - Softcover
                      Last edited by Felicity, I guess so; 13-01-2022, 09:21.

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                        #12
                        William Goldman-Adventures In The Screen Trade.
                        William Goldman- Which Lie Did I Tell
                        Mark Harrison-Pictures Of The Revolution
                        Michael Powell-A Life In Movies
                        James Kitses-Western Horizons
                        Peter Biskind-Easy Riders etc
                        Jason Zimmerman-Shock Value
                        Otto Friedrich-City Of Nets
                        David Thomson-Biographical Dictionary Of Film.
                        David Thomson-Have You Seen.
                        Tom Schatz-Genius Of The System

                        Theres even more pretentious bollocks written about cinema than about music but the above are all very good.
                        I bought about 20 books on Film Noir from a local Oxfam Shop in the mid 90s for 99p each the majority of which are pretentious beyond belief but judging by prices on eBay last time I looked were as good an investment as I’ve ever made.
                        Ive read decent Mitch, Bogie, Dino and Orson biogs.

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                          #13
                          Horizons West is the Kitses title, it is a very good book

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                            #14
                            I have nothing to add to this thread other than this earworm:

                            Books on film
                            Two minutes later

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                              #15
                              Mentioned by Sunderporinostesta above, City of Nets is Otto Friedrich's 800pp final volume in an urban history trilogy that also includes Manet's Paris, and Berlin in the1920s. For him Hollywood in the forties represented the culmination of a century of European immigration in the USA that ended in the shores of Southern California. The characters include multi-millionaire studio bosses, who almost to man were originally poverty-stricken Jews from Eastern Europe. Also writers and composers escaping the turmoil of WW2. Actors and directors are there too of course, though with a few exceptions, Freidrich spends less time with them. He frames his story as the peak of triumph leading to rapid decline and fall. The book deals in detail with the HUAC inquiries, and consequent blacklistings. How, financially powerful though they were, the studio heads were reduced to fearful "kikes," in the face of white politicians. Two of whom were to become US presidents. It is, however in no sense, a depressing read. The description of the elderly Arnold Schoenberg, watching his new TV while eating dinner off a tray is both humorous and poignant. George Raft appears briefly as the dumb bozo who passed up leads in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and Double Indemnity. While Ingrid Bergman's refusal to succumb to the lure of stardom, and have a child with someone who wasn't her husband, is an example of the declining control of the studio system.

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                                #16
                                Friedrich, Henry the K and I are among those to have won a certain prize at our old pile of bricks.

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                                  #17
                                  Both a little before your time I imagine?

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                                    #18
                                    Very much so

                                    Friedrich would have been the earliest

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