The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

Front Cover
Knopf, 2002 - Biography & Autobiography - 963 pages
For twenty-five years, David Thomson’sBiographical Dictionary of Filmhas been not merely “the finest reference book ever written about movies” (Graham Fuller,Interview), not merely the “desert island book” of art critic David Sylvester, not merely “a great, crazy masterpiece” (Geoff Dyer,The Guardian), but also “fiendishly seductive” (Greil Marcus,Rolling Stone). Now it returns, with its old entries updated and 300 new ones—from Luc Besson to Reese Witherspoon—making more than 1300 in all, some of them just a pungent paragraph, some of them several thousand words long. In addition to the new “musts,” Thomson has added key figures from film history—lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies. Personal, opinionated, funny, daring, provocative, and passionate, it is the one book that every filmmaker and film buff must own. Time Out named it one of the ten best books of the 1990s. Gavin Lambert recognized it as “a work of imagination in its own right.” Now better than ever—a masterwork by the man playwright David Hare called “the most stimulating and thoughtful film critic now writing.” From the Hardcover edition.

Contents

Alain Jessua and then in Les Uns et les Autres Lubin The Forgotten Woman 39 Harold
41
Eve Arden Eunice Quedens 191290 Emmy Finally there was a movie Our Miss
60
matter that more pressing claims might be Delbert Mann Sergeant Deadhead 65 Norman
82
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

David Thomson was born in London. He has taught film studies at Dartmouth College, has served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival, and has been the editor of theJournal of Gastronomy. He is a regular contributor to theNew York Times,Film Comment,Movieline,The New Republic,Salon, andThe Independent(London). He was the screenwriter on the award-winning documentaryThe Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. His other books includeShowman: The Life of David O. Selznick,Rosebud, and three works of fiction:Suspects,Silver Light, andWarren Beatty and Desert Eyes. David Thomson lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two sons.

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