books about films, filmmakers, actors, genres, scenes, etc worth reading

[madhair60]

as a follow-up to my very successful thread about music books over in that shithole Oscillations, i thought i'd start one for recommendations about books that cover films, directors, actors, scenes, etc etc.

i'm almost done with Outrageous Conduct, the book about the Twilight Zone Movie disaster and while it's definitely interesting finding out just how unsafe Hollywood was, there's a touch too much conjecture in there and stuff the writer couldn't possibly have known. but it is a good read nonetheless.

now over to you

[El Unicornio, mang]

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet is essential reading if you want to learn about the nitty gritty of how films are made (or were made from the 1950s-90s) from someone who didn't every sugarcoat things

[Sebastian Cobb]

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet is essential reading if you want to learn about the nitty gritty of how films are made (or were made from the 1950s-90s) from someone who didn't every sugarcoat things

He also did the audiobook and has a charming voice.

I want to read Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, Pam Grier's memoir.

Also Cronenberg on Cronenberg.

[magister]

Werner Herzog - a Guide for the Perplexed by Paul Cronin. 500 pages of interviews with Herzog about his life and career. Fascinating book - there really is no-one like him.

If you've any interest in horror cinema, then American Gothic, English Gothic and Euro Gothic by Jonathan Rigby and Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman.

[Jim_MacLaine]

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. Celebrated story of the 70's wunderkinds. Scorcese, Coppola, De Palma etc.

High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess by Charles Fleming. Juicy biography of producer Simpson. Unflattering

You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again by Julia Phillips. Celebrated, juicy memoir by producer Phillips.

[sevendaughters]

- Hitchcock/Truffaut by Francois Truffaut
- The Dilys Powell Film Reader
- the anthologies of Cahiers du Cinema 50s and 60s
- From Caligari to Hitler by Siegfried Kracauer (about German cinema between the wars)
- The Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz (about the development of Hollywood)
- The Material Ghost by Gilberto Perez (theory and memory about cinema as a medium)
- Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell (RIP), Kristin Thompson, and Jeff Smith (how to look at films from the perspective used widely in film studies)
- What is Cinema? (2 vols) by Andre Bazin (mid-century film theory/quasi mysticism about the medium)
- Film Form: Essays in Film Theory by Sergei Eisenstein

I'm not so into those biographical histories so tread careful, most of these are geared toward the budding academic - but I think they're all fascinating and provocative.

[BJBMK2]

Time to be a lazy cunt and self-plagarise!

Raising Hell: Ken Russell And The Unmaking Of The Devils, a book on...well, you can guess. Feels like a light read from the outside, but it covers pretty much every ground you'd want covering. The real life historical influence on the film, the production, the censorship history, the release history (even dedicates a couple of pages to the shitty bootleg I bought of The Devils back in 200-whenever).

I recommended The Battle Of Brazil in another thread recently, Jack Matthew's contemporary account of the tug of war between Terry Gilliam and Universal over Brazil. Fantastic look into the mindset of 1980's Hollywood politics, and the thinking behind some spectacularly wrongheaded decisions.

Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C Clarke, And The Making Of A Masterpiece, should be read by anyone with a passing interest in the film.

If you want some books on companies imploding from within, pick up Very Naughty Boys, an account of the rise and fall of Handmade Films, and Disney War, which focuses on the Michael Eisner years over at mouse-land. (Admittedly, Disney War can be a bit of a slog in places, it depends how interested you are in the drama of office politics and corporate takeovers and all that marlarky).

[Magnum Valentino]

Roger Moore's books are very funny. Great storyteller and very likeable.

[BJBMK2]

Roger Moore's books are very funny. Great storyteller and very likeable.

His on-set diary of Live And Let Die is a thing of beauty.

[Tarquin]

Just started reading "A Masterpiece in Disarray" about Lynch's Dune. It's a very, very deep dive. Interesting so far, called BS on Dave's Return of the Jedi anecdote.

Frayling's Sergio Leone book is a lengthy but fascinating one.

Somone on here recommeded "Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood" and I thank them. The stuff about  Doctor Doolittle and Rex is jaw-dropping.

Peter Cowie's Godfather book is good for the disaster that was Part 3 - Coppola trying to justify to himself Pacino's mid-life crisis haircut "Yes! It's a crew-cut!"

Greg Sestero's The Disaster Artist is a wonderful book about a terrible film that was adapted into an even worse film.

Joe Adamson's "Tex Avery: King of Cartoons" is a personal fave.

[LynnBenfield69]

Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer by Jimmy McDonough

[Inspector Norse]

Hank Searls - Jaws: The Revenge: The Novelisation

[13 schoolyards]

Slightly surprised nobody's mentioned Julie Salamon's The Devil's Candy - her book on the trainwreck that was DePalma's movie of The Bonfire of the Vanities - but if you like tales of Hollywood throwing millions onto a giant, well, bonfire, it's a great read

[dmillburn]

It's fucking massive with an equally massive price to match (£125 but you can pick it up much cheaper - I paid £30 for a used copy) but Mad Dreams and Monsters: The Art of Phil Tippett and Tippett Studio is a huge fucking amazing book full of amazing behind the scenes photos and insights into his work (so sections on Star Wars, Robocop, Starship Troopers etc right up to Mad God). Well worth it if you've any interest at all in stop motion. Amazon.com often have it for under $40, so less that £50 delivered to the UK. 

Another one I'd recommend is Masters of Make-Up Effects: A Century of Practical Magic, which focuses mainly on horror and science fiction make-up effects and covers stuff like The Thing and An American Werewolf in London as well as more recent stuff like Harry Potter, Dune and Evil Dead Rise all with loads of interviews with the make-up artists plus actors and directors.

[iamcoop]

As mentioned by someone in the Fulci thread I picked up Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci last month for about £30, thinking it would mainly be a nice coffee table book with some nice photos but it's an actual proper book with words and stuff and it's fucking MASSIVE. Hard recommend if you like that sort of thing.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Got done reading The Stanley Kubrick Archives and it's a fantastic read, and a bargain at £16 new for a 700-page hardback w/dust jacket with full colour pictures. Goes into incredible detail about Kubrick's life and each of his films, and the ones he didn't finish, with a ton of photos, deleted shots, etc. Particularly the section on 2001 which describes the excruciating work that was needed for the effects shots. There's also a larger format version available for £50 which I'm tempted by as the cheaper version doesn't quite do the images justice.