Behind The Scenes Books (Tv or Film)

[Small Man Big Horse]

I wasn't quite sure where to place this as I think it'd have more scope covering both tv and films, but decided to put it here. Anyhow, what inspired it was hearing about a new book which is coming out which makes what was going on while Lost was filming was pretty bloody grim: https://www.avclub.com/toxic-culture-behind-the-scenes-of-lost-1850488649

New book details the toxic and racist culture behind the scenes of Lost
Lost writers and actors share claims of retaliation, racist jokes, and everyone being sidelined in favor of white people

With the WGA strike still going on, it's unfortunately easy to find a lot of stories about the casual condescension and mistreatment that TV writers regularly experience in their jobs, be it from executives who don't know anything about the creative process or what, but those problems are very much not new—and iconic entries in the television canon are certainly not immune. As detailed in an excerpt from longtime entertainment industry journalist Maureen Ryan's new book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, And A Call For Change In Hollywood on Vanity Fair, the success of beloved ABC drama Lost belied a behind-the-scenes culture of bullying and racism tolerated—if not outright encouraged—by showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.

The whole except is worth reading for anyone interested in Lost, or TV, or how TV is made, or just... the kinds of things that human beings can go through, but it tells various stories about writers and actor on the show having to endure offensive jokes and comments with the knowledge that they would be ostracized if they didn't put up with it or join in. Writer Monica Owusu-Breen compared it to middle school, saying it was "relentlessly cruel" and that she has "never heard that much racist commentary in one room" in her career. Here are some highlights from the Vanity Fair excerpt, either heard about Owusu-Breen or other writers who chose to stay anonymous to protect their careers:

When someone on staff was adopting an Asian child, one person said to another writer that "no grandparent wants a slanty-eyed grandchild."

When actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's picture was on the writers room table, someone was told to remove their nearby wallet "before he steals it."

When a woman entered the writers room carrying a binder, two sources said, a male writer asked her what it was. She said it was the HR manual for the studio, and he responded, "Why don't you take off your top and tell us about it?"

There was apparently some discomfort around the show's cleaning staff using the bathroom in the Lost offices, and there were "jokes" about "putting up a Whites Only sign."

Owusu-Breen also talks about when her and her writing partner, Alison Schapker, were assigned the episode where Akinnuoye-Agbaje's character is killed, claiming that Cuse wanted the character to essentially be lynched "from the highest tree" and allegedly lamented the fact that ABC wouldn't let them get away with finding a way to "cut his dick off and shove it down his throat." Owusu-Breen says she vocally objected to that kind of imagery and that her and Schapker were fired not long after that, but she also figures that Cuse wasn't even bringing up racist imagery on purpose and was just so used to being able to do whatever he wanted that it didn't occur to him to consider otherwise.

Similarly, actor Harold Perrineau—one of the main members of the show's ensemble early on—says a producer shrugged off his concerns that he and the other non-white actors were being steadily deemphasized in favor of the white characters (who a writer said were explicitly referred to as the "hero characters" by people in charge). Perrineau also says that he raised some issues he had with his character to Cuse and Lindeolf after fearing that he was being used to further "the narrative that nobody cares about Black boys, even Black fathers" when his character's son got kidnapped.

Perrineau says a scene that initially had no mention of his character's son was reworked after that, and though he was happy to do the work, he got the sense that Cuse and Lindelof were "suddenly" mad at him. He was written off the show not long after that, and he says Cuse's explanation was "Well, you said you don't have enough work here, so we're letting you go"—with Perrineau adding, "it was all very much, 'How dare you?'" Multiple sources also said that Lindelof told people that Perrineau "called me racist, so I fired his ass."

Meanwhile, Cuse and Lindelof don't outright deny all of the allegations raised about the culture they oversaw on Lost, but they—particularly Lindelof—do chalk a lot of it up to inexperience or just a general failing as managers. Cuse claimed he never heard of anyone feeling bullied or belittled because of racism or sexism, and that he would have done something had I heard about it, while Lindelof says he was "largely oblivious" to any "adverse impacts" that he had on anyone while working on the show.

Ryan's take is that, perhaps, Lindelof and Cuse were so happy to have a huge hit show and so focused on keeping it going that they "chose not to do anything about it," which very much does not and should not let them off the hook. As Ryan notes, "Whether or not Lindelof and Cuse were present for every damaging incident, the workplace environment at Lost was created, rewarded, and reinforced by them"—something that even Lindelof admits is true.

And that got me thinking about other good books that discuss the making of a tv series or film, and I'm not just considering the ones which involve an expose or anything shocking, just non-fiction which is really intriguing to hear about.

On that front the big one for me is Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, a book I adored reading and found incredibly fascinating, and I'm sure a lot was left out but just hearing about how he wrote the show, all the difficulties and problems faced, along with the sheer joy of making the show at times, made it a must read.

I'm also fond of The Uncensored, Unauthorised History of The Simpsons by John Ortved which goes in to a whole lot of detail about how the show came together and the many different writers who were involved during the series best seasons, I read it a while back and though my memory's a bit shit, I do remember thinking it had been a great read.

Finally there's The 007 Diaries: Filming Live and Let Die by Roger Moore, which are just Moore's diary entries made while making the film, but they're really eye opening. Moore comes across as a really decent bloke who was well aware of his limitations, and the anecdotes are often laugh out loud funny (especially when it came to how dangerous the stunts were) and I loved the fact that he hated the racism some of his cast faced, he even writes about a woman who wrote to him criticising him for working with black actors, and his response to her was great to read.

So I'd be interested in hearing about other such books, or even ones which are worth avoiding as they're not exactly truthful about what was taking place during filming.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Thanks for moving this to this subforum Neil, it's really appreciated.

Also, I'd sort of include The Disaster Artist, except I did think Greg complained about his lot in life a little bit too much, no one was forcing him to spend time with Tommy after all.

[mjwilson]

I've pre-ordered the Maureen Ryan book, which isn't just about Lost, and which has even worse quotes than the ones you mentioned. I think this is a fuller link: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/lost-tv-show-culture

On the movie side I can think of Biskind's books - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, although it's a while since I've read those, they may not be quite what you had in mean for the thread.

[BJBMK2]

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).

[mjwilson]

I haven't actually read it but The Devil's Candy is quite well-regarded I think, covering the making of Bonfire of the Vanities.

[Ignatius_S]

Some great suggestions there - would also add:

Difficult Men: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin - a look at various creators of hit shows; whilst not in-depth and felt it shows the magazine background of Martin, it gives a decent behind the scenes look at several shows. Don't expect any major dirt-digging, but not everyone comes across as a class act... but Shawn Ryan and Vince Gillian definitely do.

X-Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker by Alex Cox - looks at how his feature films were made and it's a fascinating read for anyone interested in how films are produced, regardless of whether they like or have seen Cox's work.

Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter by Preston Neal Jones - an incredibly detailed account of the making of... well, the clue is in the title. Absolutely outstanding work, largely constructed from interviews of those involved.

Man on the Flying Trapeze: The Life and Times of W.C. Fields by Simon Louvish - a biography of Fields that provides a huge amount of detail about how Fields made his films and his battles with the studios. Louvish also work a slim volume for the BFI about It's A Gift, which IIRC was represented in the biography.

In Search of the Third Man by Charles Grazin - a great book about the greatest film of all time, albeit marred by the writer's unfair assessment of what Joseph Cotten brought to the table.

[Fat Jesus]

I would second Heaven and Hell to Play With and Devil's Candy. Some others I'd recommend are (mostly dating back to the Classic Hollywood era):

Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker's Journey - Harlan Lebo - covers Orson Welles pre-Hollywood career, arrival, making of the film, and its reception;
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic - Glenn Frankel - engrossing telling of the story behind the film and its roots in the Red Scare, as well as its writer's career, as well as the making of the film;
Picture - Lillian Ross - started as a behind-the-scenes piece on John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage and then chaos ensued; and
The Studio - John Gregory Dunne - Dunne got access at 20th Century Fox for a year and documents the behind-the-scenes madness on films including the original Doctor Dolittle and Planet of the Apes.

I've also seen recommended Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists, but I've misplaced my hard copy and couldn't get past numerous typos in an e-book version I acquired. Another highly-rated book that I've not gotten round to yet (soon!) is The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson.

Finally, I think all of these books are worth reading regardless of what you think of the films - though familiarity with them probably helps contextualise the books.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've pre-ordered the Maureen Ryan book, which isn't just about Lost, and which has even worse quotes than the ones you mentioned. I think this is a fuller link: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/lost-tv-show-culture

On the movie side I can think of Biskind's books - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, although it's a while since I've read those, they may not be quite what you had in mean for the thread.

Thanks for that, while I liked Lost a book on it alone feels like it might be a bit of a struggle, so have added that to my Amazon Wishlist (which as I mentioned in the comics thread is my birthday next month, and I always get Amazon Giftcards from certain relatives) so am looking forward to ordering it then.

Plus I read one of Biskind books in the nineties / early thousands and enjoyed it, so will definitely check out more from him.

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).

Thank you for that too, I love The Devils and hope to get the book, it's a bit pricey on Amazon and Ebay right now but I'll keep a regular look out for to see if someone sells a cheaper copy at some point. Space Oddity and The Battle For Brazil also cover two of my favourite films and fall within my price range so I'll definitely get them soon. Very Naughty Boys sounds intriguing too, I read all of Marvel Comics The Untold Story and that's got a fair amount of office politics, so should be okay on that front.

Some great suggestions there - would also add:

Difficult Men: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad by Brett Martin - a look at various creators of hit shows; whilst not in-depth and felt it shows the magazine background of Martin, it gives a decent behind the scenes look at several shows. Don't expect any major dirt-digging, but not everyone comes across as a class act... but Shawn Ryan and Vince Gillian definitely do.

X-Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker by Alex Cox - looks at how his feature films were made and it's a fascinating read for anyone interested in how films are produced, regardless of whether they like or have seen Cox's work.

Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter by Preston Neal Jones - an incredibly detailed account of the making of... well, the clue is in the title. Absolutely outstanding work, largely constructed from interviews of those involved.

Man on the Flying Trapeze: The Life and Times of W.C. Fields by Simon Louvish - a biography of Fields that provides a huge amount of detail about how Fields made his films and his battles with the studios. Louvish also work a slim volume for the BFI about It's A Gift, which IIRC was represented in the biography.

In Search of the Third Man by Charles Grazin - a great book about the greatest film of all time, albeit marred by the writer's unfair assessment of what Joseph Cotten brought to the table.

Oh wow, I love Night Of The Hunter and The Third Man so will definitely get those, and Difficult Man sounds intriguing too. Shamefully I don't know that much about W.C. Fields and have only seen a couple of his films, so might put that on the backburner for a bit, but thank you for all of those suggestions!

Edit: Just finished typing that up and saw your post, thank you for it Fat Jesus, and I'll respond more in detail later on today.

[studpuppet]

Heaven & Hell To Play With is thirded (or is it fourthed?) by me.

From Beautiful Downtown Burbank: A Critical History of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In", 1968-1973 by Hal Erickson is worth it. Really annoying that beyond being on BBC2 in the early nineties (or maybe even the late eighties?) they've never really been repeated anywhere, as the book makes you want to see them all again.

The BFI Film Classics books are pretty good - I have Performance and Groundhog Day.

And not so much behind-the-scenes, as make-sense-of-it-while-you're-watching-it, is Andrew Hickey's book on Gurney Slade.

Not near my bookshelves until this evening, so there may be others.

[Bad Ambassador]

Bob Balaban's Close Encounters Diary is superb. A lot of background to the "hurry up and wait" ethos of making a major movie, and lots of anecdotes about hanging out for weeks with Francois Truffaut as his interpreter.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I would second Heaven and Hell to Play With and Devil's Candy. Some others I'd recommend are (mostly dating back to the Classic Hollywood era):

Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker's Journey - Harlan Lebo - covers Orson Welles pre-Hollywood career, arrival, making of the film, and its reception;
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic - Glenn Frankel - engrossing telling of the story behind the film and its roots in the Red Scare, as well as its writer's career, as well as the making of the film;
Picture - Lillian Ross - started as a behind-the-scenes piece on John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage and then chaos ensued; and
The Studio - John Gregory Dunne - Dunne got access at 20th Century Fox for a year and documents the behind-the-scenes madness on films including the original Doctor Dolittle and Planet of the Apes.

I've also seen recommended Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists, but I've misplaced my hard copy and couldn't get past numerous typos in an e-book version I acquired. Another highly-rated book that I've not gotten round to yet (soon!) is The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson.

Finally, I think all of these books are worth reading regardless of what you think of the films - though familiarity with them probably helps contextualise the books.

Thanks for all of those suggestions, I'm a big fan of Orson Welles and have read a lot about his life, but I'm always up for another book (though that said I didn't get on with Simon Callow's first, despite attending a signing where he read from it, and never did finish it in the end). Then again I was only twenty, so might appreciate it more. I'll definitely check out the others if I can find them inexpensively, Final Cut sounds a little like My Indecision is Final: The Rise and Fall of Goldcrest Films by Jake Eberts & Terry Ilott, a book which I found fascinating even though it's about a whole load of different films and how they effected the company rather than just one.

Heaven & Hell To Play With is thirded (or is it fourthed?) by me.

From Beautiful Downtown Burbank: A Critical History of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In", 1968-1973 by Hal Erickson is worth it. Really annoying that beyond being on BBC2 in the early nineties (or maybe even the late eighties?) they've never really been repeated anywhere, as the book makes you want to see them all again.

The BFI Film Classics books are pretty good - I have Performance and Groundhog Day.

And not so much behind-the-scenes, as make-sense-of-it-while-you're-watching-it, is Andrew Hickey's book on Gurney Slade.

Not near my bookshelves until this evening, so there may be others.

I have to admit to not knowing anything about Gurney Slade but I'll add all of the others to my Amazon wishlist, thank you for that.

Bob Balaban's Close Encounters Diary is superb. A lot of background to the "hurry up and wait" ethos of making a major movie, and lots of anecdotes about hanging out for weeks with Francois Truffaut as his interpreter.

Thanks for that recommendation too, I haven't seen Close Encounters since it's original tv screening (and I didn't love it back then, but I was also really young and had shit taste), so plan to watch it soon and will check out the book if I find myself enjoying it.

[Funcrusher]

I would echo the recommends for 'The Devil's Candy'. I'm never likely to watch Brian DePalma's flop adaptation of 'Bonfire of the Vanities', but this book provides a compelling account of the process of making the film and the creative, casting and other decisions and happenings that led to the film turning out as it did. It's years since I read it but I remember being impressed with how nuanced it was in depicting the various players, rather than just presenting them as egotistical divas or crassly commercial, while not stinting on showing their failings. 

[Small Man Big Horse]

I really appreciate everyone's responses (and any further ones too) and I've just ordered The Devil's Candy now. It seems to be one of those books where some people on Ebay are asking for crazy amounts, if you do a best match it comes up with one from World Of Books for £99.99, and Amazon have two different versions, one of which is pricier than the other. Anyway, I managed to get one via Amazon for £10.62 in the end which I'm very happy with, though it's an American seller so I'll probably have to wait a few weeks for it to arrive.

[magister]

Werner Herzog - A Guide for the Perplexed by Paul Cronin. It's 600 pages of Cronin interviewing Herzog about his career and life. If you've any interest in Herzog as a filmmaker, I'd say it's indispensable.

[madhair60]

great thread. Thank you.

[bgmnts]

A big what the fuck to OP! That's incredible. The bad old days I suppose.

What's curious to me is that despite the seemingly racist culture, Perrineau's character is one of the more interesting on the show.

Looking back Sayid is obviously very dodgy because we're balls deep in post 9/11 Iraq war shit but yeah not great.

[Terry Torpid]

I second the recommendations for A Guide for the Perplexed and that one about 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Richard E Grant's unimaginatively titled With Nails is enjoyable, because he's an odd mix of luvvie and catty, and his bitching about the making of Hudson Hawk is good fun. Nice and short.

Prof. Sir Christopher Frayling's book about Sergio Leone, Something To Do With Death is very good. He's a proper stuffy academic who takes all that spaghetti western stuff seriously.

Paul M Sammon's Future Noir, with its multiple revisions and updates, is the definitive book about Blade Runner. It's let down slightly by a few typesetting errors, and the photos being printed in black-and-white on regular pages.

I'm sure everyone here is familiar with Michael Palin's diaries. Unfortunately, the first volume is missing a bit, because he somehow lost the notebook which chronicled the making of the first series of Python, a tragedy he bemoans in the book.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Cronenberg on Cronenberg is pretty essential if you like well, Cronenberg obviously

[Small Man Big Horse]

Werner Herzog - A Guide for the Perplexed by Paul Cronin. It's 600 pages of Cronin interviewing Herzog about his career and life. If you've any interest in Herzog as a filmmaker, I'd say it's indispensable.

Thanks for that, have added it to my wishlist and will definitely get it at some point this year as I love Herzog a lot.

Richard E Grant's unimaginatively titled With Nails is enjoyable, because he's an odd mix of luvvie and catty, and his bitching about the making of Hudson Hawk is good fun. Nice and short.

I read that upon its release and enjoyed it, even though I like Hudson Hawk a lot, though it's a film I haven't watched in decades.

Cronenberg on Cronenberg is pretty essential if you like well, Cronenberg obviously

I had a few of those, like Scorsese On Scorsese, Allen On Allen and Lynch On Lynch, but then I headed off to university and didn't have the money for books I actually wanted to read. Looking at Faber and Faber there's quite a few others, but I haven't checked to see what the reviews of them are like.

[Mister Six]

On that front the big one for me is Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, a book I adored reading and found incredibly fascinating, and I'm sure a lot was left out but just hearing about how he wrote the show, all the difficulties and problems faced, along with the sheer joy of making the show at times, made it a must read.

This is the one I came in the thread to mention. Is it bag that as excited as I am for his return to Doctor Who, I'm even more excited to read The Writer's Tale 2 in about five years (fingers crossed)? I bet Benjamin Cook had opened his email account within picoseconds of learning about the return (if he wasn't already involved in the conversations leading up to it, which I'm sure he was).

Davies is such a great personality to read - such a compelling mix of buoyant excitement and neurotic self-hatred. I'm sure he'd be a pain to work under, but he sure as hell gets results on screen, doesn't he? Wish he'd elaborated a bit more on the behind-the-scenes fuckery on Torchwood, but I can understand why he might not have wanted to.

Lynch On Lynch

David Lynch's Room to Dream is mostly a mix of biography and autobiography, but has some fun behind-the-scenes details. Worth listening to the audio book, for Lynch's impersonations of Jack Nance and Dino Di Laurentiis.

[Small Man Big Horse]

This is the one I came in the thread to mention. Is it bag that as excited as I am for his return to Doctor Who, I'm even more excited to read The Writer's Tale 2 in about five years (fingers crossed)? I bet Benjamin Cook had opened his email account within picoseconds of learning about the return (if he wasn't already involved in the conversations leading up to it, which I'm sure he was).

Davies is such a great personality to read - such a compelling mix of buoyant excitement and neurotic self-hatred. I'm sure he'd be a pain to work under, but he sure as hell gets results on screen, doesn't he? Wish he'd elaborated a bit more on the behind-the-scenes fuckery on Torchwood, but I can understand why he might not have wanted to.

David Lynch's Room to Dream is mostly a mix of biography and autobiography, but has some fun behind-the-scenes details. Worth listening to the audio book, for Lynch's impersonations of Jack Nance and Dino Di Laurentiis.

Blimey, I hadn't even thought about the idea that we could get another volume of The Writer's Tale, but christ I really hope so, that'd be fantastic.

And thanks for the Lynch recommendation, I gave that to a friend as a birthday present once and then forgot all about it, but I shall add it to my amazon wishlist!

[magister]

Thanks for that, have added it to my wishlist and will definitely get it at some point this year as I love Herzog a lot.

Excellent! Let me know what you think - it's one of the few books that actually changed the way I think about film and life.

If anyone's interested in film history - specifically horror - then I'd recommend Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman. It's an overview of horror cinema from the late '60's - when Night of the Living Dead came out - to 2010. I keep finding more films in it that I want to see.

On a similar theme, there's some books by Jonathan Rigby that are worth picking up. English Gothic is a history of British horror cinema  from the late 19th century to about 5 years ago. Euro Gothic covers European horror up to the 1980's and American Gothic does US horror up to the late '50's. All well worth reading if you've an interest in the genre.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Excellent! Let me know what you think - it's one of the few books that actually changed the way I think about film and life.

Absolutely, my book backlog is ridiculous but I hope I'll start / finish it at some point this year.

If anyone's interested in film history - specifically horror - then I'd recommend Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman. It's an overview of horror cinema from the late '60's - when Night of the Living Dead came out - to 2010. I keep finding more films in it that I want to see.

I was very fond of Kim Newman in the early Empire years (and when he was briefly a regular critic on one of Channel 4's attempts at Breakfast tv) but don't always see eye to eye with him these days, partially as he has a soft spot for some very low budget affairs which I thought were quite poor.

On a similar theme, there's some books by Jonathan Rigby that are worth picking up. English Gothic is a history of British horror cinema  from the late 19th century to about 5 years ago. Euro Gothic covers European horror up to the 1980's and American Gothic does US horror up to the late '50's. All well worth reading if you've an interest in the genre.

I'm not aware of Jonathan Rigby but I did recently pick up Gothic Television by Helen Wheatley in my local Oxfam, it doesn't seem to have many reviews but I'm going to give it a shot to see if I get on with it.

I forgot to mention it before but Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill goes in to fantastic detail with the making of the first Evil Dead film. The only problem is that everything afterwards is covered quite fleetingly, but I think the book's worth reading if you're a fan of the man and can pick it up fairly cheaply.

[magister]

I read Gothic Television about 10 years ago. From what I remember, it was a pretty interesting read. Might see if I can dig it out and have another look.

Rigby also wrote a rather good book on Christopher Lee's screen career. Rigby's an actor himself - he was very funny as Kenneth Horne in a stage show of Round the Horne - and has a knack for picking up on and highlighting telling little details in performances.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I read Gothic Television about 10 years ago. From what I remember, it was a pretty interesting read. Might see if I can dig it out and have another look.

Thanks to for that, might have to bump it up the list and read it soon.

Rigby also wrote a rather good book on Christopher Lee's screen career. Rigby's an actor himself - he was very funny as Kenneth Horne in a stage show of Round the Horne - and has a knack for picking up on and highlighting telling little details in performances.

Cool, thank you for that one too, one of my friends is an enormous fan of Christopher Lee (and Peter Cushing) so I'm all but certain he'll have a copy and I'll have to try and borrow it.

[Cottonon]

Great stuff here, thanks. Taking the Herzog one on holiday. Would add Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb.

[Magnum Valentino]

I love Jonathan Rigby and have been picking up films on Blu-ray just to listen to his commentaries. Did Eureka's pressing of Black Friday yesterday. Sadly the other two films in the set have commentaries by Kim Newman who I find oddly insufferable in that context, though his writing is good.

I have those three Gothic books as well, all are very highly recommended as reference volumes. He was on one of the early League of Gentlemen DVDs as their interviewer or something similar as well.

[Angst in my Pants]

Bob Mortimer's autobiography "And Away" goes into a pleasing amount of detail about various meetings he and Jim had when Big Night Out was being commissioned for television, and to a lesser extent their subsequent shows. I recommend it as both a lovely autobiography and a behind the scenes book.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Bob Balaban's Close Encounters Diary is superb. A lot of background to the "hurry up and wait" ethos of making a major movie, and lots of anecdotes about hanging out for weeks with Francois Truffaut as his interpreter.

I'm reading and really enjoying this at the moment, and am often blown away by Spielberg's confidence in what he was doing, I've been critical of his post 2000 work a great deal but to be under 30 and able to tackle a film with this kind of budget and scale is amazing, and I know it's something I could never have done!

[Boycey]

I would heartily recommend Rebel Without A Crew, Robert Rodriguez' account of making El Mariachi (and the preceding stop in hospital as a medical lab rat in order to fund said film) and also Steven Soderbergh's Getting Away With It. This alternates between him interviewing Richard Lester and delving into making the likes of Schizopolis and Out Of Sight after him becoming the 'American Indie' darling after the success of sex, lies and videotape.

Sadly both are on the expensive-ish side on both WOB and AbeBooks but worth keeping an eye out if any turn up for a bit a cheaper