Jonathan Rosenbaum

Peter Bogdanovich

Orson Welles

Conversations reveal Welles's feelings about films, theater, the radio and television industries, and various other directors and stars

This Is Orson Welles

Innovative film and theater director, radio producer, actor, writer, painter, narrator, and magician, Orson Welles (1915–1985) was the last true Renaissance man of the twentieth century. From such great radio works as "War of the Worlds" to his cinematic masterpieces Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Othello, Macbeth, Touch of Evil, and Chimes at Midnight, Welles was a master storyteller, as expansive as he was enigmatic. This Is Orson Welles, a collection of penetrating and witty conversations between Welles and Peter Bogdanovich, includes insights into Welles's radio, theater, film, and television work; Hollywood producers, directors, and stars; and almost everything else, from acting to magic, literature to comic strips, bullfighters to gangsters. Now including Welles's revealing memo to Universal about his artistic intentions for Touch of Evil, (of which the "director's edition" was released in Fall 1998) this book, which Welles ultimately considered his autobiography, is a masterpiece as unique and engaging as the best of his works.

Conversations with Legendary Film Directors

Who the Devil Made It

Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980

The Killing of the Unicorn

Robert Aldrich

A famous filmmaker in his own right interviews legendary movie directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Leo McCarey, and Don Siegel, divulging little-known secrets about their most famous films and about the actors with whom they worked. Reprint.

Conversations with Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef Von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh

Who the Devil Made it

Collects reviews from the author's column in The New York observer showcasing films specific to seasons and holidays accompanied by critical essays and lists of tie-in recommendations

52 Classic Films for One Full Year

Peter Bogdanovich's Movie of the Week

Orson Welles will leave you agreeing with Marlene Dietrich, who also said (using Welles' words from Touch of Evil): "He was some kind of man. What does it matter what you say about people?"

The acclaimed producer, screenwriter, director, and author of Who the Devil Made It shares twenty-six memorable portraits of some of Hollywood's most notable actors and actresses, including Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Jerry Lewis, Marilyn Monroe, James Stewart, and others. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Conversations With Hollywood's Legendary Actors

Who The Hell's In It

Peter Bogdanovich, known primarily as a director, film historian and critic, has been working with professional actors all his life. He started out as an actor (he debuted on the stage in his sixth-grade production of Finian’s Rainbow); he watched actors work (he went to the theater every week from the age of thirteen and saw every important show on, or off, Broadway for the next decade); he studied acting, starting at sixteen, with Stella Adler (his work with her became the foundation for all he would ever do as an actor and a director). Now, in his new book, Who the Hell’s in It, Bogdanovich draws upon a lifetime of experience, observation and understanding of the art to write about the actors he came to know along the way; actors he admired from afar; actors he worked with, directed, befriended. Among them: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Frank Sinatra, and James Stewart. Bogdanovich captures—in their words and his—their work, their individual styles, what made them who they were, what gave them their appeal and why they’ve continued to be America’s iconic actors. On Lillian Gish: “the first virgin hearth goddess of the screen . . . a valiant and courageous symbol of fortitude and love through all distress.” On Marlon Brando: “He challenged himself never to be the same from picture to picture, refusing to become the kind of film star the studio system had invented and thrived upon—the recognizable human commodity each new film was built around . . . The funny thing is that Brando’s charismatic screen persona was vividly apparent despite the multiplicity of his guises . . . Brando always remains recognizable, a star-actor in spite of himself. ” Jerry Lewis to Bogdanovich on the first laugh Lewis ever got onstage: “I was five years old. My mom and dad had a tux made—I worked in the borscht circuit with them—and I came out and I sang, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ the big hit at the time . . . It was 1931, and I stopped the show—naturally—a five-year-old in a tuxedo is not going to stop the show? And I took a bow and my foot slipped and hit one of the floodlights and it exploded and the smoke and the sound scared me so I started to cry. The audience laughed—they were hysterical . . . So I knew I had to get the rest of my laughs the rest of my life, breaking, sitting, falling, spinning.” John Wayne to Bogdanovich, on the early years of Wayne’s career when he was working as a prop man: “Well, I’ve naturally studied John Ford professionally as well as loving the man. Ever since the first time I walked down his set as a goose-herder in 1927. They needed somebody from the prop department to keep the geese from getting under a fake hill they had for Mother Machree at Fox. I’d been hired because Tom Mix wanted a box seat for the USC football games, and so they promised jobs to Don Williams and myself and a couple of the players. They buried us over in the properties department, and Mr. Ford’s need for a goose-herder just seemed to fit my pistol.” These twenty-six portraits and conversations are unsurpassed in their evocation of a certain kind of great movie star that has vanished. Bogdanovich’s book is a celebration and a farewell.

Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors

Who the Hell's in It

Conversations with Robert Aldrich [and Others]

Jason Shinder

A second edition of a popular series collecting the year's most noteworthy writing about the art of film includes works by directors, including Steven Spielberg; historians, including Douglas Brinkley; and novelists, such as Gore Vidal; along with other features. Original.

The Best American Movie Writing 1999

Peter Bogdanovich on the Movies

Pieces of Time

This book provides an intimate and affectionate view of one of Hollywood's most admired directors. The fifty-year career of John Ford (1895-1973) included six Academy Awards, four New York Film Critics' Awards, and some of our most memorable films, among them The Informer (1934), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Quiet Man (1952), The Long Gray Line (1955), and The Wings of Eagles (1957). In addition, the name John Ford was practically synonymous with the great Westerns that came out of Hollywood for many years-- Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), for example. After his death a European newspaper mourned ford as "the creator of the Western," although many of his finest films were far removed from that genre. Combining interviews with John Ford with his own reflections, director Peter Bogdanovich captures both the artist and the man in a highly readable, compact book that will please film lovers and Ford admirers alike. Over a hundred stills are included, along wit hthe most completed filmography yet compiled for John Ford.

John Ford, Revised and Enlarged Edition

“A must have for any film nut.”—Details Peter Bogdanovich, award-winning director, screenwriter, actor and critic, interviews 16 legendary directors over a 15-year period. Their richly illuminating conversations combine to make this a riveting chronicle of Hollywood and picture making. Join him in conversations with: Robert Aldrich • George Cukor • Allan Dwan • Howard Hanks • Alfred Hitchcock • Chuck Jones • Fritz Lang • Joseph H. Lewis • Sidney Lumet • Leo McCarey • Otto Preminger • Don Siegel • Josef von Sternberg • Frank Tashlin • Edgar G. Ulmer • Raoul Walsh NOTE: This edition does not include photographs. Praise for Who the Devil Made It “Illuminating . . . These were (and sometimes are: a few yet breathe) men rooted in history as much as in Hollywood. Their collected memories make the past look fearfully rich beside a present that is poverty-stricken in everything except money.”—The New Yorker “Bogdanovich is one of America’s finest writers on the cinema. . . . Thank goodness [his] Who the Devil Made It has come along to remind us that films and writing about film were, at one time, focused on the work and not strictly on the bottom line.”—The Boston Globe “A treasure trove on the craft of directing.”—Newsday “Monumental . . . The directors’ reminiscences about technique, working methods, sources of ideas, and relationships with actors and studios are thoroughly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “A fine achievement that helps illuminate the art and craft of some remarkable directors . . . There are plenty of revealing anecdotes.”—Kirkus Reviews

Conversations with ...

"Traduzione di Roberto Buffagni Aldrich / Cukor / Dwan / Hawks / Hitchcock / Jones / Lang / Lewis / Lumet / McCarey / Preminger / Siegel von Sternberg / Tashlin / Ulmer / Walsh “Quando iniziai a fare le mie domande, suppergiù un mese prima del mio ventunesimo compleanno, avevo già studiato recitazione con Stella Adler per quattro anni, avevo partecipato a una quarantina di allestimenti teatrali professionali... Decisi che se davvero volevo imparare a fare dei film, per quel che differiscono dal teatro, dovevo sia vedere i film migliori e più significativi, sia avvicinare gli artisti professionisti che avevano lavorato in quel campo, se possibile osservarli sul lavoro e, certo, interrogarli il più possibile sul mestiere. La mia grande fortuna fu che i migliori cineasti, quelli che avevano dato vita al cinema, erano ancora vivi. Quando terminai la mia serie di interviste, circa dodici anni dopo, ero ormai affermato: ero nelle prime file della ‘nuova Hollywood’ degli anni settanta. La mia educazione e il mio apprendistato (in quel periodo, consideravo così tutto quel che facevo) avevano avuto successo: dai maestri e per conto mio avevo imparato il mestiere abbastanza da affermarmi. Ma come mi disse Josef von Sternberg mentre discutevamo i suoi grandi successi degli anni venti e trenta: ‘Dopo, però, successero tante cose...’ ” Peter Bogdanovich, tra i più grandi registi, sceneggiatori, critici e attori del Novecento, incontra sedici registi di Hollywood che hanno fatto la storia del cinema mondiale, da George Cukor a Howard Hawks, da Alfred Hitchcock a Sidney Lumet, da Fritz Lang a Don Siegel. Il risultato è un libro mitico, capace di catturare l’essenza dei maestri del grande schermo raccontando il loro lavoro, le loro scelte, lo stile che li ha resi icone immortali, e mostrando perché continuano a esercitare su di noi il loro fascino. “Bogdanovich è uno dei più eleganti scrittori di cinema americani.” The Boston Globe “Un tesoro tutto da scoprire sul cinema e l’arte della regia.” Newsday “Illuminante, racconta artisti che hanno lasciato una traccia profonda a Hollywood e nella nostra storia.” The New Yorker"

Peter Bogdanovich

Books

Your next favorite book is out there