April 19, 2008

Books, 4/19.

Orson Welles at Work "Orson Welles at Work is a stunning new collection of rare and beautiful images from the films of Orson Welles, as collected by co-authors Jean-Pierre Berthomé and François Thomas," writes Lawrence French at Wellesnet. "To put it simply, this is the Welles book I've been hoping to see for quite some time. It's certainly a must have volume for anyone interested in the cinema of Orson Welles." Update, 4/21: The Afterword.

For the Los Angeles Times, Liz Brown reviews Richard Schickel's Film on Paper: The Inner Life of Movies: "Some writing does not benefit from being plucked from its original context. Gathered together, these essays form not so much a body of criticism or history as a series of finger exercises in dismissal."

Meanwhile, in his latest review for the LAT Schickel takes on Cecil B DeMille: "Simon Louvish, who subtitles his book 'A Life in Art' instead of something more accurate (like 'A Life in Hokum'), has taken on the daunting, not to say hopeless, task of smuggling DeMille out of camp's camp and ushering him back into more respectable circles."

Also, Nick Owchar on a reissue: "There's something about Batman - as vigilante, as avenger - that pulls storytellers into lurid depths. The Killing Joke goes deeper than most in exploring the darkness of this contemporary passion play."

"On stage, on screen and on the page the writer described by some as the most outstanding poetic voice of the century is undergoing an unprecedented cultural revival." Arifa Akbar in the Independent on Dylan Thomas.

Indignation "In a seven-figure deal, producer Scott Rudin has made a preemptive acquisition of Indignation, the Philip Roth novel to be published in September by Houghton Mifflin," reports Variety's Michael Fleming. Rudin: "I've been a maniacal fan of Roth's for years and waited for the one I thought could really be a great movie. It has remarkable movie potential."

In Slate, Ron Rosenbaum recommends a batch of books, movies and websites related to Shakespeare. Related: Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, Kevin Pease imagines Act 1, Scene 2 of Pulp Fiction as written by William Shakespeare.

At McSweeney's John Warner, author of So You Want to Be President?, has begun writing "Scripts for Negative Political Advertisements Offered to the Candidates Free of Charge."



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Posted by dwhudson at April 19, 2008 2:26 PM

Comments

This silent movie geek thinks Schickel might at least watch DeMille's the Golden Chance; it's available on DVD and it shows how modern and thoughtful a filmmaker DeMille could be, back in 1915 before his ballyhoo-wagon started running at full clip.

I haven't read Louvish's book yet, but the characterizations that "you almost never see blacks in a DeMille film" and that "Jews were only permitted to play villainous roles" has a fascinating counter-example in the form of This Day and Age, which I wrote a bit about on way back when. Come to think of it, isn't Charlton Heston as Moses another counter-example to the latter?

Posted by: Brian at April 19, 2008 8:41 PM