Make Spielberg Great Again


Book Description

Make Spielberg Great Again: The Steven Spielberg Chronicles collects Armond White's film criticism on the most famous and popular filmmaker of the last half century.




Close Encounters of the Third Kind


Book Description

(Applause Books). "Morton has written the definitive book on this innovative movie by Steven Spielberg...Meticulous research of this caliber is not found in other books on Close Encounters . Fans will find Morton's take informative and fascinating." Library Journal . Steven Spielberg's 1977 masterpiece used all of the power and magic of cinema to tell a story of man's first meeting with extraterrestrial beings. Renouncing the fear and pessimism of the day, writer/director Spielberg boldly envisioned this as a peaceful, spiritual event full of hope and possibility. This awe-inspiring message made a powerful impact on audiences desperate for something to believe in. The film was a massive box-office hit and revolutionized the movie industry; along with Star Wars , it helped to create the modern blockbuster and ushered in a new era of hi-tech effects. Based on in-depth research and the recollections of many of the film's principal creators, Close Encounters is the first book to chronicle the making of this classic film from its inception through its tumultuous production to its many releases in "special" editions. The book features new interviews with star Teri Garr, producer Michael Phillips, photographic effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull, production designer Joe Alves, and several cinematographers, screenwriters, and special-effects legends. John Hill, Jerry Belson, Hal Barwood, and Matthew Robbins; and special effects legends Richard Yuricich, Robert Swarthe, Dennis Muren, Scott Squires, Greg Jein, and Rocco Gioffre.




Steven Spielberg and Duel


Book Description

Since the early 1970s, Steven Spielberg has directed more than two dozen films, many of which have achieved classic status. In addition to critical and commercial successes that include E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Lincoln, Spielberg’s name has become synonymous with such thrilling adventure films as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and Minority Report. Before he became a world-renowned filmmaker, however, Spielberg established himself on television, helming episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery; Marcus Welby, M.D.; and Columbo. But it was the small-screen version of a Richard Matheson short story that brought the young director’s work to the attention of critics and viewers alike. In Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career, Steven Awalt provides an exhaustive study commemorating the film that decisively launched the career of a major film artist. Through in-depth research and interviews with the film’s creative and technical crew, the author tracks the film from genesis through production to release. Awalt conducted lengthy one-on-one interviews with Spielberg, Matheson, assistant director James Fargo, editor Frank Morriss, composer Billy Goldenberg, former MCA/Universal president Sidney J. Sheinberg, and writer-producer Steven Bochco, among others. Spielberg provided access to many rare documents from his archives, including multiple drafts of Duel’s teleplay, the shooting schedule, shooting logistics breakdowns, and production correspondence. The first book-length examination of this important production in the director’s early career, Steven Spielberg and Duel also includes the original teleplay by Matheson, four additional scenes created for the international theatrical release of the film, photos, and storyboards of the film’s final sequence. A fascinating look behind the scenes of an acclaimed work, this book will interest not only scholars and film historians but anyone interested in the work of Richard Matheson and Steven Spielberg.




Citizen Spielberg


Book Description

Steven Spielberg is the director or producer of over one third of the thirty highest grossing films of all time, yet most film scholars dismiss him as little more than a modern P. T. Barnum--a technically gifted and intellectually shallow showman who substitutes spectacle for substance. To date, no book has attempted to analyze the components of his worldview, the issues which animate his most significant works, the roots of his immense acceptance, and the influence his vast spectrum of imaginative products exerts on the public consciousness. In Citizen Spielberg, Lester D. Friedman fills that void with a systematic analysis of the various genres in which the director has worked, including science fiction (E.T.), adventure (Raiders trilogy), race films (The Color Purple, Amistad), and war films (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List). Friedman concludes that Spielberg’s films present a sustained artistic vision combined with a technical flair matched by few other filmmakers, and makes a compelling case for Spielberg to be considered as a major film artist.




Steven Spielberg's America


Book Description

Steven Spielberg is known as the most powerful man in New Hollywood and a pioneer of the contemporary blockbuster, America’s most successful export. His career began a new chapter in mass culture. At the same time, American post war liberalism was breaking down. This fascinating new book explains the complex relationship between film and politics through the prism of an iconic filmmaker. Spielberg’s early films were a triumphant emergence of the Sunbelt aesthetic that valued visceral kicks and basic emotions over the ambiguities of history. Such blockbusters have inspired much debate about their negative effect on politics and have been charged as being an expression of the corporatization of life. Here Frederick Wasser argues that the older Spielberg has not fully gone this way, suggesting that the filmmaker recycles the populist vision of older Hollywood because he sincerely believes in both big time moviemaking and liberal democracy. Nonetheless, his stories are burdened by his generation’s hostility to public life, and the book shows how he uses filmmaking tricks to keep his audience with him and to smooth over the ideological contradictions. His audiences have become more global, as his films engage history. This fresh and provocative take on Spielberg in the context of globalization, rampant market capitalism and the hardening socio-political landscape of the United States will be fascinating reading for students of film and for anyone interested in contemporary America and its culture.




Close Encounters of the Third Kind


Book Description




Steven Spielberg


Book Description

A film-centric portrait of the extraordinarily gifted movie director whose decades-long influence on American popular culture is unprecedented Everything about me is in my films, Steven Spielberg has said. Taking this as a key to understanding the hugely successful moviemaker, Molly Haskell explores the full range of Spielberg s works for the light they shine upon the man himself. Through such powerhouse hits as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones, to lesser-known masterworks like A.I. and Empire of the Sun, to the haunting Schindler s List, Haskell shows how Spielberg s uniquely evocative filmmaking and story-telling reveal the many ways in which his life, work, and times are entwined. Organizing chapters around specific films, the distinguished critic discusses how Spielberg s childhood in non-Jewish suburbs, his parents traumatic divorce, his return to Judaism upon his son s birth, and other events echo in his work. She offers a brilliant portrait of the extraordinary director a fearful boy living through his imagination who grew into a man whose openness, generosity of spirit, and creativity have enchanted audiences for more than 40 years.




You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again


Book Description

“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.”—The New York Times Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave. Praise for You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again “One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.”—The Boston Globe “Gossip too hot for even the National Enquirer . . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.”—Los Angeles Magazine “A blistering look at La La Land.”—USA Today “One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.”—People




"This shark, swallow you whole"


Book Description

One of the most influential thrillers in media history, Jaws first surfaced as a best-selling novel by first-time novelist Peter Benchley in 1974, followed by the 1975 feature film directed by Steven Spielberg at the beginning of his storied career. Jaws is often considered the first "blockbuster," and successive generations of filmmakers have cited it as formative in their own creative development. For nearly 50 years, critics and scholars have studied how and why this seemingly straightforward thriller holds such mass appeal. This book of original essays assembles a range of critical thought on the impact and legacy of the film, employing new perspectives--historical, cinematic, literary, scientific and environmental--while building on the insights of previous writers. While varying in focus, the essays in this volume all explore why Jaws was so successful in its time and how it remains a prominent storytelling influence well into the 21st century.




The America We Deserve


Book Description

The essential, bestselling book that first defined President Donald Trump's political ideas. The America We Deserve is the essential book for anyone who wants to understand the core of Donald Trump's political thinking. In this book, written as he first considered running for president in 2000, Trump offers no-nonsense, populist, provocative, and dramatic solutions to issues that continue to resonate with voters today. In this book, Trump lays out a vision for America that is strong, optimistic, and founded on core Republican principles of self-reliance, limited governance, economic growth, and equitable taxation. Striking for its similarities to President Trump's current initiatives--but also fascinating in its differences--The America We Deserve reveals a man who is fully engaged with the nation and cares deeply about its future. Readers and voters will discover Trump's ideas on: *Foreign policy and relations with China, Russia, North Korea, and Israel *How to fix our broken and underperfoming education system *Reducing regulations on business to help create jobs and economic growth *A dramatic one-time tax on the super-wealthy to close the national debt and fuel tax cuts for the middle class *Immigration, crime, terrorism, and more The America We Deserve is essential reading for Trump-watchers, voters, Republicans, Democrats, and anyone interested in how Trump the businessman became Trump the president.