Showing posts with label artists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artists. Show all posts

Warhol: The Biography Review

Warhol: The Biography
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Warhol: The Biography ReviewVictor Bockris' biography is sympathetic to Warhol's supposed contrived personality. The reader gets the impression that the author, who had a personal association with Warhol, really understood the facination his subject maintained for his adopted country (the U.S.) throughout most of his working life. While others tend to dismiss Warhol as a simple poseur Bockris relates his wide-eyed enthusiasm for the consumer society. While some have suggested he was manipulative, this biography suggests that he was slightly naive. Most of his life is covered here and, although there is documented proof of some interesting associations that are not touched upon, in general the work is broad in its scope and the reader will discover that the most notorious pop artist of all had far greater depth than his blank features and fickle comments suggested. It is also a feast for those interested in good gossip and the social history of the 60s and 70s.Warhol: The Biography OverviewArtist, filmmaker, magazine publisher, instigator of Pop Art, Andy Warhol (19281987) used his canvasses of dollar bills, soup cans, and celebrities to subvert distinctions between high and popular culture. His spectacular career encompassed the underground scene as well as the equally deviant worlds of politics, show business, and high society. Warhol is the definitive chronicle of Warhol's storied life.

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My Life And My Films (Da Capo Paperback) Review

My Life And My Films (Da Capo Paperback)
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My Life And My Films (Da Capo Paperback) ReviewJean Renoir is one of the greatest masters of the art of cinema. This autobiographical work traces his life from his childhood in France to his later years in Beverly Hills, not in the conventional sense, but rather through the world of film. This is fitting since the world of film was truly Jean Renoir's world.
Jean Renoir, middle son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made his first public debut quite early, albeit quite reluctantly, as the little boy with the long, golden curls who figures so prominently in many of his famous father's paintings.
Jean Renoir's early life, in later 19th century France, was dominated by two people--his father and Gabrielle Renard, his maternal cousin, who was to become his nanny and later, his dearest friend. While it was Auguste Renoir who introduced Jean to the world of art, it was Gabrielle who led him to the cinema. Jean, himself, says, "To her I owe Guignol and the Theatre Montmarte. She taught me to realize that the very unreality of those entertainments was a reason for examining real life. She taught me to see the face behind the masks and the fraud behind the flourishes."
Jean Renoir begins and ends this book with Gabrielle Renard, and, along the way, he examines and reveals the profound influence this marvelous woman exerted over him. In characteristic fashion Jean writes more about others than about himself. He lets us peer into the lives of the actors, technicians and producers with whom he worked, in places as diverse as Paris, Hollywood and even India. And, also characteristic of Jean, the unknown often play a role as large or larger than do the very famous.
While most of Jean Renoir's personal life remains unrevealed (this is definitely not a vapid, "tell all" tale!), he does tell us how and why he became a filmmaker and he goes to great lengths when explaining the relationship between film and life. From the depths of his dazzling imagination, Jean Renoir created nearly forty films, films that Francois Truffaut called, "the most alive films in the history of cinema." Two of these films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, are often thought of as Jean Renoir's masterpieces.
But other films also live on, including The River, the lyrically beautiful film Jean Renoir made in India, and The Southerner, a poetic tale in which all the characters are heroic, in which every element plays its part and all come together in an act of homage to divinity.
This book should be required reading for all students of film everywhere for, as Garson Kanin said of Jean Renoir, "In the world he inhabits he is known as the best of men. In the cinema universe he is a living god."
Everyone, I believe, film student or just a lover of film, can find something to love in My Life and My Films, for Jean Renoir was a man of immense and daring imagination and creativity; he was both simple in outlook yet profound, but above all, he was a lover of humanity, one whose heart and spirit were always as generous as they were wise.My Life And My Films (Da Capo Paperback) OverviewHere is the autobiography of the little boy with golden curls in the paintings of his father, Pierre Auguste Renoir—the boy who became the director many consider the greatest in history. François Truffaut called him "an infallible filmmaker . . . Renoir has succeeded in creating the most alive films in the history of cinema, films which still breathe forty years after they were made." In this book, Jean Renoir(1894-1979)presents his world, from his father's Montemarte studio to his own travels in Paris, Hollywood, and India. Here are tantalizing secrets about his greatest films—The Rules of the Game, The Grand Illusion, The River, A Day in the Country, La Bête Humaine, Toni. But most of all, Renoir shows us himself: a man if dazzling simplicity, immense creativity, and profound humanity.

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Films Review

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Films
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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Films ReviewA great introduction to the entire world of film -- not just Hollywood, but a host of world cinemas from European to Latin American to African and Near Eastern. The examples used are well explained and are always pertinent to the points at hand. My favorite chapters were one on film theory (which made obscure concepts accessible to the beginner) and one that used all the concepts introduced in the book to explain the German silent film "Nosferatu." I had just seen the new movie "Shadow of the Vampire," which is based on the making of "Nosferatu"; this book made me understand for the first time what a complex piece of art that early movie is. I highly recommend this book as an affordable intro to film criticism that, while accessible and fun to read, does not talk down to its audience.The Complete Idiot's Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Films OverviewIf you love movies, this entertaining, user-friendly manual offers you a selective guide for finding what you like and for discovering films that are new to you, from 1920s French films to classic Westerns. It covers Hollywoods entire hundred-year history and explains film genre and terminology.

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Chuck Jones: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists) Review

Chuck Jones: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists)
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Chuck Jones: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists) ReviewI highly recommend this book, and not just because I'm in it. (I highly easily finagled a telephone interview with Chuck Jones in 1988--not the greatest interview in the book, but surely one of the highlights of my life.)
If you're a fan of the legendary animation director, this book is the Holy Grail of interview books. It includes interviews by Richard Thompson and Greg Ford (who later did his own Looney Tunes cartoon, THE DUXORCIST) from Film Comment's legendary 1975 issue devoted to animation; an interview by film-buff supreme Joe Adamson (who also did his own Bugs Bunny cartoon, A POLITICAL CARTOON--geez, when do I get to do *my* Looney Tunes??); and several other great and extensive interviews with the master. An invaluable look into the mind of one of the great popular artists of our time.Chuck Jones: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists) Overview
Chuck Jones: Conversations brings to life the legendary Warner Bros. artist who helped shape the history of American animation, defining our impressions of such characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and Pepé le Pew. These interviews span more than thirty years, beginning with a 1968 conversation in which Jones (1912-2002) shares the spotlight with science fiction giant Ray Bradbury.
Throughout, the interviews illustrate the development of Jones's career, including shifts that came after the Warner Bros. animation unit closed in the early 1960s-from the uncertain years of American animation during that decade and the 1970s through the "rediscovery" of Jones and Hollywood studio animation during the 1980s and 1990s. Jones candidly discusses his aesthetic sensibilities, providing tips for aspiring animators and describing Warner Bros. animation in its heyday.
Jones was an art college graduate who struggled through the Depression, trying to establish himself within the Hollywood industry. In these conversations he emerges as a witty raconteur and a well-read, inspiring advocate for animation art, intent on nurturing future generations of animators. Jones recalls vividly the Golden Age of studio animation from the 1930s to the 1950s, including his connections with the Walt Disney studio and United Productions of America. With pleasure, insight, and depth, he describes his family and early life as well as his post-Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies days. These interviews reveal Jones's struggles as an artist, the many influences upon him, and the creative process that made him famous. This volume contains previously unpublished material along with classic interviews.
Maureen Furniss, Savannah, Georgia, professor of animation and film at Savannah College of Art and Design, is the founding editor and publisher of Animation Journal. She is the author of Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics, and her work has appeared in many periodicals.

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Orson Welles: Volume 2: Hello Americans Review

Orson Welles: Volume 2: Hello Americans
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Orson Welles: Volume 2: Hello Americans ReviewCinema mavens and simple movie fans can rejoice: the second volume of Simon Callow's scrupulously researched biography of Orson Welles has been published. The first volume, The Road to Xanadu, took Welles from his birth through the release of his first film, Citizen Kane (1941). This volume takes up immediately after Kane, and traces the arc of Welles' career until 1947, when he went into self-imposed exile in Europe for more than 20 years. Not only does the volume cover films--The Magnificent Ambersons (sliced to a shadow of Welles' intention); the Brazilian epic, It's All True, aborted and never really completed; the spectacular The Lady from Shanghai, again destroyed by the studio with inept editing and awful soundtrack and the half-baked, yet fascinating Macbeth--but it also covers Welles' career as a political pundit, a fuzzy leftist, just before the horrors of the House Un-American Activities Committee . . . an event that contributed to his flight from the United States.
Callow is really magnificent biographer. His work on Charles Laughton (Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor) really set the benchmark for both scholarship and humanity in dealing with a public figure in the arts. That Callow is primarily known as an actor and director proves renaissance men really do exist. (For those of you fuzzy on his looks, he was the hirsute gay man in Four Weddings and a Funeral.) This massive, 400+ page volume on the middle period of Welles' life is day-to-day detailed beyond one's wildest wish, yet fully captures both Welles' humanity and his follies. Callow is not quick to judge any of his subject's foibles, yet doesn't shrink from reporting Welles' sometimes callous and outre' work habits. Apparently, Welles suffered from a chronic inability to finish something, perhaps less it be judged. As a result, films were edited after he left a project to work on another, then never edited as well as the only film he ever really completed, Citizen Kane.
That Welles may have been an American tragedy--destroyed by the potential engendered in his youth, and never able to come up to the standard he himself had set--is left unspoken by Callow, but Welles' genius is keenly illustrated. Simon Callow is a man who clearly knows the
entertainment business better than most, and this biography is illuminating, touching, and, ultimately, heartbreaking.
Orson Welles: Volume 2: Hello Americans Overview

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The Hand Behind the Mouse : An Intimate Biography of Ub Iwerks Review

The Hand Behind the Mouse : An Intimate Biography of Ub Iwerks
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The Hand Behind the Mouse : An Intimate Biography of Ub Iwerks ReviewWalt Disney often liked to say to interviewers, waving a hand dramatically toward his vast animation studio, "Remember--this was all started by a mouse." True enough--but who created "the mouse?" If you think it was Walt, go stand in the corner--and read this book.
You'd think a man with a name like Ub Iwerks would have no difficulty being remembered, but his invaluable contribution to the Disney studio is buried in dusty archives. His cartoons as an independent now occupy the bottom of the discount video bin at Wal-Mart. Animation historians who do mention him portray him as a humorless glorified garage mechanic more interested in tinkering than the art of animation. Except, that is, for John Kenworthy.
Thanks to Kenworthy (with the aid of Leslie Iwerks, Ub's granddaughter) for the first time we get a much clearer, fairer picture of the man who is an unquestioned film-making genius. Without Ub Iwerks, we discover, not only would there have been no Mickey Mouse, there might have been no Disney studio. Walt, only a fair animator himself, needed Iwerks' incredible animation talents during the studio's formative years. (Iwerks animated the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, PLANE CRAZY, by himself in two weeks--a rate of 700 animation drawings per day!) Without Ub, Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews could not have cavorted with animated penguins, Donald Duck could not have ogled a sexy Latin senorita, and Tippi Hedren could not have been attacked by a flock of manic birds. (Didn't know he'd worked for Hitchcock as well as Disney, did you?) Iwerks' patented "travelling matte" process made those things possible.
So why is Disney lauded while Iwerks is nearly forgotten? Two reasons, according to Kenworthy. First, the fundamental nature of the two men. Walt was a ruthless self-promoter with an innate sense of what the public wanted--Iwerks, a painfully shy, modest loner who found solace in esoteric pursuits. Second, their approach to film-making. Disney sought to attain the illusion of reality through the personalities of his characters, while Iwerks chose to do so through technical advances. Therefore, everyone remembers Goofy, Donald Duck et. al. while Iwerks' independent creations, Willie Whopper and Flip the Frog, are footnotes in animation history.
These differences drove a wedge between the two men, causing Iwerks to split from Disney and form his own studio, which he struggled to maintain for ten very frustrating years. He failed, but not from lack of effort or imagination. He was a true "renaissance man", mastering everything from animation to sailing to archery and even bowling, moving on to the next challenge after conquering the one before. Animation was just one of those challenges, Kenworthy says, and far from the last. He would continue to find new areas to conquer to the end of his life, earning two Academy Awards for his technical work along the way. (Most of his greatest achievments were for his old friend Disney, to whom he returned in 1940).
If the book has one flaw, it is that it tends to fast-forward through some parts of Iwerks' life, but that is not Kenworthy's fault. Iwerks rarely discussed his traumatic early life (and personal problems) with members of his own family, let alone anyone else. But with this book, we nonetheless know far more about the man than other books bothered to tell us. And it's about time.The Hand Behind the Mouse : An Intimate Biography of Ub Iwerks OverviewCome meet the man you have known for all of your life!You may not know Ub Iwerks by name, but you certainly know his accomplishments. Walt Disney's friend, partner, adversary and alter ego all rolled into one, Iwerks was responsible for creating Mickey Mouse, adding color, sound and 3-dimensionality to cartoons and basically revolutionizing live-action films with his inventions, innovations and sheer brilliance. Without Ub Iwerks, we would not have the joy of seeing Donald Duck dancing with Aurora Miranda, Hayley Mills singing with herself or the Birds terrorizing Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's masterwork. Without Ub Iwerks, we could not have experienced the thrill of the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean or Circlevision to the same extent. Without Ub Iwerks, we could not have the technology available to allow the current generations of filmmakers -- people like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg -- to create worlds and effects that are truly unbelievable.Ub Iwerks' creations are legendary, but in The Hand Behind the Mouse, we get to see for the first time, the intimate and personal story of the man himself -- Ub Iwerks.

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Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs Review

Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs
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Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs ReviewVisual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs is a book written by Chris Orwig, an instructor of prestigious photography school. The approach of this book is workshop style, meaning that Chris will give you tips and tricks in the chapter, then followed by assignment and reference.
The interesting part of the book is when Chris relate literature (especially poetry) to photography. He argues that photography could be a great medium to express or convey a message or story.
In addition, this book discussed many kinds of photography from portrait, wedding, sports, and travel. However i feel that the discussion in each chapter is too general.
This book is geared towards someone who is already have pretty strong basic photography knowledge such as exposure, composition, equipments, but need an inspiration and a push in the back to try out new things.
For beginners, you might be disappointed because there is practically no instruction on how to get those kind of photos. There is no technical information (lens used, focal length, aperture/shutter speed) on each photographs in the book as well.Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs OverviewA great photograph has the potential to transcend verbal and written language. But how do you create these photographs? It's not the how that's important, but the who and the what. Who you are as a person has a direct impact on what you capture as a photographer.Whether you are an amateur or professional, architect or acupuncturist, physician or photographer, this guide provides inspiration, simple techniques, and assignments to boost your creative process and improve your digital images using natural light without additional gear.Chris Orwig's insights—to reduce and simplify, participate rather than critique, and capture a story—have made him an immensely popular workshop speaker and faculty member at the prestigious Brooks Institute. His engaging stories presented as lessons follow his classroom approach and highlight what students say is his contagious passion for life.In this accessible and beautifully illustrated four-color guide you will:
Discover visual poetry in the creative process
Use less to say more with your subject matter
Learn to see light, color, shape, and expression
Understand what gear is essential
Create compelling portraits
Make lasting memories of your family and kids
Capture the outdoors and adventure
Begin the transition from amateur to professional
Chris also includes exclusive interviews with such photographers as: Steve McCurry, Chris Rainier, John Sexton, Rodney Smith, Joyce Tenneson, John Paul Caponigro, Marc Riboud, and Pete Turner.Share your work with the author and other readers at www.flickr.com/groups/visual-poet and visit the Web site: www.visual-poet.com.

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