My Life And My Films (Da Capo Paperback) Review

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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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Letter from an Unknown Woman: Max Ophuls, director (Rutgers Films in Print) Review

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Letter from an Unknown Woman: Max Ophuls, director (Rutgers Films in Print) Reviewi was hoping to continue my quest for the books of stefan zweig not realizing that this was a screenplay and not a novel.
the most interesting of the book is the introduction.
i have not read the rest.Letter from an Unknown Woman: Max Ophuls, director (Rutgers Films in Print) OverviewThe fifth title in the Rutgers Films in Print Series, "Letter from an Unknown Woman" is directed by Max Ophuls and based on the novella by Stefan Zweig. It is the story of Lisa, a young girl who rejects the constricting life of her small town and family in order to dedicate her life to a musician, Stefan. The film's elegant fin-de-siecle Viennese setting, lyrical camera work, dispassionate and ironic point of view, and fine performances by Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan elevate what could have been a mere tearjerker into one of Ophuls's finest works. This volume provides a detailed transcription of the 1948 film. Notes appended to the film's continuity script detail all the significant differences between the finished film and the shooting script. Wexman's introductions to each of the book's sections discuss the history of the film's reception and provide an overview of the central issues the film has raised. A cross section of commentary by well-known critics attests to the film's enduring position as a central text for cinema study. These essays acknowledge the film's significance as a preeminent example of Ophuls's art, as an important woman's film, and as a representative of the classic Hollywood style. A biographical sketch of Ophuls, the entire Zweig novella, a bibliography and other background materials are also included.

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Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios Review

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Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios ReviewUnlike some of the other books about Ophuls, Bacher's book goes into what lay behind some of Ophuls' directorial decisions, the personalities of producers, editors, stars, etc. It is the book of scholarship that needs to be written about every director worth studying. This is the book you read BEFORE you start to consider what Ophuls is trying to communicate, what the meaning is of Ophuls films. The only drawback of the book is that it only goes into detail about Ophuls' four American films!
The biggest surprise was that the book was a pleasure to read. The personalities presented are real people. It is, despite the scholarly intention of the book, very fast reading. I found it too fast.... I will have to go back and read it again in order to write my own paper on Ophuls films!
MIchael Ian ChaplanMax Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios OverviewMax Ophuls, who is consideredone of the greatest film directors of all time, has long been seen as an "auteur"--the artist in complete control of his work. Lutz Bacher's examination of his American career gives us a unique perspective on the struggle on the workings of the Hollywood system and the struggle of a visionary to function within it. He thus establishes clear connections between the production contexts of Ophuls's American films and their idiosyncratic style.Drawing on documents in many archives and on interviews with more than sixty of Ophuls's contemporaries, Bacher traces the European director's struggle to find a niche in the U.S. film industry. He describes how Ophuls ran the gamut from ghost writing to substitute directing, to a debilitating association with Preston Sturges and Howard Hughes, to making four films--Letter from and Unknown Woman and Caught among them--in thirty months, and then returning to Europe with a runaway production that was to have starred Greta Garbo. Throughout, Bacher demonstrates that Ophuls's bending of conventional Hollywood methods to his own will through compromise and subversion allowed him to achieve a style that was both uniquely American and a point of departure from his later work. A rare synthesis of production history, stylistic analysis, and biography, this book is essential reading for serious film scholars and fans of the director's work.

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The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris Review

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The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris Review
Every time David McCullough puts his fingers to the typewriter that he uses to write with, he seems to transform our understanding of the topic he is studying. Whether it was President Harry Truman or for me Mornings on Horseback, I have walked away from his books with an enlightened feel for the topic that I have only been able to achieve with very few authors. James Michener is one who comes to mind immediately.

With this book, The Greater Journey, the author has now thoroughly engaged the reader with a topic seldom written about but very deserving of study. It is only natural that we as Americans feel we live in a self centered world; after all we have 2 vast oceans that have protected our shores from invasion for several centuries, and probably will for several more. It simply does not occur to us that since our beginnings, many Americans have chosen to spend considerable time abroad, and in some cases decades of their lives. During the 1800's and specifically from 1830 until 1900, there was a wave of intellectual migration that headed not west to America, but east to Paris, France from America. Keep in mind that we now sit in a country that is preeminent in the world, financially, intellectually, and probably culturally as well. Back then, we were just forming as a nation. The Indian wars were still in process, and the Civil War would also take place, which became the second re-creation of the United States. McCullough is totally aware of this comparison and makes wise use of it throughout this 456 page book composed of 14 distinct chapters separated into 3 parts, followed by a wonderful epilogue, and a very useful bibliography. The author understands history, and is always mindful of the relative positions of different nations. During this period we were not yet the top dog that we were to become after World War I. Europe still controlled the world's greatest universities and they were already centuries old. If you are going to read this book in a physical format as opposed to the Kindle digital version, you are in for a treat because the paper chosen is exquisite, and the font selection is superb. If you are an older reader as I am, you will appreciate the time that was taken to design the book appropriately for readers that still relish a physically well made book, and that's what we have here. This is the story of a 70 year period in the history of Paris, and the scores of Americans who occupied it, lived there, and helped participate in the transformation of what is called the city of light. It is also the story of scores of for want of a better word can be called expatriate Americans, although many of them did return to their native United States at different times. McCullough is one of the few authors who truly captures the essence of an environment and then proceeds to envelop it with a reality that absorbs and perhaps even demands our attention as readers. His description of the relationship between James Fennimore Cooper and Samuel F.B. Morse and their joy in living in this magnificent city and the effects it had on their work will remain in the reader's soul for many years after the book is put back on the shelf. When Morse painted his masterpiece, it was done in Paris, and perhaps after reading this book, one realizes it could only have been done in Paris.

The city of lights already had vast boulevards, and extraordinary parks decades before the United States designed them. Indeed, New York City's Central Park which would be created later in the century would take much from Paris, and other European cities. The Americans who would go to Paris and spend years there would recall later after returning to the United States the joy of the parks, the energy of the city itself and the sheer unequalled cultural delights that embodied Paris. Visually we can still see much of this in the work of the Impressionist School of painting.I found the author's handling of Mary Cassatt, who was a Philadelphia born daughter of American socialites who went on to be an illustrious painter as a principal part of the Impressionist school, to be particularly well done. Her relationship to Edgar Degas the renowned painter of the ballet and horses, as well as landscaping is thoroughly chronicled in the book. McCullough's ability to weave life into life, with Paris as the focal point constantly holding the book together in such a way that the reader feels compelled to continue to read, not pausing to eat is what in the end keeps the author at the pinnacle of his profession today. It is obvious that this book was a labor of love for the author. It comes shining through with the admiration that McCullough holds for both Oliver Wendell Homes the American medical student in Paris, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, a name we all recognize. He even takes the time to take us through the time that Mark Twain spent in this wonderful city. Not only was Paris transformed by the Americans that occupied it during this century, but Paris itself went through extraordinary changes and development. Kings re-invented the city several times during this century. Vast numbers of poor were displaced and sent to the country. It was invaded during this period as well. Later vast tree lined streets and boulevards would be created that became the envy of Europe. The Louvre would be increased in size enormously in an attempt to make it the most important museum on the entire continent, and France would succeed in this effort. McCullough intertwines the story of Paris, its growth, its impact on the Americans and what the Americans brought back to America as a result, into a book in such an imaginative way that the reader will find himself revisiting this book from time to time. In the end the book is riveting, and this is a phrase I find myself continuing to use every time I pick up a book written by this author. Many lives are captured in this masterpiece. They include George Healy the portrait painter, Nathaniel Hawthorne whose writings still continue to occupy many a college freshman's late nights, and future American Senator Charles Sumner who would have his views on slavery refined while living in Paris. Indeed he became an abolitionist as a result of his Parisian experience. CONCLUSION:Prior to reading The Greater Journey, I believed I had a good understanding of 19th century Paris. Having studied the art of that period, going to the Louvre, and sitting in on lectures dealing with Paris in the 1800's, I looked forward to seeing what this author could add to the story. I did not expect what I got, which was to have him blow away my understanding and replace it with something that came alive and stood on many different legs of understanding, but isn't that what great writing can do. It can simply make things come alive again. You feel as though you are there, and McCullough puts us right there in the thick of the action. Although it is not the whole story, if you have any interest at all in understanding the transformative art period that was the Impressionist movement it is vividly captured here in the lives of Augustus Saint-Gaudens with John Singer Sargent, and Mary Cassatt. David McCullough is already an acclaimed author with two Pulitzers and two national Book Awards, and it looks like with this book, he's got another Pulitzer coming down the pike. Thank you for reading this review. Richard C. Stoyeck
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris Overview

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