Hardcover. London, Book Palace Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 160 pages. In August 1914 much of Europe was pitched into a war that would eclipse all others in terms of its industrial ferocity. In an era when photography and film recording were still in their infancy, much of the news was relayed through the work of reportage artists. Pre-eminent amongst such artists was Fortunino Matania who was The Sphere's artist-on-the-spot for events ranging from coronations to colliery disasters. Sent to a variety of Fronts to cover the conflict, his illustrations created a gripping and, at times, life-affirming testimony to those traumatic times, drawn from the personal visits he made and interviews he conducted with survivors. For the first time ever, this book collects those images in large format so that they can be viewed as they were intended. OVER 150 paintings and drawings on the World War 1 conflict, depicting all its horrors and special moments. His work inspired many contemporary artists: Annigoni and Russell Flint both visited his studio, and many comic strip artists collected his work including Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, John Bolton, Bernie Wrightson as well as film directors such as Cecil B DeMille and Alfred Hitchcock.
Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 272 pages, b&w illustrations. Over the course of her sixty-five-year career, the longest of any female filmmaker, Agnes Varda (19282019) wrote and directed some of the most acclaimed films of her era, from her tour de force Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), a classic of modernist cinema, to the beloved documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) four decades later. She helped to define the French New Wave, inspired an entire generation of filmmakers, and was recognized with major awards at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals, as well as an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards. In this lively biography, former Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey explores the "complicated passions" that informed Varda's charmed life and indelible work. Rickey traces Varda's three remarkable careers-as still photographer, as filmmaker, and as installation artist. Remainder dot to top edge, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Berghahn Books, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 193 pages, b&w illustrations. With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish emigre from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Abrams Press, 1st, 1919, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 286 pages, b&w illustrations. The list of films Irwin Winkler has produced in his more-than-fifty-year career is extraordinary: Rocky, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, Creed, and The Irishman. His films have been nominated for fifty-two Academy Awards, including five movies for Best Picture, and have won twelve. In A Life in Movies, his charming and insightful memoir, Winkler tells the stories of his career through his many films as a producer and then as a writer and director, charting the changes in Hollywood over the past decades. Winkler started in the famous William Morris mailroom and made his first film--starring Elvis--in the last days of the old studio system. Beginning in the late 1960s, and then for decades to come, he produced a string of provocative and influential films, making him one of the most critically lauded, prolific, and commercially successful producers of his era. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Abrams Press, 2nd pr., 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The list of films Irwin Winkler has produced in his more-than-fifty-year career is extraordinary: Rocky, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, De-Lovely, The Right Stuff, and Creed. His films have been nominated for fifty-two Academy Awards, including five movies for Best Picture, and have won twelve. In this charming and insightful memoir, Winkler tells the stories of his career through his many films as a producer and then as a writer and director, charting the changes inHollywood over the past decades. Clean copy.
Softcover. UK, Watford Borough Council, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Original card covers. 12 b/w plates, essays, biography. Sir Hubert von Herkomer was a Bavarian-born British painter, pioneering film-director, and composer. Though a very successful portrait artist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Hyperion/Miramax, 1st, 1997, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 191 pages, b&w illustrations. Light waviness to some pages, otherwise clean copy. In an expert guide to the history of American film, enhanced by many wonderful full-color and black-and-white photographs and film stills, the acclaimed director takes a look at many American movies while exploring them from a both a professional and personal perspective. An academically trained filmmaker (NYU film school) who is among today's most innovative directors, Scorsese presents an engrossing, idiosyncratic memoir of his experiences with motion pictures, including recollections of his first boyhood journeys to movie theaters and the impressions the films made on him. In analyzing American film since the silent era, he especially highlights Westerns, musicals, and gangster movies, genres that originated in America. No markings.
London/NY, Faber & Faber, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright, edgeworn dust jacket that has a closed 2" tear along spine. 500 pages, b&w illustrations. Don Siegel was one of Hollywood's most controversial directors. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the very few acknowledged science-fiction classics, and Magnum Force - with its catch-phrase 'Make my day' - has become part of our modern consciousness. Siegel's five-film collaboration with Clint Eastwood created a body of films that are as distinctive as they are different, and enriched the reputation of both of them. This autobiography has all the fun and energy one would expect from Don Siegel. From his first days as an assistant editor in the Warner Brothers cutting rooms, Siegel charts his rich and varied career. This is a wonderful book of reminiscences, told in a lively and vivid style, whose cast of characters includes John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Bogart and Bacall, studio head Jack Warner and other luminaries of the golden age of the Hollywood studios (including a fading film star called Ronald Reagan, whose last film, The Killers, was directed by Siegel).At the centre of the book is Siegel's relationship with Clint Eastwood, whose directing career was encouraged by Siegel, and who supplies an amusing and appreciative foreword to the book. No markings.
Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 592 pages, b&w illustrations. Samuel Fuller, independent director-producer extraordinaire, tells the story of his life, a life that spanned most of the twentieth century. His twenty-nine tough, gritty pictures made from 1949 to 1989 set out to capture the truth of war, racism, and human frailties, and incorporate some of his own experiences. He writes of his years in the newspaper business--selling papers as a boy on the streets of New York, working for Hearst's New York Journal American, first as a copyboy, then as personal runner for the famous Hearst editor in chief Arthur Brisbane. His film Park Row was inspired by his years as a reporter for the New York Evening Graphic, where his beat included murders, suicides, state executions, and race riots--he scooped every other New York paper with his coverage of the death by drug overdose of the legendary Jeanne Eagels. Fuller talks about directing his first picture (he also wrote the script), I Shot Jesse James . . . and how, as a result, he was sought after by every major studio, choosing to work for Darryl Zanuck of Twentieth Century Fox. We see him becoming one of the most prolific, independent-minded writer-directors, turning out seven pictures in six years, among them Pickup on South Street, House of Bamboo, and China Gate. He writes about making Underworld U.S.A., a movie that shows how gangsters in the 1960s were no longer seen as thugs but as "respected" tax-paying executives . . . about the making of the movie Shock Corridor--about a journalist trying to solve a murder in a lunatic asylum--which exposed the conditions in mental institutions . . . and about White Dog (written in collaboration with Curtis Hanson), a film so controversial that Paramount's then studio heads, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, refused to release it. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, paper-covered boards, 172 pages. One of the most innovative films ever made, Sam Peckinpah's motion picture The Wild Bunch was released in 1969. From the outset, the film was considered controversial because of its powerful, graphic, and direct depiction of violence, but it was also praised for its lush photography, intricate camera work, and cutting-edge editing. Peckinpah's tale of an ill-fated, aging outlaw gang bound by a code of honor is often regarded as one of the most complex and impactful Westerns in American cinematic history. The issues dealt with in this groundbreaking film-violence, morality, friendship, and the legacy of American ambition and compromise-are just as relevant today as when the film first opened. To acknowledge the significance of The Wild Bunch, this collection brings together some of the leading Peckinpah scholars and critics to examine what many consider to be the director's greatest work. The book's nine essays cover an array of topics. Explored are the function of violence in the film and how its depiction is radically different from what is seen in other movies, the background of the film's production, the European response to the film's view of human nature, and the strong sense of the Texas/Mexico milieu surrounding the film's action. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 148 pages. This book celebrates the achievements of Alice Guy Blache (1873-1968), the first woman motion picture director and producer. From 1896 to 1907, she created films for Gaumont in Paris. In 1907, she moved to the United States and established her own film company, Solax. From 1914 to 1920, Guy Blache was an independent director for a number of film companies. Despite her immensely productive and creative career, Guy Blache's indispensable contribution to film history has been overlooked. She entered the world of filmmaking at its nascent stage, when films were seen primarily as a medium in the service of science or as an adjunct to selling cameras. Working with Gaumont cameramen and cameras and the new technical advances for the projection of film, she became one of the film pioneers ushering in the new era of motion pictures as a narrative form. Written by cinema history experts and curators, this handsome volume brings to light a critical new mass of Guy Blache's film oeuvre in an effort to restore her to her rightful place in film history.
Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 336 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy. Black & white and color images throughout. Tight copy. Introduction by Martin Scorsese.
Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 333 pages. Hardcover with laminated boards. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to edges. Color pictures throughout. Photographs and ephemera, many from private family albums, and personal recollections of the director. Complete visual, historical, and critical narrative of Altman?s films and his process. Introduction by Martin Scorsese.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 256 pages. Philosophical and biographical accounts of Antonin Artaud's late visual work, all reproduced in color. Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)-stage and film actor, director, writer, and visual artist-was a man of rage and genius. Expelled from the Surrealist movement for his refusal to renounce the theater, he founded the Theater of Cruelty and wrote The Theater and Its Double, one of the key twentieth-century texts on the topic. Artaud spent nine years at the end of his life in asylums, undergoing electroshock treatments. Released to the care of his friends in 1946, he began to draw again. This book presents drawings and portraits from this late resurgence, all in color. Accompanying the images are texts by by Artaud's longtime friend and editor Paule Thevenin and the philosopher Jacques Derrida. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.
Hardcover. East Sussex, Ammonite Press, 1sr, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 286 pages, color photographs throughout. No dust jacket as issued. Large, heavy folio. Black cloth with cover label photo. "Arrested" is the biography of idiosyncratic London-based photographer and film director Jim Lee. Lee established a portfolio photographing bands such as the Kinks and the Who and later became in demand as a fashion photographer, notably working with "Vogue" editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Lee's earlier photographic work is included in a permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Born in 1945 to parents who were both MI5 operatives, Lee's life has followed anything but a conventional route. Dyslexia and an independent spirit saw Lee at the age of just seventeen emigrate to Australia where his passion for photography was kindled. Rescued from fighting in the Vietnam war by his parents' intervention, Lee returned to the UK and began to establish a portfolio photographing bands. As his reputation grew, Lee became in demand as a fashion photographer for magazines during the late sixties and seventies. He collaborated with some of the most influential fashion designers, including Yves St Laurent and Gianni Versace, and his work appeared in "Elle", "The Sunday Times Magazine", "Harpers & Queen" and "The New York Times".
Hardcover. East Sussex, Ammonite Press, 1sr, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 286 pages, color photographs throughout. No dust jacket as issued. Large, heavy folio. Black cloth with cover label photo. "Arrested" is the biography of idiosyncratic London-based photographer and film director Jim Lee. Lee established a portfolio photographing bands such as the Kinks and the Who and later became in demand as a fashion photographer, notably working with "Vogue" editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Lee's earlier photographic work is included in a permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Born in 1945 to parents who were both MI5 operatives, Lee's life has followed anything but a conventional route. Dyslexia and an independent spirit saw Lee at the age of just seventeen emigrate to Australia where his passion for photography was kindled. Rescued from fighting in the Vietnam war by his parents' intervention, Lee returned to the UK and began to establish a portfolio photographing bands. As his reputation grew, Lee became in demand as a fashion photographer for magazines during the late sixties and seventies. He collaborated with some of the most influential fashion designers, including Yves St Laurent and Gianni Versace, and his work appeared in "Elle", "The Sunday Times Magazine", "Harpers & Queen" and "The New York Times".
Hardcover. New York, Viking Studio, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 271 pages including an Index and a Chronology of Hanna-Barbera Animated Series. Color illustrations throughout. SIGNED BY BOTH HANNA AND BARBERA.
Metuchen NJ, Scarecrow Press, 1st, 1991, Hardcover, 242 pages, b&w photos. Extensive interview with a veteran assistant director (who actually started out as a cameraman) whose career stretched over six decades, from 1918 to 1970. During the studio era he worked largely at Paramount and then 20th Century-Fox. Fun fact: He was also one of Clara Bow's boyfriends. No dust jacket issued.
Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, pages. As both star and director of the acclaimed film Henry V, young Branagh has had his career compared to that of Lawrence Olivier. Full of charm, humor, and insight into an actor's craft, Branagh's intriguing autobiography tells of his childhood in Belfast, his training at the Royal Academy of Drama, and his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company.INSCRIBED BY BRANAGH on front fly leaf.
Hardcover. New York , Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 579 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket, many BW illus. The third book in a triology, prefaced by The Parade's Gone By ... (1968) and The War, the West and the Wilderness (1979). Offers a full and illustrated "exploration of a vital and now almost forgotten chapter of American moviemaking: the response of early producers and directors to the agonizing social problems of the decades before World War I. ... An essential work of silent-film history, certain to become a standard reference." Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New York, Crown Publishers, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 463 pages, b&w illustrations. What do you need to make money making movies? The answer, according to cult hero, creator of the sexploitation film, and the man the Wall Street Journal once dubbed the King Leer of Hollywood, Russ Meyer, is: "big bosoms and square jaws." In the first candid and fiendishly researched account of the late cinematic instigator's life, Jimmy McDonough shows us how Russ Meyer used that formula to turn his own crazed fantasies into movies that made him a millionaire and changed the face of American film forever.
Hardcover. Lanham MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. While many film fans may not be familiar with Bill Duke's name, they most certainly recognize his face. Dating back to the 1970s, Duke has appeared in a number of popular films, including Car Wash, American Gigolo, Commando, Predator, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Fewer still might be aware of Duke's extraordinary accomplishments off-screen--as a talented director, producer, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and behind the Camera is the memoir of a Hollywood original. In an industry that rarely embraces artists of color, Duke first achieved success as an actor then turned to directing. After helming episodes of ratings giants Dallas, Falcon Crest, Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice, Duke progressed to feature films like A Rage in Harlem, Deep Cover, Hoodlum, and Sister Act 2. In this candid autobiography, Duke recalls the loving but stern presence of his mother and father, acting mentors like Olympia Dukakis, and the pitfalls that nearly derailed his career, notably an addiction to drugs. Along the way, readers will encounter familiar names like Danny Glover, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Hardcover. Taschen, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, yellow boards, without dj. as issued. (11" X 18") 384 pages, 843 color & b&w illustrations. Text in English, German & French. Wonderful homage to director Billy Wilder's classic comedy. Features ephemera loosely laid-in, including a facsimile of Marilyn Monroe's promptbook showcasing her original notes. Large and heavy production which requires extra shipping upon purchase. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.
Hardcover. NY, Atria Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. In this genre-defying work of cultural history, the chief film critic of Slate places comedy legend and acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keatons unique creative genius in the context of his time. Born the same year as the film industry in 1895, Buster Keaton began his career as the child star of a family slapstick act reputed to be the most violent in vaudeville. Beginning in his early twenties, he enjoyed a decade-long stretch as the director, star, stuntman, editor, and all-around mastermind of some of the greatest silent comedies ever made, including Sherlock Jr., The General, and The Cameraman. Even through his dark middle years as a severely depressed alcoholic finding work on the margins of show business, Keatons life had a way of reflecting the changes going on in the world around him. He found success in three different mediums at their creative peak: first vaudeville, then silent film, and finally the experimental early years of television. Remainder mark on top edge, otherwise like-new.