A Woody Allen confidant follows the legendary filmmaker step by step through the making of a movie.
Whether you love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Allen is one of this century’s most prolific and influential filmmakers. Since 1969, he has written and directed 48 films (and acted in 27 of them), which is a mind-boggling average of one per year. For much of that time, Lax (Faith, Interrupted, 2010, etc.) has been a part of Allen’s small inner circle; he is the author of three books on Allen, including a bestselling 1991 biography. Here, the director allowed the author to follow along through every step of one film: the 2015 drama Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone. The intimate access makes the book: Lax was in Allen’s bedroom with him as he wrote the script in longhand, lying fully clothed on top of his bed—though, Allen emphasizes, scripts are often percolating in various states of completion for many years. The author walks readers through the peculiarities of how Allen movies are financed—unwilling to be held hostage to the needs of studios, Allen often pays extra costs out of his own pocket—and cast: “It seems like it’s almost on every actor’s bucket list to be in [a] Woody Allen film,” says his longtime casting director, Juliet Taylor. Lax was there for the location scouting, the shooting itself, the editing process, and the scoring, “a rich dessert for Allen,” who is passionate about jazz, classical, and the American songbook. The book is a highly personal portrait of Allen—we see his insecurities, his vulnerabilities, and his dogged pursuit of a good story, be it for comedy or for deep examination of human morality—and the narrative is ripe with anecdotes and quotes. But the real achievement is seeing in detail the arc of any creative process.
Allen fans will delight in spending time with him by proxy, and anyone interested in modern film should find much of interest in this well-reported study.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-35249-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Did you like this book?
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY | UNITED STATES | HISTORY
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
