A penetrating, incisive biography of the young but already legendary filmmaker. Perhaps nothing reveals the importance of Spielberg (Schindler's List, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.) at this moment in film history more than that this is the second full- scale work on the artist in as many months (see John Baxter, p. 181). But there is no contest. McBride, the author of Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (1992), a landmark in film biography, leaves Baxter in the dust. McBride combines extensive research into Spielberg's life with lucid, well-considered analyses of his films, discovering in them a depth and originality that will surprise even Spielberg's greatest fans. McBride devotes nearly half the book to a consideration of Spielberg's childhood and his early evolution as an artist. He patiently debunks many of the myths generated by Spielberg himself and examines the ways in which his troubled early years manifest themselves in his work. For example, McBride demonstrates that the filmmaker's relationship with his eccentric mother and frequently absent father are reflected in even such apparently impersonal work as the Indiana Jones movies. Then McBride details the making of each of Spielberg's films and critiques them with vivid insight. His impassioned defense of such problematic works as The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun make the reader want to see them again. If, in the book's second half, the public persona dominates the private life, that's an accurate reflection of a man who increasingly seems to exist most fully and comfortably in his work. McBride leaves Spielberg as he, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg establish a new studio, DreamWorks. Film history at its best: rich in information, often dazzling in perception. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-81167-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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