Kreimeier, former cultural editor of the German magazine Der Spiegel, traces the history of the film company that is synonymous with the golden era of German film. Ufa, the Universum Film-Aktiongesellschaft (Universal Film Corporation), was the heart of German cinema from the early 1920s through the fall of the Third Reich, ``Germany's imperial purveyor of magical images.'' As Kreimeier explains in this exhaustively complete history of the company, Ufa's roots were in the ultranationalist German right wing, and from the very beginning, the corporation's vision was linked to the political agenda of the Wilhelmine old guard. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, the company was the brainchild of General Ludendorff and his underlings, who felt that the film industry had't done enough to propagandize on behalf of German armed forces during the recently concluded world war. With the Deutsche Bank playing a principal role throughout its history, Ufa would continue to be linked to Pan-German ideologues with ties to heavy industry; in 1927, the company was taken over by Alfred Hugenberg, chairman of the Krupp armaments empire and head of one of the ultra-right political parties. And when the Nazis came to power, Ufa, which had already swallowed many of its competitors, was the perfect vehicle for Goebbels's vision of a state-controlled film industry serving the needs of the Nazi Party. In spite of its political roots, Ufa managed to produce many memorable films and a host of great talents, including directors like Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch, stars like Emil Jannings and, perhaps most important of all, producer Erich Pommer. Kreimeier is more concerned with the political and economic machinations of the company and the cultural history that produced it than with the films themselves, but the book that results is a model of unflinching corporate history. An essential piece of film history and riveting reading. Only star-gazing film buffs will be disappointed. (121 b&w photos)
Pub Date: July 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8090-9483-5
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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