An odd, compelling addition to the film fan’s library.
A Welsh poet appropriates an American icon in search of a workable design for manhood.
Robson (Bbboing and Associated Weirdness, 2003, etc.) assays the persona of iconic tough-guy actor Robert Mitchum in this unusual biography/memoir. He “searches” for Mitchum in a variety of the actor’s prefame stomping grounds, traversing the Eastern Seaboard in a haphazard effort to pin down the facts about Mitchum’s peripatetic youth, which included riding the rails with hoboes during the Depression, a career as a prizefighter and a stint on a prison chain gang. Rather than devoting himself to methodical research, however, Robson wanders around strange towns large and small, drinking in bars, smoking copious amounts of dope, bedding friendly American women and suffering the privations of modern long-distance bus travel. All the while he natters on about Mitchum to everyone he meets, most of whom fail to recognize the actor’s name or remember any of his films. Strangely, this approach produces an entertaining, insightful portrait of a Hollywood movie star that avoids the deadening formula of the standard celebrity biography. Robson evokes the essence of a life through a collage-like accumulation of lines of movie dialogue, quotes from interviews with the garrulous and eloquent actor, descriptions of sequences from Mitchum’s films and the scanty piece of hard biographical evidence. The author states that his quest is motivated by a spiritual need to reconcile the opposing poles of his own masculinity—sensitive artist versus stoic man’s man. His father refused to acknowledge such oppositions, he writes, while Mitchum seemed to negotiate them with a sort of divine grace. Robson perhaps makes too much of the actor’s poetry; quoted examples suggest that Mitchum indeed belonged on screen, not anthologized in a comp-lit text. But the poet’s clear need to identify with his chimera gives his quest an emotional authenticity that suits his subject perfectly.
An odd, compelling addition to the film fan’s library.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-905762-13-2
Page Count: 530
Publisher: Dufour
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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