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A HISTORY OF AMERICAN SCREENWRITING

Not just a masterful and engaging piece of film scholarship, but a gripping cultural and social history of the United States...

Academy Award–winning screenwriter Norman (Shakespeare in Love) enthusiastically traces the peculiar history of screenwriting in Hollywood.

The author begins with a brisk outline of the early history of cinema, which existed as an almost purely visual medium. Stories were taken from literature, theatrical plays and other written sources—copyright laws regarding film were yet to be established—and shot on the fly, with static titles inserted later to clarify exposition when necessary. The advent of sound pictures changed movies instantly and profoundly—the actors now needed something to say. Writers with classy pedigrees from the East were brought in to supply the dialogue and scenarios, at great expense, sneering all the while at the déclassé nature of the work and the unsophisticated moguls writing the (enormous) checks. Thus was born the fractious, bruising state of affairs that persists in large part to this day. Norman makes extensive use of interviews with and letters written by luminaries from Ben Hecht to Charlie Kaufman to illuminate the deep ambivalence endemic to writing movies. Considering themselves serious artists, these men and women were and are seduced by easy money and treated like factory workers, their creative offerings subject to the whims of unlettered men concerned only with the bottom line. Norman offers accessible histories of the blacklist and the formation of the Writers Guild, evoking the radicalism and paranoia of the ’30s and ’40s. He also comprehensively analyzes the ways in which screenwriting changed and evolved—or failed to evolve—to address the fallout from television’s new mass popularity in the ’50s, the emergence of youth-driven films in the ’60s, the “movie brat” auteurs of the ’70s, the marketing-driven ’80s, the indie revolution of the ’90s and the spectacle-happy blockbusters that dominate contemporary cinema. All this makes for an entertaining and useful book, but the author’s greatest strength is his empathetic portraits of such forlorn Hollywood casualties as William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who were devoured and forsaken by the endlessly hungry maw of the movies.

Not just a masterful and engaging piece of film scholarship, but a gripping cultural and social history of the United States in the 20th century.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-307-38339-6

Page Count: 560

Publisher: Harmony

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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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NUTCRACKER

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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