An insightful and solidly documented though often ponderous history of the early days of cinema—of primary interest to film...
A biography of the silent film–era producer and theater entrepreneur whose name lives on through the major studio he founded.
In her ambitious first book, former magazine and newspaper journalist Krefft aims to resurrect the reputation of the pioneering though largely forgotten studio mogul William Fox (1879-1952), whose background story is similar to those of many of the founding fathers of film: tirelessly driven men whose families emigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century. Their stories, including Fox’s, were vividly recounted in Neil Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own (1988). However, unlike many of his Hollywood contemporaries, Fox would maintain his residence in New York, and his contributions were encapsulated within the silent film era. Yet his achievements were significant. He built a multimillion-dollar empire of luxury movie theaters beginning with one small theater in Brooklyn. As a studio head, he had the vision to leverage several new revenue outlets, including the foreign market. He launched the careers of early stars such as Theda Bara and Tom Mix and was responsible for producing a number of highly regarded films, including F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927). In 1929, he suffered a series of disastrous events, beginning with a car accident that summer and the Wall Street crash, which derailed his attempt to merge Fox theaters with Loews releasing company. This would contribute to his losing control of the Fox Film Corporation, leading his career and personal fortune into a downward spiral. Krefft provides an in-depth overview of the early film industry and a lucid assessment of Fox’s role in advancing the technology, art, and business of making films. Though her end goal is ultimately achieved, this hefty narrative is weighed down by excessive details surrounding her subject’s financial dealings. Yet Fox the man remains somewhat elusive. The author’s writing lacks the storytelling verve that a more seasoned film historian like David Thomson brings to his work.
An insightful and solidly documented though often ponderous history of the early days of cinema—of primary interest to film scholars.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-113606-1
Page Count: 944
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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