For a far more compelling dissection of Tarantino and his contemporaries, see Sharon Waxman’s excellent Rebels on the...
Super-uncool biography of the supercool filmmaker.
The groundbreaking impact of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) certainly make Tarantino a worthy subject for a full-length portrait, and his oddball backstory—learned film history at a geeky video store; betrayed, then (sort of) reconciled with early associates—provides good fodder. Regrettably, prolific celeb-unauthorized biographer Clarkson (John Travolta: King of Cool, 2006, and many more) makes uninteresting use of both life and art. The author spends an inordinate amount of time recounting Tarantino’s upbringing in a broken home and youthful taste in movies; while mildly interesting, this material isn’t nearly as compelling as his film career. The likely reason for this imbalance is that Clarkson’s best source was Tarantino’s eager-to-chat mother, Connie Zastoupil. The remainder of the director’s story is told primarily via previously published material and author analysis. Clarkson surveys Tarantino’s career competently enough; his critical perceptions range from uninspired to lame, as when the author compares Tarantino to Vanilla Ice for their respective use of “sampling.” Further, the book all but ends in 2004, glossing over, for instance, Tarantino’s production work on the horror flick Hostel in 2005 and his 2007 exploitation-flick homage with Robert Rodriguez, Grindhouse. For that matter, the two Kill Bill films (2003 and 2004), not as resonant as his early films but still highly enjoyable, receive what could generously be called a cursory discussion.
For a far more compelling dissection of Tarantino and his contemporaries, see Sharon Waxman’s excellent Rebels on the Backlot (2005), which offers three vital qualities sorely lacking here: access, context and insight.Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-84454-366-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: John Blake/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
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
PERSPECTIVES
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