Still looking for that special something to make your film fan friend smile this Christmas? We take a look at four new books that might just do the job.
Elizabeth Taylor, by Susan Smith, £12.99, ISBN 978-1-84457-486-5
Probably the most impressive volume so far in the BFI's series of star profiles, this slender but informative volume benefits from the broader academic perspective of author Susan Smith, whose previous work on gender in film is well suited to presenting the story of a feminine icon. From wide eyed little girl to world famous sex symbol, on to her stubbornly glamorous old age, Taylor took on stereotypes and pushed them to the limit, her lager than life personality always at the forefront. Smith follows her journey studiously and warily, suggesting there was a lot more calculation going on beneath the surface than may have been apparent to her fans at the time.
With almost a third of the book focused on National Velvet, there's a lot more here about career development and the underlying complexity of Taylor's acting style than in most of the star's biographies, which tend to focus on her later work. Smith sets aside retrospectively applied sexual readings of the film and instead evokes a realistic portrait of girlhood, of a young person who determined her own destiny through her intense engagement with character. The irony of her later shift into roles that focus on her star persona is not missed, though few would disagree with Smith's assessment of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf as the film in which she delivered her best work, temporarily setting that persona aside.
By undermining the popular Taylor legend and looking in detail at her technique, Smith in no way diminishes the star. It's refreshing to read a book that largely sets aside the subjects of marriage and alcoholism to focus on what the actress communicated through her films. The latter part of the book, exploring her diversifying work, also draws out the innate otherness in her character and the reasons why she became an icon to outsiders, without losing its focus on her performance. By exploring the instinctive way she engaged with her roles, Smith also illuminates the work of her co-stars.
This isn't a book for fact fans looking to discover new secrets about the star, but it's a first rate piece of analysis that will interest fans and budding performers alike.
Spike Lee's America, by David Sterritt, £14.99, ISBN 978-0745651828
Spike Lee's America is one founded on discussions of what it is to be a citizen of a melting pot, a hyphen-American in a confluence of other hyphenations and hyphen-nations. "Spike Lee's America" manages to give us some of this, but where Lee's films use techniques to surprise and entertain this book all too often tends to the formal dryness of academe and the clumsiness of summary.
Beyond some genuine oddities ('Shaft' referred to as a "black policier") and some personal insights (Sterrit has interviewed Lee, albeit not for this book), SLA is weakened by functional traits like topic paragraphs and what seems disjointed, if not excessive, referencing, but also by examining Lee's "joints" chronologically, rather than, say, by genre or location or primary issue.
There's the films that deal with race, with community, with crime, and gender too, and at times Sterrit does well to weigh in and others very well to recuse himself and allow others to speak, but Lee's work ethic and output would seem to suggest that a Venn Diagram would have been a better structure to plan the book than a calendar. It already feels dated with references to a 2012 version of Old Boy (principal photography started this year, but it's currently pencilled for October 2013), and even more so for not including Samuel L Jackson's "Wake Up" advert for the Obama campaign - not least because the preceding "Wake Up" is a key component of at least one of Sterrit's theses.
More than 20% of the version your reviewer saw was end-notes. While it's nice to have what seems a complete filmography, it feels a little like it's been padded with IMDB. While many of the notes are illuminating, some feel, well, weird -
"It's interesting to note that, except for race... the one denominator common to Buggin' Out's suggested candidates for the wall of fame... is celebrity". Now, fair enough, your reviewer may be missing something Sterrit saw in that, but this is equally true of the Italian-American's already on Sal's wall in 'do the right thing'. He does talk about an absence of extremists, and one of those suggestions is Nelson Mandela, but that kind of contrast with reference to politicisation should, one suspects, be present in the text itself rather than obscurely made by proxy in an end-note.
David Sterrit is chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, a reviewer himself for publications including the Christian Science Monitor. His book's an easy read, citations and end-notes notwithstanding, and at times the frustrations come from a lack of further information - it talks about the "breakthrough" of Black Cinema at the box office contemporaneous with Lee's emergence, but doesn't give us context in terms of wider cinema - it's all well and good to be impressed with takings, but matched against Jurassic Park or adjusted for inflation or population it might make more interesting points. There are a handful of photos, in line with text, but at times it seems to be calling out for charts - a technical examination of the way Lee uses the camera to completely distinguish conversation from conflict is fascinating, but I for one would have welcomed something discussing the presentation or illustrating the blocking.
For all that it's about Spike Lee's America (often just Spike Lee's Brooklyn), it doesn't focus enough on Lee's post-Katrina documentary efforts, those being actual portraits of actual America - it's well and good depicting aspects of something in simulation, and there are important lessons there as any Baudrillardian will tell you, but equally important is looking at those Platonic shadows on the wall. More important, perhaps, because so little of that work of Lee's has made it to screens outwith America.
It finishes with an epilogue, rather than a conclusion, and the result is that it feels unfocused - it's not bad, far from it, but it does feel disappointingly scattershot. The potential of a work that focused on Lee's "joints" and gender, on race, on money, on power, on the way that these four are or are not handled in each of his films is still out there, and while Spike Lee's America touches on them it doesn't go the whole way - it's a glimpse of Ellis Island, more or less, not a "Little X" in the heart of the city. It's a shame, but it's still worth a look.
Alfred Hitchcock's America, by Murray Pomerance, £14.99, ISBN 978-0-7456-5302-0
With new film Hitchcock shortly to reach UK screens (and also a probable awards season winner), and with a popular series about the great director on TV, there has never been a better time for a thorough retrospective look at his work. as its title suggests, Alfred Hitchcock's America covers only part of that work, but it's an angle which has been subject to surprisingly little scrutiny in the past and which is explored here with an attention to detail worthy of Hitchcock himself.
Physically larger than its companion volumes, Alfred Hitchcock's America is also substantially meatier. Author Murray Pomerance writes with a confidence that suggests he could produce several more such books on Hitchcock without repeating himself. Where other career profiles often labour over biographical details, reading too much into things, this books sees them slotted incidentally into a rich text hat focuses on the films and, more directly, on the social vision those films encapsulate. Five themes - scapes, personalities, values, social form and marriage (which extends to cover a variety of relationships) - present an outsider's view that seems almost too acute. Hitchcock, for all the warmth and complexity with which he is presented, is leaning in too close to America, as if it were one of his blondes.
The blondes are here like all the rest, their selves emerging through their characters, fictional personae giving way to little insights about what was going on offscreen. Given the extent to which this book is embedded in a landscape of existing art, from music to literature, it's a shame there isn't more said about the writers from whose work some of Hitchcock's visions emerged, but this is really its only major weakness. The historical context of the films under discussion is well developed, covering everything from the studio system to the practices of journalism and espionage informing many of the thrillers. Working class activities are carefully situated in relation to the class tensions underlying films like Lifeboat.
Engaging enough for a complete newcomer, this well balanced book goes into depth about earlier films that are often overlooked, and whilst you may never come to see them as classics you'll certainly get more out of them after reading it. It's a good bet for any curious film fan.
The Art of Rise Of The Guardians, by Ramin Zahed (foreword by Alec Baldwin), US $40, ISBN 978-1-60887-108-7
Sometimes a film that just doesn't quite make the grade in the cinema still has traits worthy of celebration. This book is the best thing about Rise Of The Guardians and is that rare teat, a book all the family can enjoy. Kids will love the beautiful illustrations and snippets of character backstory, whilst artists, animators and those who aspire to such professions will find lots to inspire them. It's the sort of volume you can keep on the coffee table and find yourself leafing through again and again.
Although some of the characters in the film were a little underdeveloped, the work featured here makes them considerably more interesting, hinting at what they were intended to be. There are interesting insights into the design process, particularly in relation to the Easter Bunny. Alongside this are chapters on the story's locations, including the Tooth Palace and the magical land where Easter eggs are born, that are gorgeous to look at. In particular, the artwork around the villain and his domain exceeds what is shown in the film and presents a creepier, more frightening world that small children will be glad they can close the covers on.
Art tie-in books often fall down by providing only cursory text or by failing to show enough of the images that captured audience attention in the first place. This one gets the balance just right. Highly recommended.
