Création cinématographique

Ce livre aurait pu s’appeler Cassavetes et moi, la balade très personnelle de Quentin Victory Leydier, né en 1987, qui se replonge dans la carrière d’un cinéaste mort en 1989.

Un alignement des planètes et une évidence qui aboutit à la relation intime entre un cinéaste, son œuvre et l’amoureux du cinéma qui la regarde et qui voit sa vie changer irrémédiablement à son contact.

Moins un livre sur le cinéma qu’un récit personnel, très “littéraire”, même si par modestie Quentin Victory Leydier récusera le terme. Après tout, il n’est qu’un auteur de “livres sur le cinéma”. Gageons qu’Avec John Cassavetes lui donnera tort.

POLITIQUES DU REGARD

Paradoxe fondateur : dès l’origine, l’invention des frères Lumière manifeste ses pouvoirs de rencontre et de compréhension entre des êtres différents, partout dans le monde, et mobilise dans le même temps des rapports d’exclusion et de domination, sous le signe des inégalités sociales, du racisme et du machisme. Plus d’un siècle après, ces puissances de rencontre et de découverte comme ces enjeux de discrimination et d’oppression se sont reconfigurés et ont été activés aussi dans de nombreux autres domaines. La question du rapport au divers est plus que jamais au cœur des pratiques et des effets du cinéma.

Five-time Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner, the only British director to have won the top prize at both Cannes (for Secrets & Lies) and Venice (for Vera Drake) – Mike Leigh is unquestionably one of world cinema’s
pre-eminent figures. Now, in this definitive career-length interview, he reflects on all that has gone into the making of his unique body of work.

In recent years, the television landscape has seen the glorious rise of women to key positions of power within the industry, from writers to producers to directors. Successes like Shonda Rhimes’s Holy Trinity of shows as a producer—Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder—and critical darlings like Lena Dunham’s Girls, Jill Soloway’s Transparent and Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is the New Black have heralded a revolution and inspired women creators to put their smartest and boldest art onto screens everywhere.

In Directing Herbert White James Franco writes about making a film of Frank Bidart’s poem, Herbert White. Though the main character, Herbert White, is a necrophiliac and a killer, the poem – and the film – are an expression of life’s isolation and loneliness. A poem became a film.

In the rest of book, Franco uses poems to express what he feels about film: about acting; about the actors he admires – James Dean, Marlon Brando, Sean Penn; about the cult of celebrity and his struggles with it; about his teenage years in Palo Alto, and about mortality prompted by the death of his father.

Multi-Oscar-winning and still amazingly prolific, Woody Allen remains one of the truly great figures in American humour and American cinema. This career-length interview with Stig Bjorkman - editor of a similar volume on one of Allen's own heroes, Ingmar Bergman - traces the path of his career, his motivations and inspirations, and of course his nigh-legendary anxieties. Newly updated, the book contains discussion of such recent Allen triumphs as Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, and Sweet and Lowdown.

Funny, touching and real, this second collection of Alan Bennett’s classic work for television from the late 1970s and early 1980s is full of fine observations of life as it is lived. Often imitated but never equalled, Bennett’s work is a masterclass in how to write for the small screen and gives as much enjoyment in the reading as it did in the viewing.

The television plays included in this volume are Our Winnie, All Day on the Sands, One Fine Day, Marks, Say Something Happened, Rolling Home and Intensive Care. This volume also contains a new general introduction by Alan Bennett.

Alan Bennett is the acknowledged master of the television play. This vintage collection of his work from the 1970s illustrates his skill and mastery of the medium from the beginning. Perceptive, poignant, truthful and very funny, the work here gives as much enjoyment in the reading as it did in the viewing, and provides a welcome addition to the Bennett canon.

Shoot Out is about how movies are made – from the first pitch to the final cut. For film buffs, aspiring film-makers, students and anyone else intrigued by the inner workings of Hollywood, this is the quintessential take on the how, who, what and why of the film business.

Alexander Mackendrick’s On Film-making is a masterclass in film-making from the acclaimed director of Whisky Galore and The Ladykillers.

An invaluable analysis of the director’s art and craft, from one of the most revered of all film school directors. Alexander ‘Sandy’ Mackendrick directed classic Ealing comedies plus a Hollywood masterpiece, Sweet Smell of Success. But after retiring from film-making in 1969, he then spent nearly 25 years teaching his craft at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.