This book is about the perception of Japan in the sixty films set there by gaijin (foreigners) --outsiders who almost always do not speak or read Japanese. My area of attention is directed to films depicting post World War II Japan and the Japanese, and, in many cases, films showing how foreigners in the same time frame respond to Japan. Why have a substantial number of films been set there by strangers? As a body of work, what do they tell us about contemporary Japan and about cinema? These films certainly provide a new cultural history of the Wests reaction to Japan, but, even more, they are constructions that demonstrate how the West gazes at Japan. As such, more information can often be derived about the onlookers as on those looked-upon.

Tim and I both understood we had done something really stupid. We had underestimated the danger involved in going out to sea. We had no radio, compass, life raft or flares. In other words, we were a couple of idiots.This is the story of Shane and Timothy Spall and their Dutch barge The Princess Matilda. After a summer on the Thames they head out to sea with only a road atlas and a vast amount of ignorance - and it is absolutely terrifying!On their travels, memories are triggered of childhood trips to the seaside, but also of more recent times. A decade before, Tim had been diagnosed with acute leukaemia and was given only days to live. Shocked at how life can pass you by they decided that when, and if, Tim got better, they would buy a boat.As Tim and Shane explore the coast from the Medway to Cornwall, eventually they start to wonder, could they make it out of England altogether? Could Matilda make it to ... Wales?!Taking over five years, The Voyages of The Princess Matilda is a minor epic, charting a very personal, moving and uplifting story of an everyday couples adventure around their much loved homeland.** Winner of the British Travel Presss Narrative Travel Book of the Year Award **

From a writer whose mastery encompasses fiction, criticism, and the fertile realm between the two, comes a new book that confirms his reputation for the unexpected.In Zona, Geoff Dyer attempts to unlock the mysteries of a film that has haunted him ever since he first saw it thirty years ago: Andrei Tarkovskys Stalker, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. (Every single frame, declared Cate Blanchett, is burned into my retina.) As Dyer guides us into the zone of Tarkovskys imagination, we realize that the film is only the entry point for a radically original investigation of the enduring questions of life, faith, and how to live. In a narrative that gives free rein to the brilliance of Dyers distinctive voiceacute observation, melancholy, comedy, lyricism, and occasional ill-temperZona takes us on a wonderfully unpredictable journey in which we try to fathom, and realize, our deepest wishes.Zona is one of the most unusual books ever written about film, and about how artwhether a film by a Russian director or a book by one of our most gifted contemporary writerscan shape the way we see the world and how we make our way through it.

MARY QUANT IS FASHION.Not many names epitomise an era, but Mary Quant is one such name. Her life, her ideas and her style touched everyone. Most people connect Mary with one thing - the mini skirt - that ground-breaking design that is as potent now as it was when it first appeared in the early sixties. But her influence carried way beyond those early, frenetic black-and-white years. This, Mary Quants memoir, is written in her own inimitable style - its a witty, unique account of her whirlwind life. It is a story like no other. But then, Mary Quant was a true original.

Inside The Wicker Man is a treat for all cinemagoers, exhaustively researched and achieving a near-perfect balance between history, trivia and serious analysis. Allan Brown describes the filming and distribution of the cult masterpiece as a textbook example of How Things Should Never Be Done.The omens were bad from the start, and proceeded to get much, much worse, with fake blossom on trees to simulate spring, actors chomping on ice-cubes to prevent their breath showing on film, and verbal and physical confrontations involving both cast and crew. The studio hated it and hardly bothered to distribute it, but today it finds favour with critics and fans alike, as a serious - if flawed - piece of cinema. Brown expertly guides readers through the films convoluted history, attempting along the way to explain its enduring fascination, and providing interviews with the key figures - many of whom still have an axe to grind, and some of whom still harbour plans for a sequel.

The value of the editors craft to a finished film cannot be underestimated, and its no surprise that directors rely heavily on the same editor over and over again. Seventeen exclusive interviews with some of the worlds top film editors, including Walter Murch, Virginia Katz, Joel Cox, Tim Squyres and Richard Marks, explore the art of film editing; its complex processes, the relationship with other film practitioners, and the impact of modern editing techniques.The Filmcraft series is a ground-breaking study of the art of filmmaking-the most collaborative and multidisciplinary of all the arts. Each volume covers a different aspect of moviemaking, offering in-depth interviews with a host of the most distinguished practitioners in the field. Forthcoming titles include Cinematography, Directing, Costume Design, Production Design, Producing, Screenwriting, and Acting.

As chief collaborators with the directors on a film, cinematographers are artistic masters in their own right. In Cinematography sixteen of the worlds greatest "painters of light" share their insights, anecdotes, and technical achievements through a series of exclusive interviews. Fascinating for both film fans and practitioners, this book is the perfect companion for anyone who wants to stand on the other side of the camera, with some of the greatest film artists of our time.

She spent her life in the movies. Her childhood is still there to see in Miracle on 34th Street. Her adolescence in Rebel Without a Cause. Her coming of age? Still playing in Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story and countless other hit movies. From the moment Natalie Wood made her debut in 1946, playing Claudette Colbert and Orson Welless ward in Tomorrow Is Forever at the age of seven, to her shocking, untimely death in 1981, the decades of her life are marked by movies thatfor their momentssummed up Americas dreams. Now the acclaimed novelist, biographer, critic and screenwriter Gavin Lambert, whose twenty-year friendship with Natalie Wood began when she wanted to star in the movie adaptation of his novel Inside Daisy Clover, tells her extraordinary story. He writes about her parents, uncovering secrets that Natalie either didnt know or kept hidden from those closest to her. Here is the young Natalie, from her years as a child actress at the mercy of a driven, controlling stage mother (Make Mr. Pichel love you, she whispered to the five-year-old Natalie before depositing her unexpectedly on the directors lap), to her awkward adolescence when, suddenly too old for kiddie roles, she was shunted aside, just another freshman at Van Nuys High. Lambert shows us the glamorous movie star in her twentiesAll the Fine Young Cannibals, Gypsy and Love with the Proper Stranger. He writes about her marriages, her divorces, her love affairs, her suicide attempt at twenty-six, the birth of her children, her friendships, her struggles as an actress and her tragic death by drowning (she was always terrified of water) at forty-three. For the first time, everyone who knew Natalie Wood speaks freelyincluding her husbands Robert Wagner and Richard Gregson, famously private people like Warren Beatty, intimate friends such as playwright Mart Crowley, directors Robert Mulligan and Paul Mazursky, and Leslie Caron, each of whom told the author stories about this remarkable woman who was both life-loving and filled with despair.What we couldnt knowhave never been told beforeLambert perceptively uncovers. His book provides the richest portrait we have had of Natalie Wood.

Rosemary Ackland began writing her diary in 1945, aged just fifteen. For the next fifty-eight years, through happiness and heartache, she continued to write. Even after the tragic onset of Motor Neurone disease, which left her mute and immobile, her diary was still an outlet - in fact, then more than ever. Her simple, heartfelt jottings were never intended for an audience. But, during her last days, as he helped her hold a pen, her husband Joss read her words for the first time. Deeply moved by her lifetimes recollections he asked her consent to publish them and she agreed. My Better Half and Me weaves together Rosemarys diaries with Josss commentary to tell of an extraordinary love story that lasted over fifty years. Their life together was remarkably full. At first they lived on a shoestring, struggling to bring up their new family on just Josss payas a young actor. Once his career took off their lives became a dynamic whirl of tours across the country. But they remained an extremely close-knit family, with lives shaped by their seven children, by the tragic, untimely death of their eldest son, and later, by the birth of their grandchildren. Above all, this intimate and candid story, shows how lucky they were to have each other. In turbulent times they were each others rock. Theirs was truly and old-fashioned romance.

With the advent of the Second World War a new mood was discernible in film drama - an atmosphere of disillusion and a sense of foreboding, a dark quality that derived as much from the characters depicted as from the cinematographers art. These films, among them such classics as Double Indemnity, The Woman in the Window, Touch of Evil and sunset Boulevard, emerged retrospectively as a genre in themselves when a French film critic referred to them collectively as film noir.Bruce Crowther looks into noirs literary origins (often in the novels of the so-called hard-boiled school typified by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich), and at how the material translated to the screen, noting in particular influences from German expressionist films and the almost indispensable techniques of flashback and voice-over narration. He also assesses the contribution made by the players - by actors such as Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, Alan Ladd and John Garfield and actresses such as Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott, Joan Crawford and Gloria Grahame, together with a roll-call of supporting players whose screen presence could lend almost any film the noir imprimatur.Noir was in its heyday from 1945 to 1955, a time when paranoia and disillusion, anxiety and violence could be said to have been part of the fabric of American, and particularly Hollywood, society, yet its impact and its influence are with us still - in films as diverse as The French Connection, Chinatown and Body Heat. This Book commemorates a special period in film-making and a unique combination of talent resulting in a spectrum of films that are as welcome today on their small-screen airings as they were when first shown in cinema.

Nana Mouskouri, the Greek singer and one of the worlds most popular entertainers, tells her life story for the first time.For more than 40 years Nana Mouskouri has been a global singing sensation, from her earliest childhood memories of mid-Thirties Greece to her unstoppable rise to the summit of her profession. She tells of life as a child, experiencing the horrors of war and privation, victimised by bitter parental discord, stigmatised by her fathers fatal addiction to gambling.She was a shy inhibited teenager with a passion for singing, a girl compelled to choose between her love of classical music and her fascination with popular song. As a highly successful adult, she has been racked by uncertainty and the torments of love, a woman struggling to balance music - her raison detre - with her role as wife and mother.Here she describes the life of the star we all know, from her beginnings in the nightclubs of Athens to her triumphs on the worlds most glittering stages. Nana launches us into her international tours, taking us to Canada, the United States, Japan and Australasia as well as every country in Europe. She describes how she fought to win over audiences everywhere. In Britain, for example, she enjoyed dazzling success after her first English album Over and Over was released. In quick succession, twenty-three of her titles appeared in the charts. In Australia, she achieved fourteen gold discs in 1974 alone.Hers is a rich and astonishing life, studded with exceptional encounters and friendships: the incomparable trumpeter Quincy Jones, a musician Nana had secretely worshipped since childhood, introduced her to the United States and became her producer; Yvonne Littlewood, the BBC producer, made Nana a leading star of British television in the 1960s and remains one of her closest friends. Queen Elizabeth II, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and the Empress Farah Diba of Iran are among the galaxy of extraordinary figures who played a vital part in Nanas career. Intimate, rich in humanity and music, a spotlit global tour, Nanas book is an event.

A dazzling, no-holds-barred chronicle of the wild 1970s that transformed Hollywood, capturing the sex, drugs, genius, and chaos that ignited a cinematic revolution and changed movies forever.In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. An unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, Easy Rider heralded a decade in which a rebellious wave of talented young filmmakers invigorated the movie industry.Easy Riders, Raging Bulls takes us on a wild ride that chronicles the exuberance and excess of the times: the startling success of Easy Rider and the equally alarming circumstances under which it was made, with drugs, booze, and violent rivalry between costars Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda dominating the set; how a small production company named BBS became the guiding spirit of the youth rebellion in Hollywood and how, along the way, some of its executives helped smuggle Huey Newton out of the country; how director Hal Ashby was busted for drugs and thrown in jail in Toronto; why Martin Scorsese attended the Academy Awards with an FBI escort when Taxi Driver was nominated; how George Lucas, gripped by anxiety, compulsively cut off his own hair while writing Star Wars; how a modest house on Nicholas Beach occupied by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt became the unofficial headquarters for the New Hollywood; how Billy Friedkin tried to humiliate Paramount boss Barry Diller; and how screenwriter/director Paul Schrader played Russian roulette in his hot tub. It was a time when an anything goes experimentation prevailed both on the screen and off.After the success of Easy Rider, young film-school graduates suddenly found themselves in demand, and directors such as Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese became powerful figures. Even the new generation of film starsNicholson, De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, and Dunawayseemed a breed apart from the traditional Hollywood actors. Ironically, the renaissance would come to an end with Jaws and Star Wars, two hugely successful films that would create a blockbuster mentality and crush innovation.Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywoods last golden age. Never before have so many celebrities talked so frankly about one another and about the drugs, sex, and money that made so many of them crash and burn. By turns hilarious and shocking, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the ultimate behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood at work and play.

Each year, hundreds of people set out across North America determined to set a new record in a spectacularly competitive event. Is it tennis? Golf? Racing? Poker perhaps? No, its bird-watching, and a contest known as the Big Year - a grand, gruelling, expensive (and occasionally vicious) 365-day marathon to identify the most species.THE BIG YEAR is the rollicking chronicle of the 275,000-mile odyssey of three unlikely adventurers who take their bird-watching so seriously it nearly kills them. From Texas in pursuit of the Rufus-capped Warbler to British Columbia in search of Xantus Hummingbird, these obsessive enthusiasts brave roasting deserts, storm-tossed oceans, infested swamps and disgruntled lions (not to mention some of the lumpiest hotel mattresses known to man) as they vie to become North Americas number one bird-watcher in what would prove to be the biggest Big Year of them all...This captivating tour of human and avian nature, of courage and deceit, of passion and paranoia reveals the extremes to which Man will go to pursue his dreams, to conquer and to categorize...

Three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone is one of the most controversial and well-known contemporary American directors. He began his professional life as a screen writer and was responsible for the scripts of Midnight Express and Scarface. As a director he made one of the all-time great Vietnam war movies, Platoon, and went on to helm such definitive cinematic works as Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Natural Born Killers and, most recently, Alexander - an epic biography of the legendary Greek king starring Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins.This indispensable guide takes each of Stones writing and directoial features in chronological order, discussing them within categories such as Casting, Cut Scenes, Music Conspiriacy Theory? and Controversy. It looks at the inspiration behind his work, its connection with the real world and the story behind each films development.Whether the subject is war, politics, sport or the defining aspects of an era, Stone is an expert at polarising audience views. This is an essential reference for all fans of Oliver Stone, writer, director and one of the most influential filmmakers of the last twenty-five years.

Acclaimed writer of This is Uncool and Popcorn turns his attention to the (first ever) look at the teen movieEveryone undergoes some kind of teenage trauma, and a fundamental way of coping, or rite of passage, is the teen movie. Yet until now there has been no book that explores this successful movie sub-genre with any depth.Step forward Garry Mulholland, who, taking his cue from his previous, hugely acclaimed pop culture list books (This is Uncool and Fear of Music), seeks to create a pantheon of the very finest teen movies, or in Garry Mulhollands words: Ill be doing what film critics have been loathe to do since the 1950s, and taking the entire subculture of teen movies seriously, making a constant and compelling argument that Grease and A Nightmare on Elm Street tell us a great deal more about modern life and human nature than Citizen Kane and The Godfather.From Kes to Fame, Badlands to the Breakfast Club, and National Lampoons Animal House to Twilight, Garry Mulholland re-evaluates a much maligned genre, and brings it all back again: the good, the bad and the traumatic.

The long-awaited illustrated biography of Michael BubleMichael Buble is the most successful male artist in the world at the moment. Born in British Columbia to a family of Italian fishermen, music is in the family blood and it was Michaels grandfather first introduced him to the kind of music he would later make his own - Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Dean Martin and Elvis. Since his debut in 2003, he has sold 25 million albums, won two Grammys and multiple Junos, reached the top 5 in countries around the world as well as numerous number 1s, his concerts have been sell outs and he has cultivated a huge and loyal fanbase. Michael Buble is a music phenomenon and this beautifully designed biography will celebrate his success. Packed with stunning photographs and lavishly designed spreads charting his story - both personal and professional - and his meteoric rise to stardom, this book is a must-have for the millions of Michael Buble fans around the world.

A REVEALING PERSONAL STORY: An ambitious businesswoman, Jenner delves into the world of living a hectic life in the celebrity spotlight and touches on themes of love, loss, marriage, divorce and motherhood, which will resonate with a wide range of women. Jenner talks about being the mother of six children, her marriage to Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, her controversial parenting style, O.J. Simpson (she was married to the late Robert Kardashian, O.J.s defense lawyer and was the best friend of murdered Nicole Brown Simpson), her work in television (she is currently the executive producer of all hit Kardashian shows - Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami, Kourtney and Kim Take New York, Khloe & Lamar, Kourtney and Khloe Take The Hamptons, Dash Dolls). If you think your life is chaotic, try keeping up with Kris Jenner.

Americas favorite pint-sized party girl and star of MTVs Jersey Shore follows up her New York Times bestselling novel A Shore Thing with this lighthearted, full-color guide to being a guidettea must-have for her legions of fans. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to arm yourself with bronzer, a tease comb, and makeup brushes and join the Snooki Style Revolution. When guidettes march in, people notice. Its the attitude. The boldness. The sex appeal. The tan. The serious shortage of hairspray in the surrounding area. You have to experiment in life, or youll be boring. From Nicole Snooki Polizzis top twenty-five rules for being a guidette, to her smushable makeup and skin secrets, to her rules on Snookin for love, Snookis sickest tips and advice for friggin owning it are all here, along with hundreds of full color photographs and the official Snictionary for easy reference. But thats not all. Theres a lot more to the diminutive reality star than what you see on TV. Snooki shares her obsessions (her bed, Viva Glam Gaga bright pink lipstick, sci-fi movies) and some juicy behind-the-Shore secrets (which season was her favorite, what it was like to wake up in a jail cell in season two, why the house smells like alcohol and dogs butt). For everything else, youll just have to read the book! Being a guidette princess is about being yourself, doing what you want, and trying to have a good time wherever you are. So strap yourselves in, bitches! And get ready for the ride.

Leni Riefenstahl will always be remembered for her brilliant film of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin - still rated as one of the best documentaries ever made. Before that she was acclaimed for her roles in silent feature films, when German cinema was in its artistic heyday in the 1920s. She pioneered the box office success of such classic mountaineering dramas as The White Hell of Piz Palu and then began to direct her own films. The Blue Light was admired by Hitler and led to her filming the Wagnerian Nuremberg Rally of 1934. After the war she was shunned by the film industry, despite a court in 1952 proclaiming her not guilty of supporting the Nazis in a punishable way. Her undoubted charisma led to many affairs and grandiose schemes - deep sea diving in her seventies and still filming wildlife in her nineties. Audrey Salkeld has sifted the fact from the legend and gives us a moving portrait of the great movie `star who suffered more in the `wilderness than her enduring fame suggests.

A smart and eminently readable examination of the life and career of one of the twentieth centurys most influential movie critics.Los Angeles TimesEngrossing and thoroughly researched.Entertainment Weekly A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2011 The first major biography of the most influential, powerful, and controversial film critic of the twentieth centuryPauline Kael was, in the words of Entertainment Weeklys movie reviewer Owen Gleiberman, "the Elvis or Beatles of film criticism." During her tenure at The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, she was the most widely read and, often enough, the most provocative critic in America. In this first full-length biography of the legend who changed the face of film criticism, acclaimed author Brian Kellow (author of Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywoods First Superagent) gives readers a richly detailed view of Kaels remarkable lifefrom her youth in rural California to her early struggles to establish her writing career to her peak years at The New Yorker.