The Film Book

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What differentiates some film books is the enviable access they’d had to the right people. That’s certainly the case with Helen de Winter’s comprehensive What I Really Want To Do Is Produce. In it, she tries to get to the bottom of what film producing is about, and how to break into it. And in doing so, she talks to the likes of Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, Lawrence Bender, and Lord Of The Rings producer Bob Shaye. Remade in 2010 with Sam Riley playing the dazzling antihero Pinkie, Greene’s book is constantly ripe for cinematic interpretation. It’s the 1947 version, though, that stands the test of time. Richard Attenborough sparkles as the psychopathic gangster, while the criminal underbelly of interwar Brighton is also brought chillingly to life.

Film Books That Are Well Worth Your Time | Den of Geek 63 Film Books That Are Well Worth Your Time | Den of Geek

You never want to miss an opportunity to learn from a true master, and that’s exactly what Something Like an Autobiography provides.Scorsese has already said that he doesn't care about box office numbers since they are not a good way to measure art, but the box office is all that studios in Hollywood seem to care about. Editors are often the unsung heroes of the film. Walter Murch is one of the greatest editors of all time, so it's nice to hear Hollywood from his point of view. He details every step he's taken plus strategies he uses to control the edit. It's helped me learn to speak with editors and to trust them. First piece of advice: get the audiobook. Blessed reads it himself. Second piece of advice: head to the chapters on Flash Gordon, and the making of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Utter gold. Producing is an all-encompassing term. This is one of my favorite books on the list because it takes you through what a producer actually does on each sized film. It also gives a clear structure of how someone moved up in the ranks to become a creator that works with other creators. You are more likely to know Room the film rather than the 2010 book by Emma Donoghue. The movie won Best Director and Best Actor Oscars for Brie Larson and Lenny Abrahamson. And its story is a grim one. A woman is held captive in suburbia for seven years, and raises her son in this prison.

Film books | Books | The Guardian Film books | Books | The Guardian

In what remains his most uncharacteristic film to date – yes, even more so than Hugo – Martin Scorsese shines an uncomfortable light upon the romantic and societal practices of upper class life in New York in the 1870s. Edith Wharton’s classic novel is handled with subtlety and nuance from Scorsese and the leads – Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfeiffer – are uniformly entrancing. Hawks’s superb version of Raymond Chandler’s novel works for many reasons. Yes, the partnership of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as Philip Marlowe and Vivian Rutledge is inspired, but it’s the manner in which all involved maintain the enigmatic core of Chandler’s book that really delights. Film noir at its finest and one of the best film adaptations ever.While I tried to avoid screenplay books here, I did want to mention this masterful autobiography. Goldman is one of our greatest storytellers and he weaves an excellent tale detailing how it all happens. He doesn't shelter you from the ups and downs. A visual medium requires visual methods. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques. Mark Kermode has done a trilogy of books thus far that are his broader takes on cinema (as opposed to, for his instance, his excellent BFI tome on Silent Running). I’ve enjoyed the other two – Hatchet Job and The Good, The Bad & The Multiplex– a lot. But It’s Only A Movie just about edges them for me.