Writers on Film

Bruce Joel Rubin is the Oscar winning screenwriter of Brainstorm, Ghost and Jacob's Ladder among others. His memoir It's Only a Movie is availbale here . And his book Three Visionary Screenplays is also available via this link. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information abou...

Since the 1920s, fashion has played a central role in Hollywood. As the movie-going population consisted largely of women, studios made a concerted effort to attract a female audience by foregrounding fashion. Magazines featured actresses like Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford bedecked in luxurious gowns, selling their glamour as enthusiastically as the film itself. Whereas actors and actresses previo...

Tom Shone is the bestselling author of The Nolan Variations , among several other books on cinema. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Stephen's book is availble here. Across his directorial films, American filmmaker Dennis Hopper used music and sound to propel the narrative, signpost the era in which the films were made, and delineate the characters’ place within American culture. This book explores five of Hopper’s films to show how this deep engagement with music to build character and setting continued throughout his career,...

The definitive biography of the creator of  2001: A Space Odyssey ,  The Shining , and  A Clockwork Orange , presenting the most in-depth portrait yet of the groundbreaking film-maker. The enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey  fills that gap. This definitive book is based on access to the l...

Screen Deep: How film and TV can solve racism and save the world  is a book about the immense potential of screen storytelling to defeat an evil both historic and urgently topical: racism. Everyone watches TV and movies. Everyone has an interest in building a more just and equitable world. Screen Deep goes beyond the many film books and anti-racist manuals by demonstrating the connection between t...

From Harper Collins: A Best Book of 2023 The author of the  New York Times  bestseller  Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep  returns with a lively history of the Academy Awards, focusing on the brutal battles, the starry rivalries, and the colorful behind-the-scenes drama. America does not have royalty. It has the Academy Awards. For nine decades, perfectly coiffed starlets, debonair leading men, and...

Timon Singh is the author of Born to Be Bad and Born to Be Bad Part 2 . He is also a writer and producer on the film In Search of the Last Action Heroes . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From Simon and Schuster: A deep-dive into the unique connections between the two titans of the British cultural psyche—the Beatles and the Bond films—and what they tell us about class, sexuality, and our aspirations over sixty dramatic years. The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of pop music. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins.  Dr...

I speak to programmer and board member John-Kristian Dalseth, head of the Sami Film Institute Anne Lajla Utsi, Artistic Director of TIFF Lisa Hoen and film director Ethan Coen at the northern most film festival in the world: the Tromsø International Film Festival. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See...

The behind-the-scenes story of the action heroes who ruled 1980s and ’90s Hollywood and the beloved films that made them stars, including  Die Hard, First Blood, The Terminator , and more. “This book takes you so close to the action that you can smell the sweat, cigar smoke, and bad cologne that brought these movies to life.”—Paul Scheer A  NEWSWEEK  BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR The Last Action Heroes  o...

The  New York Times  bestselling author of  Fifth Avenue, Five A.M.  and  The Big Goodbye  returns with the definitive account of Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long dream to reinvent American filmmaking, if not the entire world, through his production company American Zoetrope.  Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dre...

Chief film critic of The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney joins John Bleasdale to talk about Federico Fellini's 1957 masterpiece Le Notti di Cabiria, Nights of Cabiria, starring Giulietta Masina as a sex worker in a Rome on the edge of La Dolce Vita . Massina won Best Actress at Cannes and the film was the second Oscar in a row for Fellini. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...

In this episode I talk to David Hughes, a journalist turned screenwriter who is also the author of a number of books on cinema. The Greatest Science Fiction Film Never Made and Tales from Development Hell are two riveting reads about all the films that almost got made and their tortured pre-production history. We also talk Stanley Kubrick (briefly) and David Lynch. Get bonus content on Patreon Hos...

Jeremy Arnold is the author of Christmas in the Movies (Revised & Expanded Edition): 35 Classics to Celebrate the Season (Turner Classic Movies) Now revised and expanded with more beloved films and loads of special features and photos across 70+ pages of new content, this is  the  must-have viewing guide for the holidays, showcasing the greatest and most beloved Christmas movies of all time. Nothi...

The first chapter of a new series CONNERY - A Fiction. Connery was written by John Bleasdale, performed by Cai Ross with music by Two Minute Noodles. Their music is available here . Further episodes are available from wherever you get your podcasts. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.co...

John Bleasdale talks to Paul Cronin about his books on Werner Herzog and Abbas Kiarostami and his work on Alexander MacKendrick. We also talk story structure, the history of the Faber Film Books and screenwriting. In many ways this becomes a much broader conversation and encompasses much about storytelling and what makes a film a film. Check out Paul's website here His recommended book is Amos Vog...

Cai Ross along with Chris Bainbridge is the author of Free for All and the co-host of the podcast of the same name, exploring all things The Prisoner related. He is also the voice of the new podcast written by Writers on Film host John Bleasdale Connery . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adsw...

Jem Duducu talks Ridley Scott's new film Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Virginia Kirkby. Jem is the host of the Condensed Histories podcast , the author of Hollywood and History and The Napoleonic Wars in a Hundred Facts . Jem’s first love has always been history, ever since he saw the Sutton Hoo helmet as a small boy. He now works as a freelance trainer which has allowed him to hone his p...

John Bleasdale talks to actor, producer, director and author Gabriel Byrne about his autobiography. Walking with Ghosts   is the stunningly evocative memoir by Irish actor and Hollywood star, Gabriel Byrne. 'Dreamy, lyrical and utterly unvarnished' – Colm Tóibín As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills ne...

William Friedkin’s film Sorcerer (1977) has been subject to a major re-evaluation in the last decade. A dark re-imagining of the French Director H.G. Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear) (1953) (based on George Arnaud’s novel); the film was a major critical and commercial failure on its initial release. Friedkin’s work was castigated as an example of directorial hubris as it was a n...

Endlessly fascinating, dark and bright,   The Red Shoes  (1948) employs every branch of the cinematic arts to sweep the audience off its feet, invigorated by the transcendence of art itself, only to leave them with troubling questions. Representing the climax of  Michael Powell  and  Emeric Pressburger 's celebrated run of six exceptional feature films, the film remains a beloved, if unsettling an...

The definitive story of Hollywood's most famous couple. He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romanceoften called "the marriage of the century"was the most notoriou...

Author of The Nolan Variations and Martin Scorsese, Tom Shone is one of the best film writers out there and a great friend of the podcast. He returns to cast his eye over the releases this year and to talk Oppenheimer and the films of Paul Greengrass, who will be the subject of his next book. Please like, leave a review, subscribe etc. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

Buy a copy of Carol's book here . Go behind the scenes with the producer of  Father of the Bride  to learn all the skills necessary to be a top Hollywood producer As former co-president of Dolly Parton's production company, Sandollar, and as a successful independent producer, Carol Baum is an expert in the art of film production . Creative Producing  provides a crash course in the frequently misun...