Average customer rating:
- With 185 colorplates and 34 b/w illustrations
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Alice Schille
William H Gerdts
Manufacturer: Hudson Hills Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1555951813 |
Book Description
This Beautiful and revelatory volume brings together Schille's finest paintings--still lifes, landscapes and gardens, mothers and children, market and harbor scenes.
Customer Reviews:
With 185 colorplates and 34 b/w illustrations.......2001-07-04
Alice Schille (1869-1955) is considered to have been one of America's premier female watercolorists whose still lifes, landscapes, gardens, market scenes, harbor views, mothers and children depictions are timeless in their appeal and creatively balance realism with sentiment. This compendium of 185 colorplates and 34 b/w illustrations is augmented with an informative commentary by William H. Gerdts (Professor Emeritus of Art History at the Graduate School of the City University of New York). Alice Shille is an important, core addition to any personal, academic, or community library American art history reference collection.
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Assembling and Repairing Personal Computers
Dan L. Beeson
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall College Div
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0133402258 |
Amazon.com
Assembling and Repairing Personal Computers opens with a discussion of basic hardware concepts and the tools that should be in every technician's kit. It then quickly moves on to chapter-length coverage of each of the major PC systems--power supplies, motherboards, memory, disk drives, and more. Each system chapter includes diagrams, photographs, and tables that provide information you might need in the process of building or fixing a PC. The book then features a handy guide to writing DOS batch files (some of which appear on the companion diskettes) and a pretty weak user's guide to Windows 3.x. Since this book came out in 1997, coverage of Windows 95 and Windows NT are conspicuously absent.
Beeson's book distinguishes itself with its information on old PCs-- exactly the sorts of machines that are inclined to break or be in desperate need of upgrades. Beeson even pays attention to 8088-based machines. The book's main shortcoming is its inclusion of highly technical information (such as the physical pinouts for the 80486-DX) with little explanation of how that information can be used. All in all, this book is a fine way to explore older computer hardware.
Book Description
This book divides the personal computer system into subsystems, giving brief theory of operations, installation instructions, and testing procedures. The material is presented in practical, manageable sections to be easily assimilated by the beginning user and easily referenced by the practicing technician. Information on new ATX motherboards,on new AGP video graphics ports,on new USB Universal Serial Bus, on new DIMM memory, and on new Windows 98. Special sections on CD-ROMs, sound cards, optical scanners, and modems/faxes.Offers readers quick reference to the text's tables, figures, chip pin outs, connector pin outs and programs. Evaluation copy of The Troubleshooter provides readers with the opportunity to become familiar with the industry's best diagnostic software. An excellent reference manual for the practicing computer technician as well as for the beginning user.
Book Description
The bestselling series of the greatest comic strip of all goes full-color!
Starting with this sixth volume in Fantagraphics' acclaimed Krazy Kat reprint series, finally it's time for
color! After a brief hiatus in the mid-1930s, the heretofore black-and-white Sunday Krazy Kat returned in full spectacular color in June 1935. And so this volume includes all the Sunday strips from the latter half of 1935 and all of 1936, including one supremely rare instance of a page shot from an original syndicate proof sheet, all reproduced in sparkling, digitally cleaned-up color.
The new color format also opens the floodgates for a massive amount of spectacular rare color art from series editor Bill Blackbeard's files, including a surprising color self-portrait by Herriman, several Kat watercolors executed for friends, peers, and relatives, some watercolored non-Krazy Kat material, a reproduction of a vintage archy and mehitabel dust jacket by Herriman-plus a period spoof of Krazy Kat by Minute Movies' Ed Wheelan, and several instances of other cartoonists imitating Herriman's unique "Family Upstairs / Krazy Kat" format.
This volume also includes "The Kolor of Krazy Kat," a revelatory essay by journalist and critic Jeet Heer that addresses in-depth the mystery of Herriman's racial origins, and the varying ways in which Herriman dealt with them artistically throughout his career-a major addition to Herriman-related scholarship and commentary.
Customer Reviews:
The Golden Age has turned to dross!.......2007-01-10
Krazy and Ignatz are unique in the history of the comics and highlight the Golden Age when "Little Nemo," "Maggie and Jiggs," and "The Yellow Kid" were right up there with this strip, George Harriman's salute to wit, whimsy, and the English language. Did I mention Jewish and Italian dialects from New York City? Anyhow, language and imagination all worked together in a desert landscape with Turner skies above and some of the most marveous comic characters walking the sands below. Who else but Herriman could do a daily comic--for years--about a cat with a bow around its neck, a cat that was either male or female depending on what happened in the life of the reader that day, a cat in love with a mouse whose only aim in life was to bean the cat's head with a brick, then to be arrested by Officer Pup! It's the stuff that dreams are made of but, unfortunately, those dreams have faded away.
A Pillar of our Comics Heritage.......2006-12-23
It's probable that anyone considering the purchase of this book is already familiar with Krazy Kat, but just in case...
The entire strip is based on a love triangle, with a gender-ambiguous cat (Krazy) that is in love with a mouse (Ignatz) who is irritated by the cat and throws bricks at his/her/its noggin. The cat takes the bricks as a sign of love, however. A dog (Offisa Pupp) is in love with Krazy and tries to protect him-her-it from the mouse and the bricks, frequently jailing the mouse.
The strip has a fairly small cast of characters, mostly animal, and the goings on take place in front of ever-shifting landscapes. The effect is surreal: from one panel to the next, two characters could be talking without much change in their positions and posture, yet the background changes completely. The art is probably a love it or hate it proposition. It is scratchy and might resist some readers' esthetic sense. On the other hand, I know many people who automatically exclaim "I love Krazy Kat!" and the art is part and parcel of their appreciation. At any rate, the price of this full-color book is low enough to take a risk. Personally, I love the art: Herriman conveys surprise, movement, force and speed better than most or all of the comics masters, including Caniff, the superhero artists, Uderzo and possibly Hergé, with an apparent ease and simplicity of line.
Complementing the art is a patois (especially Krazy's) that is, at times, sheer poetry. The title of the book is drawn from an utterance within. There are deeper messages, such as the law of the excluded middle, or some gentle jabs at our lack of color blindness or cultural references that can slip by us because they are from an era now 70 years old.
There are two introductions. One of them, "The Kolors of Krazy Kat" on Herriman's complex ethnicity, is particularly apt in this, the book of the strip's first color Sundays. The other is by a fellow named Bill Blackbeard, whose efforts have saved portions of this and other strips from oblivion and in some cases from outright destruction. His work has rescued an important part of our cultural heritage.
In addition to the introductions, there are photographs as well as reproductions of beautiful Herriman water colors featuring his characters and backgrounds. The book was put together very conscientiously - even lovingly.
Incomparable and beautiful and gentle . . . ........2006-09-30
What can one say about Geo. Herriman's "Krazy Kat"? The wonderful, colorful world of Coconino County is captured beautifully in this all-color Fantagraphics collection of Sunday pages. Geo. was a true poet and his words and art join together (like Chinese calligraphy/poetry/painting) to create an self-contained universe of wonder, humor and all-too human foibles and desires. Let's see - Krazy (cat) loves Ignatz (mouse); Ignatz despises Krazy; Offissa Pupp (dog) loves Krazy but Krazy is unaware and Offissa Pupp's love is unrequited. It's all so krazily wonderful I really kan't deskribe it!!!
Krazy Kat: Kompletely in Kolor!.......2006-04-28
Many comic strips rely a lot on variations on a theme. The classic example would be Peanuts. There were dozens of Peanuts strips that involved Charlie Brown trying (and failing) to kick a ball that Lucy was holding. Even though the idea was the same in each, the execution differed from strip to strip. Years earlier, the same could have been said about Krazy Kat; how many different ways can a mouse attempt to hit a cat with a brick? As it turns out, many ways, each interesting in its own way.
For those unfamiliar with Krazy Kat, the three main characters in the strip are Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse and Officer Pupp. Krazy loves Ignatz, who in turn, dislikes Krazy. In fact, Ignatz is constantly beaning Krazy in the head with a brick, an act that Krazy interprets as one of affection. Meanwhile, Officer Pupp loves Krazy and hates Ignatz, constantly arresting the mouse for assault. (While Ignatz and Pupp are definitely male - Ignatz is even married with children - Krazy's gender is much more indeterminate, occasionally referred to as male, sometimes female, but usually left completely uncertain. Personally, I think of Krazy as male, but mainly so I am consistent in what pronoun to use.) Of course, just as not every Peanuts strip involved kicking a football, not every Krazy Kat strip involves Ignatz's efforts to obtain a brick and throwing it at Krazy, but usually the idea is at least lurking in the background.
What makes Krazy Kat special? It's hard to describe exactly. It is certainly different from any comic strip around nowadays: it has much less of an emphasis on punchline humor and instead relies on pure absurdity (or should I say "kraziness"). Even in its time, Krazy Kat was mainly successful due to the patronage of William Hearst, as well as the praise of such well-known figures as e.e. cummings and Walt Disney.
This particular volume covers the Sunday strips of the latter part of 1935 and all of 1936, the first period in which Krazy Kat was in color. Despite some obvious errors by the original publishers seventy years ago - such as times when Ignatz is blue or green - Krazy Kat works as well in color as in black-and-white. There are supplemental materials as well, most notably an essay on Krazy Kat's creator, George Herriman, the controversies regarding his racial background and how it was reflected in his work. Although interesting, you can skip this stuff if you want and go straight to the comics: Krazy Kat is kompletely kaptivating!
A 'must' for any KK fan.......2005-12-05
Krazy Ignatz is the sixth volume of the Krazy Kat reprint series - but it's the first volume to appear in full color, representing the comic strip's color appearance in June 1935 after being a black-and-white Sunday strip. The new color format has been digitally cleaned for sharp appearance - better than the original strips - and harvests a wealth of Krazy Kat and non-Kat materials from Herriman archives from 1935-36. Krazy Ignatz is a 'must' for any KK fan.
Book Description
"[A] long-overdue, definitive opus on that fabulous feline of American surrealism."-Richard Merkin, Vanity Fair
Krazy Kat, created by George Herriman, made its debut in 1913. During its 31-year run, it was enormously popular with the public and with many writers, artists, and intellectuals of the time. Herriman's stories of the Kat and his tormentor, Ignatz Mouse, were both playful and philosophical. This book is the most comprehensive survey of the innovative cartoon masterpiece and the first major biographical work on the artist himself. Illustrated with more than 150 of Herriman's comic strips as well as never-before-published drawings, archival photographs, and personal letters, this book is a testament to the brilliance of his work. AUTHOR BIO: Patrick McDonnell is the creator of the comic strip Mutts and author of Abrams' Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell. He and his wife, Karen O'Connell, are scholars and collectors of early comic-strip art. Georgia Riley de Havenon works with the Graham Gallery in New York, where many of the original Krazy Kat drawings have been exhibited.
Customer Reviews:
Wow! Beautiful book.......2006-08-24
This is a wonderful book for Krazy Katz fans to own. It is large, colorful and very informative on one of Americas great cartoonists. The delivery through Amazon was fast and effortless. The book, a treasure to own. Worth the lower price through Amazon.
The Kraziest love triangle ever.......2005-08-19
This is a wonderful introduction to George Herriman's great comic strip Krazy Kat that ran for several decades in the early twentieth century. This introduction provides biographical background to Herriman's art, a survey of some of his influences, and a very healthy dose of Krazy Kat panels, both color and black & white. It also discusses the way that Krazy Kat became a cultural phenomenon, easily one of the most highly regarded comics of the century, and permeating many other arts as well.
The Krazy Kat strip is utterly insane, surreal stuff. Here is the premise: Krazy Kat (who is usually female but is sometimes apparently male) is in love with Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz loathes Krazy, and to prove it konstantly kreases that kat's krown with a brick. Incredibly, Krazy sees this as proof of Ignatz's affection, and falls even more deeply in love (many panels show hearts rising from Krazy's heart when she is hit by one of Ignatz's bricks). Officer Pup, the town constable, is in love with Krazy and frequently throws Ignatz into jail for hitting Krazy, which causes Krazy to pine for her would-be lover. This is merely the barest sketch of this weird and wild world. The town of Concocino is populated by a host of equally outrageous characters, though the focus continually comes back to the three principals.
Though even the most recent of these strips are over sixty years old, Krazy Kat has stood up magnificently over the years. Part of the reason surely lies with Herriman's enormous gifts as an illustrator. The Sunday strips in particular are things of great beauty, with the frames arcing around the page in spectacular designs of considerable innovation and complexity. The content of the comics reflects a genuine wit and substantial intelligence, while the bizarre love triangle possesses endless possibilities for both humor and pathos. This truly is one of the most unique comics in the history of the medium, and even those who do not usually respond to the genre are apt to find this enormously entertaining.
Interested in Krazy Kat? Start here..........2005-08-14
This book stands as the best introduction to one of the best comic strips ever produced. Not only is it packed with hard to find "Krazy Kat" strips, but it also includes a biography of the artist, George Herriman. Some consider Herriman the first African-American mainstream cartoonist. His colleagues didn't know his ethnicity (and Herriman didn't tell them) so some called him "the Greek". He felt he had to hide some of his features from the public. For example, he kept his very curly hair closely cut and hidden under a hat. Not only that, his birth certificate shows his parent's ethnicity as "colored". The prejudices of the time likely would not have allowed an African-American the mainstream status and freedom allowed to George Herriman. So through "Krazy Kat" we get a glimpse of what early 20th century American culture may have missed out on due to its racial myopia. For "Krazy Kat" stands as an absolute masterpiece of its genre.
Herriman found some modicum of fame in his lifetime. William Randolph Hearst (the newspaper magnate) loved Herriman's work and rewarded him with a lifetime contract (according to the biography in the book, Hearst once read a "Krazy Kat" Sunday page and immediately demanded a raise for the artist). Herriman's success didn't come quickly, however. His first big break came in 1897 with the sale of a sketch to the Los Angeles Herald. Around 1901 he landed his first job as a "Staff Cartoonist" (a person who literally reported to the office every day and rattled off strip after strip; very different from today's cartoonists). Between 1901 and 1916 Herriman penned numerous strips (the book includes samples of many of these strips - many in color), including: "Musical Mose" (this strip's overt racial humor would not fly today), "Professor Otto and His Auto", "Acrobatic Archie", "Two Jolly Jackies", "Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade", "Home Sweet Home", "Baron Mooch", "Mary's Home From College", "Gooseberry Sprig" (considered to be a direct forerunner to "Krazy Kat"), "Alexander the Cat", "Daniel and Pansy", and finally, in 1910, "The Dingbat Family" (which changed its name briefly to "The Family Upstairs"; it was Herriman's first hit). It was in a "Dingbat Family" strip in 1910 that a mouse first "beaned" a "Kat" with a projectile (in the "running boards" of the strip). Eventually the Kat and mouse sideshow surpassed the main strip's popularity, and "Krazy Kat" debuted as a daily in October 1913 (the famous Sunday pages began in 1916). Herriman kept experimenting with other strips through 1923 when he finally placed his focus squarely on "Krazy Kat".
From roughly 1913 to 1944 (when Herriman passed away leaving a week's worth of unfinished Krazy Kat's on his drawing table) "Krazy Kat" developed from a "Kat" and mouse game (filled with puns, misunderstandings, and musings on the imperfections of language) into a complex love triangle between Krazy (the "Kat"), Ignatz (the mouse) and Offisa Pupp (the dog). Ignatz's entire being revolves around "beaning" the "Kat" with a brick, and Krazy interprets this as an act of love (unbeknownst to Ignatz). Offisa Pupp loves Krazy (in a fatherly sort of way) and his obsession revolves around catching Ignatz in the act and jailing him. Three obsessions collide in an almost jazz-style derivation of themes. Herriman developed this theme brilliantly over 30 years of strips. But overall it defies analysis: the strip can only speak for itself.
Sadly, though "Krazy Kat" counted such dignatiries as e.e. cummings, George Gershwin, Gilbert Seldes, James Joyce, and other literati, as fans, its popularity waned dramatically throughout the 1930s (as it became more surreal, esoteric and unabashedly uncommercial). It was kept in print by Hearst himself. The book does not cover the frustration of Hearst editors at the inclusion of the strip in their papers. They rebelled against it in some cases. Many simply tried to remove it from circulation only to find Hearst himself yelling "keep it in!" So we have, of all people, the controversial William Randolph Hearst to thank for the continuation of "Krazy Kat". By the end of its run "Krazy Kat" only appeared in some 30 papers.
The main focus of this book lies in its numerous incredible strips. The book includes daily strips (most dating from 1938 to 1944) and Sunday pages (dating from 1916 to 1944 with some in color; it also includes both the first and last Sunday pages). If one reason exists to purchase this book, here it is. The strips retain their amazing character even after decades of aging. And the artwork remains astounding. Not only that, the book includes samples of hand colored drawings of Herriman's, and photos of Herriman and his family. All in all, this book opens the door on one of the comic strip medium's most celebrated strips. Those that get hooked should continue thier obsessions (in the true spirit of Krazy, Ignatz, and Offisa Pupp) with the Fantagraphics' series of Sunday pages, and the Pacific Comics club's reprints of daily strips. Someday every Krazy Kat strip Herriman drew will finally appear in printed form. We can hope, at least.
The greatest comic strip ever? You bet........2003-12-27
When I noticed that many of my favourite cartoonists have said that Herriman's 'Krazy Kat' is the greatest comic strip ever, I decided I should check it out. It didn't take long before I agreed with them.
George Herriman is one of those rare individuals who genuinely deserves to be called a genius. That's a word that gets thrown around a little too casually perhaps, but in Herriman's case it is almost an understatement.
He was a brilliantly inventive artist, but his writing is what really sets him apart. A lot of the dialogue is written phonetically in bizarre dialects, a tricky thing to do, but he uses it to great effect.
Whereas space restrictions force cartoonists today to avoid using more words than is necessary, Herriman would often use a lot more, and much of the pleasure of reading 'Krazy Kat' comes from the sheer virtuosity with which Herriman uses language.
That a comic strip could be as funny, as intellectually stimulating, and as beautiful to look at as 'Krazy Kat' seems to me to be some kind of miracle. This book is a great introduction to Herriman and his work. There's a generous helping of 'Krazy Kat' strips, as well as some of Herriman's other work. Anyone who loves comics should have it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Pop art...pop life, the beginning of the 20th cent. is Krazy.......2003-06-03
This is what all popular art forms should be. A social commentary as love poem. And poem this is. There is very little that someone can write about the Krazy experience without treading in the same terran as this wonderful book. This is were your Krazy love afair begins. And unlike Ignatz you don't show your love with a brick.
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Krazy Kat
Manufacturer: Grosset and Dunlap
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0448119455 |
Product Description
KRAZY KAT, the strip done fifty years ago by George Herriman, is amodern classic. The obvious reason is that when you look at examples of it, they're just as funny today as when they first cam out. They're very literate, they make sense on many levels, and they're beautifully drawn, in that old-time scratchy style we seem to have lost since then.
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Xanthippic Dialogues
Roger Scruton
Manufacturer: Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1856194027 |
Book Description
In Plato's dialogues, an idealized Socrates expounds the ideas for which Plato will, until the end of history, be famous. The world of Forms; the ideal Republic with its totalitarian masterplan; the tribute to Eros, god of love (or at least of homosexual love); the promise of the soul's salvation - all this has come down to us in the distinctive tone of voice of Plato's teacher. But how much of it did Socrates believe? Were Plato's contemporaries really taken in? And what lay behind his philosophy, from which the real world of men and women was so rigorously excluded?
Until the discovery of the Xanthippic Inquiries, we had no answer to those questions. Now at last the real Plato is revealed to us, by the women whom he banished from his arguments. In this brilliant and witty expos&*acute;, the mask of abstraction is lifted, to reveal the truth that lies beneath. And the truth is Xanthippe: wife of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and Founding Mother of the Western world. This is a book that no feminist can afford to ignore.
Average customer rating:
- The Mutt and Jeff of American cinema
- Good History, Fascinating Characters, Slightly Tedious
- A great read for Hitch fans. Highly recommended.
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Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood
Leonard J. Leff
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Binding: Paperback
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Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick
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Hitchcock's Notebooks: An Authorized And Illustrated Look Inside The Creative Mind Of Alfred Hitchcock
ASIN: 0520217810 |
Amazon.com
The careers of Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick are intensely entwined, but the story of their work together is one of the cinema's best-kept secrets. Hitchcock is probably best known for the work he did in the 1950s and '60s, hosting his legendary television show and directing the films Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds. Selznick's many films have been eclipsed by his most popular achievement, Gone with the Wind. But it was Selznick who coaxed Hitchcock into emigrating from England to America, and it was Hitchcock who directed three opulent masterpieces for the producer's studio: Rebecca, Spellbound, and Notorious.
Leonard J. Leff's richly detailed and entertaining book documents this collaboration, describing how two men of opposite temperaments were able to complement one another artistically. He gives a behind-the-scenes perspective on the creation of their movie masterpieces, also investigating their fourth and final production, the unsuccessful The Paradine Case. "Hitchcock spent nearly a decade with Selznick, beginning in 1938," Leff writes. "More than either acknowledged, they joined forces primarily to extend their independence as filmmakers. A director of 'little British thrillers,' Hitchcock lacked the wherewithal to attain international status. Selznick not only brought Hitchcock to Hollywood but offered him stories and actors commensurate with his profound talent. Their collaboration bore fruit: Hitchcock added bite to Selznick's style, Selznick added American gloss to Hitchcock's." Leff's account of this dynamic duo in action is as thrilling as the films they created together. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
Hitchcock and Selznick is the story of one of the oddest partnerships in Hollywood history, the union of a reticent, overweight Englishman with a flair for striking detail and a penchant for the perverse, and a dynamic movie mogul with a keen eye for successful entertainment on the grand scale. It began in 1938, when producer David O. Selznick agreed to bring director Alfred Hitchcock from England, where he was already gaining widespread acclaim for his "little thrillers," and the collaboration resulted in the making of such masterpieces as Rebecca, Spellbound, and Notorious.
Hitchcock was soft-spoken and meticulous; Selznick was confrontational and chronically disorganized. They were, moreover, two geniuses with wholly different approaches to filmmaking. The sparks that flew between them over the next eight years ignited into some of Hitchcock's most memorable achievements, but they made collaboration impossible in the end. Drawing on unpublished documents, early drafts of script treatments, and humorous production anecdotes--and including a wealth of previously unseen photographs--Leonard Leff has written a book for specialist and layman alike, a fascinating behind-the-scenes portrait not only of two great Hollywood figures but of the film industry itself.
Customer Reviews:
The Mutt and Jeff of American cinema.......2003-02-24
They were the odd couple of cinema: Hitchcock's spry, intelligent thrillers were very much at odds with Selznick's adaptions notable for their fidelity to their source. Hitchcock, in contrast, was anything but faithful to the source material of his many film adaptions. Both adaptions and original material focused on key visual images around which the plot was built. Selznick was the opposite of Hitch in that his productions were focused more on the narrative. Their collaboration managed to enrich each other's skills.
Although they made few films together during their ten year "collaboration" (in reality Hitch was under contract so his status was more as suborindate than equal), most of them are hampered by their lack of cohesive styles. As producer/director they didn't hit their collborative stride until Hitch's Notorius in 1946. Most of Hitch's work was with other producers and studios for which he was loaned out like any other actor or director of the time.
Nevertheless, Hitch learned valuable lessons in structuring a film for the American audience. He also managed to reach an audience that he could only have imagined before coming to America. Selznick's most valuable lesson was learning to let his directors occasionally have their way on projects.
Leff's book is a bit too scholarly in tone for the average film fan but is well written and researched. It's also quite expensive given that it's a large format paperback (this probably has to do with the small audience imagined for it and the fact that it comes from the UC Press). Many of Leff's more interesting observations have turned up as commentary on a number of Criterion DVDs (particularly the Spellbound DVD released last year).
There were many classic films produced during their time together but just as many misfires (Spellbound, despite it's many attributes is a good example of the disasterous turn their collaboration could take). Hitch hadn't hit the height of his powers as a director yet. His most powerful films (Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Trouble With Charlie, Strangers on a Train, Psycho and The Birds)loomed in his future. Nevertheless, his films from this time frame are, at times, revolutionary in one way or another (Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat among many others).
This book details their work together from uneasy partnership to the truce that allowed Hitch to produce one of his most magnificient films (Notorius). Although Hitch's work has come to dominate our culture more than Selznick's (with the possible exception of Gone With The Wind), neither man would have achieved his goals without the other.
Good History, Fascinating Characters, Slightly Tedious.......2000-03-17
You probably couldn't find two more fascinating personalities in the history of cinema than Hitchcock and Selznick, and Mr. Leff does an excellent job providing background information and behind-the-scenes details on their collaborations. The book tends to slow down at times, mostly due to expositionary passages which are essential, but which delay getting to the good stuff.
One thing I would have liked more of would have been more information on what each of these characters did away from each other. I realize that gets away from the main thesis, but I think that Mr. Leff tries to involve as many of those details as he can into his narrative but is forced to pare it down to stay on course.
What's particularly interesting is how Hitchcock and Selznick virtually switched places in the Hollywood hierarchy over the course of their time together. Knowing what we know about each man in his later years lends an extra creedence to Mr. Leff's work.
A great read for Hitch fans. Highly recommended........1999-06-14
For any serious fan and student of Hitchcock, this compellingly readable book is a must. Should be on the bookshelf along with Donald Spoto's great book "The Dark Side of Genius." Where Spoto's book provides excellent detail on the Hitchcock side of this strained but dynamic collaboration, Leff's book fills the gap on the Selznick end, providing both an historical perspective (Hitchcock on the rise, Selznick at the beginning of his decline) and an insightful look at the filmmaking methods of both men, striving to push the envelope in the repressive era of Will Hayes' Hollywood code. Hitch may have bridled under Selznick's heavy-handedness, his obsession with using name talent and his emphasis on dialogue and character development. Yet, many of the great Hitchcock films that came after their colloaboration bear the mark of Selznick's influence in all these areas. Mr. Leff's book offers an eminently fair rendering of each man's creative contributions and personal angst in their 10 year association, and is an important contribution to mid-20th century American film history.
Product Description
Includes index and bibliography, illustrated in black-and-white.
Book Description
The latest collection of essays by peerless music and culture writer Francis Davis, who "has long combined Gary Giddins's musical acuity with Whitney Balliett's literary flair"-Boston Phoenix.
Modern jazz and rock 'n' roll, both of which were once identified with youthful insurrection, have reached middle age. So have many longtime listeners -including Francis Davis. Now, in these thirty-one articles, the revered jazz critic considers music young and old, examining performers from Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday to Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra. But what makes this Davis's most surprising book is the inclusion of such pop icons as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Burt Bacharach, and Lou Reed. Using himself as an example, Davis pinpoints our collective longing for a time when we (and our music) were younger-and more inclined to take risks. Lively, opinionated, gracefully written, and often very funny, Like Young is a book for those who have long savored Davis's writing, as well as for those just now discovering him.
Book Description
The credit derivatives market is booming and, for the first time, expanding into the banking sector which previously has had very little exposure to quantitative modeling. This phenomenon has forced a large number of professionals to confront this issue for the first time. Credit Derivatives Pricing Models provides an extremely comprehensive overview of the most current areas in credit risk modeling as applied to the pricing of credit derivatives. As one of the first books to uniquely focus on pricing, this title is also an excellent complement to other books on the application of credit derivatives. Based on proven techniques that have been tested time and again, this comprehensive resource provides readers with the knowledge and guidance to effectively use credit derivatives pricing models. Filled with relevant examples that are applied to real-world pricing problems, Credit Derivatives Pricing Models paves a clear path for a better understanding of this complex issue.
Dr. Philipp J. Schönbucher is a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, and has degrees in mathematics from Oxford University and a PhD in economics from Bonn University. He has taught various training courses organized by ICM and CIFT, and lectured at risk conferences for practitioners on credit derivatives pricing, credit risk modeling, and implementation.
Customer Reviews:
read this before going for it.......2007-04-25
The book covers the basics of credit risk modeling and derivative pricing (both structural and intensity type of models), explained in a clear style with enough detail to enable implementation (a rarity in financial literature!). Basics of the theory of stochastic processes and risk-neutral pricing are also covered. Calibration methods for the models are clearly explained. Due to the limited scope, some topics are given only cursory coverage (Copula function methods, role of interest-rates models etc.), but even then, enough references are provided. A very useful, concisely written tome!
Very bad presentation. I was bored to death before I finished the first 20 pages.......2007-04-16
The author should rewrite this book. The presentation and organisation are terrible. Often you will see formulas come out without an explanation.
Would definitely not recommend it.
Grab any papers wrote by the market-practitioners, you will find they are much easier for you to understand the concepts of various credit derivatives models than the book could.
BTW, I wrote a negative review in amazon.co.uk, but was deleted twice.
Great but Incomplete Tech for Quantitative Credit Traders / Analysts.......2006-12-06
Schonbucher's book has major strengths:
1) the bredth and un-biased approach to a broard range of methods for pricing and identifying (pseudo-)arbitrage opportunities including approaches based on reduced form / intensity models, structural/statistical/Merton-like models, and credit rating based approachs to modeling and trading credit.
2) The emphasis on implementation issues -- issues and problems bootstrapping and fitting credit curves, impact of product and market specific risk premium in credit spread than inflated market-implied default probabilities -- is very good and his chapters on modeling market-implied recovery assumptions and recovery modeling are also very good.
The major drawbacks are that is
1) It is sufficiently mathematical, but not strong enough in explaining the mathematics, such that anyone who can undedrstand the book probably already has a good handle on the space.
2) It spends a good deal of time on interesting but only marginally relevant modeling approachs (like the credit rating discussions and modeling counter-party risk) but misses key opportunities (like cash-cds convexity and basis trading) that many need for their day jobs.
3) Recent innovations like recovery products, loan and preferred CDS, and greater liquidity in basket and coorelation products either post-date the text or are not covered well enough to be of practical use.
That said, it is still one of the two four and five texts I have seen in the space (if you are considering the book also look at Geoff Chaplin's excellent text. Many people rave about Credit Derivatives by George C. Chacko et al. but I haven't yet read this, so don't have an opinion other than people I have high regard for like the book a lot.)
excellent book but hard to understand.......2006-11-11
The book is written by a Professor in a insightful way.
The reader needs to be well prepared in knowledge, and be ready for frustration.
Excellent intermediate book.......2005-10-20
The book is a look at credit risk through the glasses of mathematics, and is not a beginner's book. It is a bit dry in the beginning, yet after that I discovered lots of valuable intuitive explanations. While it does require a certain level of probability knowledge, the author walks you through most necessary steps for the presented models. The book covers almost everything needed for an intermediate course on credit modelling. The lack of numerical implementation menthods took the last star.
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