American Cinematographer - July 1998 - 119

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Character actors
Herbert
Lorn,

Autobiography

of British Cinema

Rutherford), receive the

by Brian McFarlane
Methuen/Trafalgar
Square,
672 pps., paper,

(e.g. Raymond Huntley,
Dame
Margaret

$24.95

This is the biggest, fattest paper¬
back movie book that has arrived in a

same

attention

accorded the more glamorous stars.
McFarlane correctly notes that
"discussion about [the British cinema]
has suffered from that reckless
auteurism which picks out alpine heights

actors who created it. What we have

(Powell, Lean, Reed) and, in doing so,
obscures a great deal of attractive and
appealing work in the foothills, let alone
on the plains." By setting off on an nonauteurist path, this author succeeds
where many similar attempts have
failed, providing some real insight into

here is a massive collection of about 140
interviews with movie professionals who

British filmmaking. Bravo,
And please give us more.

long time. Happily, it's also among the
best, both in concept and result. The idea
is to present an in-depth look at the life
and times of the British film industry, as
told by many of the filmmakers and

at the heart of the business. This is
fleshed out by some 50 biographical
entries on important contributors to
British cinema who were no longer

the facts,

focusing on the period from
half-century is marked
by both the struggle to survive some of
the hardest of times and the flowering of
an occasional Golden Age. The entries
are arranged alphabetically, beginning
with composer John Addison and ending
with cinematographer Freddie Young,
BSC. Music men get short shrift after
Addison, but there pieces on other cine¬
matographers (including BSC fellows
Guy Green, Freddie Francis, Ronald
Neame, Walter Lassally, Ossie Morris
and Nicolas Roeg) and most of the
1930 to 1980. This

better-known directors. There

profiles of

are

also

designers, screenwrit¬
film editors, producers and execu¬

ers,
tives.

some

Most of all, the

reader will

encounter a multitude of actors, living
and dead, whose reminiscences invari¬

ably show

fine appreciation of the
craftsmen with whom they worked.
a

or

Download

Rental

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Phone:
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Oconnor

Easy Riders,
Raging Bulls
by Peter Biskind

Pinewood, Elstree, Denham, Pinewood,

The Australian author admirably
avoids critical opinion and concentrates

90NY
IKE6AMI

McFarlane!

actually worked at Gainsborough, Ealing,

living.

ARRIFLEX

MOVIECAM

Simon and Schuster, 506
pps.,

hardback, $25

Nearly everybody involved in the
already read this
hefty tome about Hollywood in the
movie business has

Seventies. Subtitled "How the Sex-

Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation
Saved Hollywood," it takes an unblinking
look at a decade in which great reputa¬
tions were made, often through the
efforts of the uncredited, while the old
studio system withered.

Legions of famous executives,
producers, directors, writers and actors
stumble, stomp or run roughshod through
the story: Warren Beatty, Bob Rafelson,
Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Lou
Wasserman, Francis Ford Coppola,
Roman Polanski, Robert Evans, Robert
Towne, William Friedkin, Martin Scorsese,
Paul Schrader, Steven Spielberg, George

Lucas and

a

multitude of others. Most of

them take their

lumps

as money, sex,

booze, drugs and scandals

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The

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egotistical cruelty and ruthlessness

117
American Cinematographer - July 1998

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 1998
