Roger Ebert's Book of Film: From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the Finest Writing From a Century of Film

I loved the essays in this book. Ebert divides the book up into multiple sections (Going to the Movies, Movie Stars, The Business, Sex and Scandel, Early Days, Genres, Directors, Writers, Critics, Technique,and Hollywood) and presents the great articles that have appeared on each over the years. The critics section alone is worth the price of the book. Graham Greene recalls his critic days, Dwight Macdonald provides a great outline for any critic to follow, and Andy Sarris looks at what he stirred up with his book on American Cinema.Lots of fun.

With a selection of over 100 writings about film, actors and actresses, directors, filmmaking and Hollywood, this book will have selections that will both thrill and bore you. The selections are usually part of larger works, so sometimes seem a little out of context. To give you a feel of the sections, and scope of excerpts below are my favorites by section:- Going to the movies -Delmore Schwartz “in dreams begin responsibilities,- Movie Stars – W. C. Fields his follies and fortunes by Robert Lewis Taylor- The Business – The Island of Hollywood by Cary McWilliams- Sex ands Scandal – “Mae West” by John Kobal- Early Days – A Conversation on Film with Leo Tolstoy- Genres– “The Imagination fo Disaster” Susan Sontag- Directors– ‘ From Something Like an Autobiography Akira Kurosawa- Writers – From A Child of the Century Ben Hecht- Critics – From On Movies Dwight Macdonald.- Technique – The Laws of Cartoon Motion Mark O’Donnell- Hollywood – From the Groucho Letters Groucho MarxSo these were my favorites, what were yours?

Thanks a lot 😊. The book came in excellent condition . 😊

An anthology featuring the writings of great 20th Century novelists, critics, actors and directors.

In 1996 Ol' Rog published one of the greatest compilations of film related writing ever produced.It's huge in more than just its page content, and its cover deserves to be made into a wall poster, and framed.The cover is the inside of a Movie Palace, & the patrons are a select company of worthies one can only dream about having in the room at the same time....Sitting front & center are Roger, Orson Welles, and looking, with an arched eyebrow, over Orsons' shoulder is Alfred Hitchcock, while over Rogers is John Huston.In a funny juxtoposition, 3 rows back, but seen between the heads of Orson & Roger is Woody Allen with his finger to his lips. :-)Spread out around these gents are Cary Grant, John Wayne, Louise Brooks, Akira Kurosawa, Doris day, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Quentin Tarantino, Leo Tolstoy, Katherine hepburn, Francois Truffaut, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin.Um, can I get a collective WOW!! from the readership assembled? :-)After a fine introduction by the author you are invited to dig into 11 sections with articles on a dozens of films, issues, and personalities.Articles on film going by, among others, James Agee, Walker Percy.H. L. Mencken on Rudy Valentino, Nicholas Ray on James Dean, Joan Didion on John Wayne, Rex reed on Ava Gardner, Tom Wolfe on Cary Grant, and John Updike on Doris Day, among other pieces on the Stars.Carey McWilliams, Sam Arkoff, William Castle, and Elmore Leonard on the film business.John Kobal on Mae West, Pauline Kael, and Norman Mailer with 2 views on Last Tango in Paris, are just a few of the pieces concerning sex & scandal in film.The New York Times reports on the Vitascope's debut, the Philadephia Inquirer reviews The Great Train Robbery, Maxim Gorky comments on Lumiere, Leo tolstoy holds forth on Film, and Kevin Brownlow writes about Mary Pickford, and Gloria Swanson.E. M. Forster writes about Minnie & Mickey, Andre Bazin writes about the Western, Robert Warshow on Gangsters, and Manny Farber on Underground Films,.Directors Luis Bunel, Ingmar Bergman, Preston Sturges, Jean Renoir, Akira Kurasawa, Satyajit Ray, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Spike Lee are just a few of those whose writings on film apprear here.Writers Ben Hecht, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, and Raymond Chandler are also here.Film critics like Graham Greene, Dwight Macdonald, & Quentin Crisp have contributions here.Nestor Almendros, Robert Benchley, Janet Leigh, and David Mamet write about technique.F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Bloch, Budd Schulberg, Howard Koch, Nathaniel West, Groucho Marx, and Oscar Levant are among those who write about Hollywood.At almost 800 pages you will never be bored, and can read the thing straight thru, or skip back and forth to your hearts content.This is a book well worth searching out.

"Very good condition, minimal wear" the the 700+ pages are hanging off the spine by one. page. Binding completely useless.

This book is a compilation of interviews with movie actors, directors, producers, writers, critics, and excerpts from written articles and books written about Hollywood.Some are very interesting: Marilyn Monroe, Mario Puzo, Akira Kurosawa, Janet Leigh, Nestor Almendros, Buster Keaton and a few others. But most are uninteresting (Larry McMurtry,Elmore Leonard, Susan Sontag, etc), boring (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carey McWilliams, Sam Arkoff, etc) or just inane profanity (Last Tango In Paris, lee Marvin, Julia Phillips, etc). Still, 90% of articles are unflattering and I would have been happy not knowing about personal lives and opinions of these Hollywood people. For sure, Roger is in love with everything Hollywood (that shows in his excellent movie reviews), even though I hardly ever agreed with his 'thumbs up/down'.I'm not a huge movie fan, but I expected much more from an expert film critic like Mr. Ebert. I didn't find much of the book useful or even related to a "Book of Film". Roger seems to think that just because a person is 'famous', then anything said or done by that person needs to be repeated, no matter how dull. I expected much more from an 800 page book, at the minimum an interesting read. Many parts I felt were a total waste of time and ink. 150-200 pages were interesting, the rest was difficult to get through or dissapointing to finish the article and read nothing of value.

Roger Ebert's a very good writer of critical analysis, and I read his reviews every week religiously. However, there's something that just doesn't seem right about this book. It just seems like there wasn't much effort put into it. Ebert pieced together a book made from essays and chapters from other books by other people, and he gives an unenlightening introduction to each of them. There are some good pieces in here (I especially like the ones by Klaus Kinski, Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, and John Waters), but it's hardly a major work by the respected film historian.