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Will & Grace (TV Milestones Series)
by Tison PughThe sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–20) shifted the media landscape and its treatment of queer themes by starring an openly gay protagonist, Will Truman, on primetime network television. Will, along with his best friend Grace Adler and their constant companions Jack McFarland and Karen Walker, engaged in many stereotypical sitcom shenanigans imbued with decidedly queer twists. Despite the series’ groundbreaking nature, its accuracy and responsibility in representing gay men—and of queer culture in general—has been questioned throughout its initial run and reboot. Author Tison Pugh places the sitcom in its historical context of the late 1990s and early 2000s, considering how it contributed to contemporary debates concerning queer life. Will & Grace returned in the Trump era, offering viewers another chance to enjoy the companionship of these quirky yet relatable characters as they grappled with seismic shifts in the nation’s political climate. Pugh demonstrates that while heralding a new age of queer representation, characters across the series were homogenized through upper-class whiteness to normalize queerness for a mainstream US audience. In negotiating protocols of network television and the desires of audiences both gay and straight, this trailblazing series remains simultaneously haunted by and liberated from longstanding queer stereotypes.
Will I Live Tomorrow?: The Making of The Black Tulip
by Sonia Nassery ColeWhen Sonia Nassery Cole set out to film The Black Tulip in her homeland of Afghanistan, she knew the odds were against her; she was told time and time again that filming inside a war zone would be impossible. What she didn't anticipate was how intent the Taliban and its sympathizers were on halting the film's production-the crew encountered extortion, government corruption, kidnapping attempts, and death threats, even with around-the-clock security. Her cinematographer fled after two days, and many others followed.After 9/11, Cole wrote The Black Tulip, based on a true story of a real Afghan family. The plot was simple: After 2001, when the Taliban was routed, an Afghan family opened The Poet's Corner-a restaurant with an open microphone for all to read poetry, perform music, and tell their stories. But the Taliban didn't approve, and the family's new-found hope proved fleeting as it struggled to maintain the restaurant and vibrant way of life. Selected as Afghanistan's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Academy Awards, The Black Tulip is a modern portrait of Afghanistan that captures the plight and resilience of its people.Without financial support from a studio or anyone else, Cole self-financed the film by mortgaging her home and selling her belongings. Then, with everything on the line, she left for Kabul to make the impossible possible and set out to gather the right people who would risk their lives and willingly be part of the production.In Will I Live Tomorrow?: The Making of The Black Tulip, Cole gives an intimate look into what went on behind the scenes of making a controversial film in the heart of a war-ravaged country-the looming terror the Taliban creates among Afghans everywhere and the challenges and fear the cast and crew faced every day.Will I Live Tomorrow? is a memoir about one woman's struggle to make a difference in a violent world.
Will I Live Tomorrow?
by Sonia Nassery ColeWhen Sonia Nassery Cole set out to film The Black Tulip in her homeland of Afghanistan, she knew the odds were against her; she was told time and time again that filming inside a war zone would be impossible. What she didn't anticipate was how intent the Taliban and its sympathizers were on halting the film's production-the crew encountered extortion, government corruption, kidnapping attempts, and death threats, even with around-the-clock security. Her cinematographer fled after two days, and many others followed.After 9/11, Cole wrote The Black Tulip, based on a true story of a real Afghan family. The plot was simple: After 2001, when the Taliban was routed, an Afghan family opened The Poet's Corner-a restaurant with an open microphone for all to read poetry, perform music, and tell their stories. But the Taliban didn't approve, and the family's new-found hope proved fleeting as it struggled to maintain the restaurant and its vibrant way of life. Selected as Afghanistan's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Academy Awards, The Black Tulip is a modern portrait of Afghanistan that captures the plight and resilience of its people.Without financial support from a studio or anyone else, Cole self-financed the film by mortgaging her home and selling her belongings. Then, with everything on the line, she left for Kabul to make the impossible possible and set out to gather the right people who would risk their lives and willingly be part of the production.In Will I Live Tomorrow?, Cole gives an intimate look into what went on behind the scenes of making a controversial film in the heart of a war-ravaged country-the looming terror the Taliban creates among Afghans everywhere and the challenges and fear the cast and crew faced every day.Will I Live Tomorrow? is a memoir about one woman's struggle to make a difference in a violent world.
Will Ladybug Hug?
by Hilary LeungYou loved Will Bear Share? and Will Sheep Sleep?, now get to know Ladybug in a hilarious new high-fiving and hugging-themed addition to creator Hilary Leung's animal books!One ladybug.Many friends.One timeless question: Will Ladybug Hug?Meet Ladybug. Ladybug loves to hug! Now Ladybug is getting ready to go on a trip and wants to say good-bye to her friends. . . but will her friends want to receive a hug? Find out in this surprising and memorable storybook all about friendship, high-fives, consent, and of course, hugs.A fresh and funny new book in creative talent Hilary Leung's series of animal question stories all about preschool milestone moments. Let Ladybug and her friends laugh, high-five, and hug their way to your heart!
Will Power: How To Act Shakespeare In 21 Days
by John Basil Stephanie GunningThousands of young people set their sights on becoming professional actors each year, hoping to get a foot in the door with a solid resume built in high school, college, and local theatre company productions. But competition for parts is fierce, and no list of credits is complete without competency in the classical works of Shakespeare. Will Power guides both professional actors and aspirants through a lively 21-day rehearsal process leading up to the day of an actual audition or performance. Actors need never again be confused about where to begin or how to follow through when developing a Shakespearean role. Clear stepping stones have been laid out before them-by Shakespeare himself. Even seasoned actors, familiar with verse, are fascinated when they learn about the acting clues and stage directions embedded in the original First Folio text of Shakespeare's work, in the form of particular punctuation, capitalized letters, and spelling. Putting actors on their feet in dynamic and fun rehearsals, this practical guide helps them develop the 7 Cs of acting: commitment, concentration, conditioning, control, confidence, courage, and clarity while also demystifying how to perform these these magnificently crafted plays.
Will Rogers: A Biography of Good Will Prince of Wit and Wisdom
by P. J. O’BrienWill Rogers: Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom, first published in 1935, is an affectionate look at the great humorist, philanthropist, cowboy, newspaper columnist, movie- and vaudeville-star. Rogers, noted for his kindness to all he met, wrote his epitaph: “'I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like.' I am so proud of that, I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved.” Rogers and aviator Wiley Post died in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska, on August 15, 1935. Rogers was 55 at the time of his death. Included are numerous quotes of Will Rogers and 24 pages of photographs.
Will Rogers: Wise and Witty Sayings of a Great American Humorist
by Will RogersA delightful collection of Rogers' newspaper columns. He had a sharp wit, but he used it kindly. In his daily column, which appeared on the morning front page of nearly 400 newspapers, he took cracks at capital and labor, bankers and farmers, but through it all there was the thread of forgiveness and national unity. The insulting, personal humor of today was quite foreign to Will Rogers. He lived in a time that is now long past, when more people lived in the country than the city. I think his point of view is best summed up in a remark he once made to an audience in New York, "They may call me a 'rube' and a 'hick,' but I'd a lot rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it." That was Will Rogers.
Will Rogers and "His" America
by Gary C. Anderson Mark C. CarnesThis lively biography explores interwar America through Will Rogers, the comedian and commentator who witnessed it all: the stock market crash, the Great Depression, the advancement of technology, and the development of mass culture. Born on a farm in rural Oklahoma, Will Rogers shared his rural, agricultural beginnings with a majority of Americans at the turn of the century. But Rogers brought his small-town talents to a national audience, becoming a mainstay of early American mass culture. Though Rogers is remembered today for his success in vaudeville and the nascent American film industry, history has largely forgotten his considerable influence as a political commentator, which Anderson explores at length. Rogers' contributions to early American mass culture, the catalog of powerful personages that he counted among his friends, and his extensive writings about the political issues of the day make Rogers an ideal figure through which to explore the American interwar period. College students will relate well to Rogers, whose political opinions evolved as he gained exposure to people, places, things and ideas beyond rural Oklahoma. Rogers' conflicted relationship with his American Indian heritage also provides window on the history of race relations in America.
Will She Do?: Act One of a Life on Stage (Eileen Atkins)
by Eileen Atkins'She is the cur's cods, the terrier's testicles, the business. I will go farther and declare that Atkins is the finest actor appearing in the world right now' - A. A. GillWill She Do? is the story of a girl from a council estate in Tottenham, born in 1934 to an electric-meter reader and a seamstress, who was determined to be an actress. Candid and witty, this memoir takes her from her awkward performances in working-men's clubs at six years of age as dancing 'Baby Eileen', through the war years in London, to her breakthrough at thirty-two on Broadway with The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations. She co-created Upstairs, Downstairs and wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway (for which she won an Evening Standard Award) and at aged eighty-six, this is her first autobiographical work. Characterised by an eye for the absurd, a terrific knack for storytelling and an insistence on honesty, Will She Do? is a wonderful raconteur's tale about family, about class, about youthful ambition and big dreams and what really goes on behind the scenes. Made a Dame in 1991, Eileen Atkins has been on American and British stage and screen since 1957 and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and is a three-time Olivier Award winner; her theatre performances include The Height of the Storm, Ellen Terry, All that Fall and she has appeared in television and films ranging from Doc Martin to Cranford to The Crown.
Will She Do?: Act One of a Life on Stage (Eileen Atkins)
by Eileen Atkins'She is the cur's cods, the terrier's testicles, the business. I will go farther and declare that Atkins is the finest actor appearing in the world right now' - A. A. Gill'Yes, she will: this vivid, honest memoir by a great actress and a natural writer goes down a treat' Tom StoppardWill She Do? is the story of a girl from a council estate in Tottenham, born in 1934 to an electric-meter reader and a seamstress, who was determined to be an actress. Candid and witty, this memoir takes her from her awkward performances in working-men's clubs at six years of age as dancing 'Baby Eileen', through the war years in London, to her breakthrough at thirty-two on Broadway with The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations. She co-created Upstairs, Downstairs and wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway (for which she won an Evening Standard Award) and at aged eighty-six, this is her first autobiographical work. Characterised by an eye for the absurd, a terrific knack for storytelling and an insistence on honesty, Will She Do? is a wonderful raconteur's tale about family, about class, about youthful ambition and big dreams and what really goes on behind the scenes. Made a Dame in 1991, Eileen Atkins has been on American and British stage and screen since 1957 and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and is a three-time Olivier Award winner; her theatre performances include The Height of the Storm, Ellen Terry, All that Fall and she has appeared in television and films ranging from Doc Martin to Cranford to The Crown.
Will She Do?: Act One of a Life on Stage (Eileen Atkins)
by Eileen Atkins'She is the cur's cods, the terrier's testicles, the business. I will go farther and declare that Atkins is the finest actor appearing in the world right now' A. A. GillWill She Do? is the story of a girl from a council estate in Tottenham, born in 1934 to an electric-meter reader and a seamstress, who was determined to be an actress.Candid and witty, this memoir takes her from her awkward performances in working-men's clubs at six years of age as dancing 'Baby Eileen', through the war years in London, to her breakthrough at thirty-two on Broadway with The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations. She co-created Upstairs, Downstairs and wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway (for which she won an Evening Standard Award) and at aged eighty-six, this is her first autobiographical work.Characterised by an eye for the absurd, a terrific knack for storytelling and an insistence on honesty, Will She Do? is a wonderful raconteur's tale about family, class, youthful ambition, big dreams and what really goes on behind the scenes.Made a Dame in 1991, Eileen Atkins has been on American and British stage and screen since 1957 and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and is a three-time Olivier Award winner. Her theatre performances include The Height of the Storm, Ellen Terry, All that Fall and she has appeared in television and films ranging from Doc Martin to Cranford to The Crown.
Will Sparrow's Road
by Karen CushmanIn his thirteenth year, Will Sparrow, liar and thief, becomes a runaway. On the road, he encounters a series of con artists--a pickpocket, a tooth puller, a pig trainer, a conjurer--and learns that others are more adept than he at lying and thieving. Then he reluctantly joins a traveling troupe of "oddities," including a dwarf and a cat-faced girl, holding himself apart from the "monsters" and resolving to be on guard against further deceptions. At last Will is forced to understand that appearances are misleading and that he has been his own worst deceiver. The rowdy world of market fairs in Elizabethan England is the colorful backdrop for Newbery medalist Cushman's new comic masterpiece. This ebook includes a sample chapter of THE MIDWIFE'S APPRENTICE.
Will They or Won't They: An enemies-to-lovers, second chance Hollywood romance
by Ava Wilder'Wilder has created a gem of a novel with characters who unfold in complex and unexpected ways. The grounded Hollywood story utilizes a perfectly paced slow-burn romance, and at the end there's a winking nod to the entire journey' Library Journal ⭐ STARRED REVIEW ⭐Two co-stars with a complex history reunite to film the final season of a beloved paranormal drama in this tension-filled will they won't they romance from the author of How to Fake It in Hollywood.................................Onscreen, they're in love. Offscreen, they can't stand each other. As the stars of a hit paranormal TV show, Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy spent years pining for each other onscreen . . . until Lilah ditched the show in the hopes of becoming a movie star. With no such luck, she's back to film the much-hyped ninth and final season, in which Lilah and Shane's characters will get together at last. But returning means facing the biggest reason she left: Shane. Ever since their secret behind-the-scenes fling imploded at the end of season one, the two of them have despised each other. Now, under pressure to give the fans the happy ending they've been waiting for and with their post-show careers on the line, Lilah and Shane will have to grit their teeth and play nice. But if they're not careful, they might get blindsided by one final twist: a real happy ending of their own.................................Praise for Ava Wilder:'This empathetic, sexy, utterly radiant book has my whole heart' RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON'The banter and sexual tension . . . is fire-emoji immaculate' LILLIE VALE'A fresh, witty, high-emotion story with compelling characters and stylish backdrops . . . The perfect novel for fans of modern, smart romance' SARAH HAYWOOD
Will Work for Drugs
by Lydia LunchLydia Lunch's second book will provoke rage, awe, and infectious desire. “Lydia Lunch is an American icon.”—Austin American-Statesman “Lunch has defined the underground music and art scene for over thirty years. Predictable only in her unpredictability, she has exploited every creative outlet at her disposal, from film to books, photography to poetry.” —SF Weekly No Wave founder Lydia Lunch’s first book, Paradoxia (Akashic Books, 2007), proved that her talent is as strong on the page as it is on the stage. Her literary talents are even more impressive and varied in this iconoclastic and uncompromising collection. Lydia Lunch is a musician, writer, and photographer. She was the primary instigator of the No Wave movement, and the focal point of the Cinema of Transgression.
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?
by Mark Zwonitzer Charles HirshbergWill You Miss Me When I'm Gone? is the first major biography of the Carter Family, the musical pioneers who almost single-handedly established the sounds and traditions that grew into modern folk, country, and bluegrass music -- a style celebrated in O Brother, Where Art Thou?A.P. Carter was a restless man, seemingly in a constant state of motion. On one of his travels across the sparsely settled mountains and valleys that surrounded his home in southern Virginia, he met and married a young girl named Sara Dougherty. Orphaned as a child, Sara was remote by nature but seemed to find release in singing the typically melancholy ballads that were a part of her home tradition.For fun, A.P., Sara, and her cousin Maybelle (who married A.P.'s brother "Eck" Carter) would play and sing the hymns and ballads known in their Poor Valley community, occasionally adding songs A.P. had collected during his travels. Then, in 1927, they traveled to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for a New York record executive who was hunting "hillbilly" talent and offering an amazing fifty dollars per song for any he recorded. These Bristol recording sessions would become generally accepted as the "Big Bang" of country music, producing two of its first stars: Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.By the early 1930s, the Carter Family was the most bankable country music group in America, with total sales of more than a million records. By the late '30s, they were appearing regularly on high-power radio station XERA, which broadcast from coast to coast. A whole generation of country people could gather around the radio and hear the sound of music that came straight from their world. Johnny Cash in Arkansas, Waylon Jennings in Texas, Chet Atkins in Georgia, and Tom T. Hall in Kentucky all listened to the Carter Family. It was their formal schooling, Country Music 101.Inside the Carter Family, however, things were hardly perfect. Though nobody outside the family knew it, Sara had left her difficult and quixotic husband in 1933. In 1936 she won a divorce. Even throughout the long and painful breakup, the Carters kept performing together, singing an ever-widening range of new songs they wrote or old songs they remade: songs of love, of betrayal, and of the death of fondest hopes. And they kept at it even after Sara married A.P.'s cousin Coy Bays in 1939. After fulfilling a final radio contract in 1943, Sara and Coy moved to California to settle near his family. The original Carter Family never performed or recorded together again.With Sara gone, A.P. retreated home, opened a general store, and lived out the next two decades in obscurity, the odd man out in a new and reconfigured Carter musical clan. Meanwhile, Maybelle and her daughters (Helen, June, and Anita) went out and got themselves new radio contracts, working in Richmond, Virginia; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Springfield, Missouri, before ascending to country music's ultimate stage, Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Nearly fifty years in the business won Maybelle the title "Mother of Country Music" and the adoration of generations of guitar players and just plain listeners.The story of the Carter Family is a bittersweet saga of love and fulfillment, sadness and loss. Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? is more than just a biography of a family; it is also a journey into another time, almost another world. But their story resonates today and lives on in the timeless music they created.
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone: The Carter Family and their Legacy in American Music
by Mark Zwonitzer Charles Hirshberg
William Cameron Menzies
by James CurtisHe was the consummate designer of film architecture on a grand scale, influenced by German expressionism and the work of the great European directors. He was known for his visual flair and timeless innovation, a man who meticulously preplanned the color and design of each film through a series of continuity sketches that made clear camera angles, lighting, and the actors' positions for each scene, translating dramatic conventions of the stage to the new capabilities of film. Here is the long-awaited book on William Cameron Menzies, Hollywood's first and greatest production designer, a job title David O. Selznick invented for Menzies' extraordinary, all-encompassing, Academy Award-winning work on Gone With the Wind (which he effectively co-directed). It was Menzies--winner of the first-ever Academy Award for Art Direction, jointly for The Dove (1927) and Tempest (1928), and who was as well a director (fourteen pictures) and a producer (twelve pictures)--who changed the way movies were (and still are) made, in a career that spanned four decades, from the 1920s through the 1950s. His more than 120 films include Rosita (1923), Things to Come (1936), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Kings Row (1942), Mr. Lucky (1943), The Pride of the Yankees (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Address Unknown (1944), It's a Wonderful Life (1947), Invaders from Mars (1953), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Now, James Curtis, acclaimed film historian and biographer, writes of Menzies' life and work as the most influential designer in the history of film. His artistry encompassed the large, scenic drawings of Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924), which created a new standard for beauty on the screen and whose exotic fairy-tale sets are still regarded as pure genius. ("I saw The Thief of Bagdad when it first came out," said Orson Welles--he was, at the time, a nine-year-old boy. "I'll never forget it.") Curtis writes of Menzies' design and supervision of John Barrymore's Beloved Rogue (1927), a film that remains a masterpiece of craft and synthesis, one of the most distinctive pictures to emerge from Hollywood's waning days of silent films, and of his extraordinary, opulent appointments for Gone With the Wind (1939). It was Menzies who defined and solidified the role of art director as having overall control of the look of the motion picture, collaborating with producers like David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn; with directors such as D. W. Griffith, Raoul Walsh, Alfred Hitchcock, Lewis Milestone, and Frank Capra. And with actors as varied as Ingrid Bergman, W. C. Fields, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Barbara Stanwyck, Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, Vivien Leigh, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, and David Niven. Interviewing colleagues, actors, directors, friends, and family, and with full access to the William Cameron Menzies family collection of original artwork, correspondence, scrapbooks, and unpublished writing, Curtis brilliantly gives us the path-finding work of the movies' most daring and dynamic production designer: his evolution as artist, art director, production designer, and director. Here is a portrait of a man in his time that makes clear how the movies were forever transformed by his startling, visionary work.(With 16 pages of color illustrations, and black-and-white photographs throughout.)From the Hardcover edition.
William & Catherine: Their Romance and Royal Wedding in Photographs
by David Elliot CohenExperience the fairytale romance and historic wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales in this volume of more than 200 spectacular photographs.Few events capture the worlds heart and imagination like a British royal wedding. Through more than two hundred photographs—including 80 pages of their wedding alone—William & Catherine recounts the couple’s wildly different childhoods, their romance and engagement, the events leading up to the wedding, and the grand affair itself.Here are the massive crowds lining the parade route, the sparkling celebrities at Westminster Abbey, the brides spectacular gown, “The Kisses” on the Buckingham Palace balcony, and the worldwide celebrations. Also included is a brief pictorial history of British royal weddings from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840 to Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981. With informative and fascinating captions, as well as a foreword by renowned royal watcher Robert Jobson, this book magnificently illustrates the pomp, the pageantry, the history and enchantment of the romance that charmed the world.
William Faulkner in Hollywood: Screenwriting for the Studios (The South on Screen)
by Stefan SolomonA scholarly examination of the scripts and fiction Faulkner created during his foray as a Hollywood screenwriter. During more than two decades (1932-1954), William Faulkner worked on approximately fifty screenplays for major Hollywood studios and was credited on such classics as The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. Faulkner&’s film scripts—and later television scripts—constitute an extensive and, until now, thoroughly underexplored archival source. Stefan Solomon analyzes the majority of these scripts and also compares them to the fiction Faulkner was writing concurrently. His aim: to reconcile two aspects of a career that were not as distinct as they first might seem: Faulkner the screenwriter and Faulkner the modernist, Nobel Prize–winning author. As Solomon shows Faulkner adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of the screenwriting process (a craft he never favored or admired), he offers insights into Faulkner&’s compositional practice, thematic preoccupations, and understanding of both cinema and television. In the midst of this complex exchange of media and genres, much of Faulkner&’s fiction of the 1930s and 1940s was directly influenced by his protracted engagement with the film industry. Solomon helps us to see a corpus integrating two vastly different modes of writing and a restless author. Faulkner was never only the southern novelist or the West Coast &“hack writer&” but always both at once. Solomon&’s study shows that Faulkner&’s screenplays are crucial in any consideration of his far more esteemed fiction—and that the two forms of writing are more porous and intertwined than the author himself would have us believe. Here is a major American writer seen in a remarkably new way.
William Forsythe: A Tool For The Analytical Dance Eye
by Senta DriverFirst Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
William Forsythe and the Practice of Choreography: It Starts From Any Point
by Steven SpierWilliam Forsythe’s reinvigoration of classical ballet during his 20-year tenure at the Ballett Frankfurt saw him lauded as one of the greatest choreographers of the postwar era. His current work with The Forsythe Company has gone even further to challenge and investigate fundamental assumptions about choreography itself. William Forsythe and the Practice of Choreography presents a diverse range of critical writings on his work, with illuminating analysis of his practice from an interdisciplinary perspective. The book also contains insightful working testaments from Forsythe’s collaborators, as well as a contribution from the choreographer himself. With essays covering all aspects of Forsythe’s past and current work, readers are provided with an unparalleled view into the creative world of this visionary artist, as well as a comprehensive resource for students, scholars, and practitioners of ballet and contemporary dance today.
William Forsythe’s Postdramatic Dance Theater: Unsettling Perception (Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance)
by Freya VassThis book takes choreographer William Forsythe’s choreographic and scenographic processes as a holistic lens through which to view dance as a fundamentally visuo-sonic art form and choreography as a form of perceptual experimentation. In doing so, it reveals how the made worlds within which postdramatic dance is situated influence how choreography is perceived. Resonating with ecological perspectives but also drawing on an extensive range of cognitive research approaches, the volume’s choreo-scenographic perspective emphasizes the importance of considering the expanded scenography of lighting, sound, space, scenic elements, costume, and performer movement when analyzing the sensory and cognitive perception of dance. The volume provides a first book-length cognitive study of both an individual choreographer and the aesthetics of postdramatic theatre. It also satisfies a need for more dedicated scholarship on Forsythe, whose extensive and varied array of groundbreaking ballets and dance theater works for the Ballett Frankfurt (1984-2004), The Forsythe Company (2005-15), and as an independent choreographer have made him a key figure in 20th/21st century dance.
William Friedkin: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)
by Christopher LaneAcademy Award–winning director William Friedkin (b. 1935) is best known for his critically and commercially successful films The French Connection and The Exorcist. Unlike other film school–educated filmmakers of the directors’ era, Friedkin got his start as a mailroom clerk at a local TV station and worked his way up to becoming a full-blown Hollywood filmmaker by his thirties. His rapid rise behind the camera from television director to Oscar winner came with self-confidence and unorthodox methods. Known for his gritty and auteurist style, Friedkin’s films tell the story of a changing America upended by crime, hypocrisy, the occult, and amorality. Although his subsequent films achieved varying levels of success, his cultural impact is undeniable. William Friedkin: Interviews collects fifteen articles, interviews, and seminars spanning Friedkin’s career. He discusses early influences, early successes, awards, and current projects. The volume provides coverage of his directorial process, beliefs, and anecdotes from his time serving as the creative force of some of the biggest films of the 1970s and beyond—from his early days in Chicago to his run-ins with Alfred Hitchcock to firing guns on set and witnessing an actual exorcism in Italy. Through previously unpublished and obscure interviews and seminars, the story of William Friedkin’s work and life is woven together into a candid and concise impression for cinephiles, horror junkies, and aspiring filmmakers alike. Readers will gain insight into Friedkin’s genius from his own perspectives and discover the thoughts and processes of a true maverick of American cinema.
William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission
by Scott MacDonald and Jacqueline Najuma StewartWilliam Greaves is one of the most significant and compelling American filmmakers of the past century. Best known for his experimental film about its own making, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Greaves was an influential independent documentary filmmaker who produced, directed, shot, and edited more than a hundred films on a variety of social issues and on key African American figures ranging from Muhammad Ali to Ralph Bunche to Ida B. Wells. A multitalented artist, his career also included stints as a songwriter, a member of the Actors Studio, and, during the late 1960s, a producer and cohost of Black Journal, the first national television show focused on African American culture and politics.This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of Greaves’s remarkable career. It brings together a wide range of material, including a mix of incisive essays from critics and scholars, Greaves’s own writings, an extensive meta-interview with Greaves, conversations with his wife and collaborator Louise Archambault Greaves and his son David, and a critical dossier on Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. Together, they illuminate Greaves’s mission to use filmmaking as a tool for transforming the ways African Americans were perceived by others and the ways they saw themselves. This landmark book is an essential resource on Greaves’s work and his influence on independent cinema and African-American culture.
William Haggar: Fairground Film Maker
by Peter YorkeBiography of William Haggar, a pioneer of the cinema.Written by Haggar's great-grandson, the book draws on oral reminiscences, unpublished family memoirs and contemporary press reports. It tells the rags-to-riches story of a travelling theatrical who became one of Britain's select band of pioneer film-makers. Containing information on Victorian portable theatres, fairground bioscope shows and Haggar's films, it is a "must" for anyone interested in the popular entertainment of 100 years ago.Contents:- Ten chapters deal with Haggar's life (1851-1925) from his birth at Dedham, Essex, via forty years of travelling with portable theatres and his own Bioscope Exhibition, to respected retirement in Aberdare, South Wales. The last chapter relates the subsequent rediscovery of his films and the recognition of their pioneering quality.- Illustrations include contemporary family portraits, photographs of his huge ornate bioscope sh ow-fronts and stills from his films.- Eight factual appendices provide supporting lists and descriptions of plays and films; and the full texts of particular newspaper articles alluded to in the main narrative.- Notes on sources of information, references and other details.The author, William Haggar's great-grandson Peter Yorke was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, Bristol, and Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in Classics in 1960. Much of his working life was spent representing the University of East Anglia, Norwich, as client to architects, consultants and contractors constructing the then "new university". Retiring in 1996 and moving to Dorset, he has researched his great-grandfather's life and times, travelling throughout England and Wales and to Australia to meet his Haggar relatives to consult their memories for inclusion in this book.