Books about Big screen from Amazon.com

An Eclectic Collection of Fiction That Inspired Film

Memento, All About Eve, Rear Window, Rashomon, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are all well-known and much-loved movies, but what is perhaps a lesser-known fact is that all of them began their lives as short stories. Adaptations gathers together 35 pieces that have been the basis for films, many from giants of American literature (Hemingway, Fitzgerald) and many that have not been in print for decades (the stories that inspired Bringing Up Baby, Meet John Doe, and All About Eve).

Categorized by genre, and featuring movies by master directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Frank Capra, and John Ford, as well as relative newcomers such as Chris Eyre and Christopher Nolan, Adaptations offers insight into the process of turning a short story into a screenplay, one that, when successful, doesn’t take drastic liberties with the text upon which it is based, but doesn’t mirror its source material too closely either. The stories and movies featured in Adaptations include:

•Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report,” which became the 2002 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise

•“The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by reclusive graphic artist Harvey Pekar, whose life was the inspiration for American Splendor, winner of the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury Prize

•Hagar Wilde’s “Bringing Up Baby,” the basis of the classic film Bringing Up Baby, anthologized here for the first time ever

•“The Swimmer” by John Cheever, an example of a highly regarded story that many feared might prove unadaptable

•The predecessor to the beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story, “Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” by Jean Shepherd

Whether you’re a fiction reader or a film buff, Adaptations is your behind-the-scenes look at the sometimes difficult, sometimes brilliantly successful process from the printed page to the big screen..
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"Those who tell stories rule society " Plato So who today are our principal storytellers? Not philosophers, but filmmakers For those who know both the enormous entertainment potential and the culture-shaping power of film, this book will stir mind and imagination. For great stories freight world-sized ideas, ideas worthy of contemplation and conversation. Great cinema inspires wonder. But another philosopher, Aristotle, reminds us that wonder is the true source of philosophy. So perhaps Plato or Aristotle might have a shot at ruling society, even today if they took an interest in film. These fourteen essays consider classic and current films together with several major philosophical themes, all within the context of Christian faith: (1) the human condition, (2) the human mind and the nature of knowing, (3) the moral life, and (4) faith and religion. Citizen Kane, Big Fish and Pretty Woman contribute to an in-depth consideration of the human condition. The Truman Show, The Matrix, Being John Malkovich and It's a Wonderful Life, among others, illuminate reflection on the human mind and the nature of knowing. Looking at the moral life, contributors interact with such notable films as Pleasantville, Bowling for Columbine, Mystic River and The Silence of the Lambs. The final section pursues the theme of faith and religion traced through a number of Hong Kong martial arts films, Contact, 2001: A Space Odyssey and U2's music documentary Rattle and Hum. A veritable film festival for all those who want to nurture the wonder of philosophical inquiry and the love of Christian theology through an engagement with the big ideas on the big screen..
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Hollywood has been producing biblical movies for over a century Starting with mini-Passion stories from the 1890s, bestselling author J. Stephen Lang takes readers through blockbusters and busts, miniseries and Mel Gibson, covering film plots and characters based on the Bible. More than just a list, The Bible on the Big Screen gives movie buffs film credits, running times, and release dates and answers intriguing questions about motives for making the movies, critics' reactions, and much more. It also offers a comprehensive filmography with a chronological listing of all biblical movies ever made, and if they are available on video..
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Big ScreenRome is the first systematic survey of the most important and popular films from the past half century that reconstruct the image of Roman antiquity

• The first systematic survey of the most important and popular recent films about Roman antiquity.
  
• Shows how cinema explores, reinvents and celebrates the spectacle of ancient Rome.
  
• Films discussed in depth include Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Terry Jones’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
  
• Contributes to discussions about the ongoing relevance of the classical world.
  
• Shows how contemporary film-makers use recreations of ancient history as commentaries on contemporary society.
  
• Structured in a way that makes it suitable for course use, and features issues for discussion and analysis, and reference to further bibliographic resources.
  
• Written in an energetic and engaging style.

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This is a story of a screenplay, how it was initially conceived, "developed" by a number of studio heads and producers, and finally transformed into a movie even its writers admit is mediocre In 1988, John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion began work on a film script based on the tragic life of anchorwoman Jessica Savitch. Over the next eight years, studio executives coaxed them to transform it into Up Close and Personal, a toothless star vehicle for Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. In his account of the script's metamorphosis, Dunne also mentions other potential masterpieces of excess that he and Didion worked on, including Dharma Blue, an aborted Jerry Bruckheimer-Don Simpson movie about UFOs and Ultimatum, a nuclear thriller that was abandoned after its studio spent $3 million on script development! Dunne makes no bones about being in show biz for the money--his film work financed his heart surgery, legal costs, and vacations in Honolulu. Still, this account of a screenplay's devolution unmasks an industry spoiled rotten by wealth and power..
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Christians believe that Christ's death redeems and forgives. Yet the same blood shed on the cross has been used to stain Jews with lasting, incomparable guilt. The gospel narratives of the Passion cast the Jews as responsible, directly and indirectly, for the death of the Son of God. The stigma of "Christ killer"-the notion that all Jews, at all times and in all places, share in the collective responsibility for the Crucifixion-has plagued Jews ever since and is the source of much Christian anti-Semitism.
Jeremy Cohen traces the Christ-killer myth from ancient times to the present day, touching on the Gospels and their roots in Hebrew Scripture, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and much in between. The greatest of the church fathers, the Crusades, the notorious blood libels of the Middle Ages, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Christian mysticism, art, and popular piety, Passion plays, and modern film all have a place in this well-documented, richly illustrated volume.
Cohen seeks neither to explain Jesus' death nor to pass judgment on anyone for it, but rather to understand how the identification of Jews as Christ killers has functioned as an edifying "myth" for the Christian community. His insightful analysis reveals the deep spiritual truth believers find in this aspect of the Passion story while simultaneously uncovering the remarkably far-reaching impact it has exercised on the Western world.
Cohen combines religious, historical, and political perspectives to understand how the Christ-killer myth has become a dominant factor in the way Christians and Jews perceive each other. While a great deal has been written about Christian anti-Semitism, its roots, and its horrific consequences, this is the first volume to provide an in-depth examination of the powerful story that has fueled the fires behind the hatred..
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