David Thomson Books

A collection of over thirty visual tricks and illusions involving colors, shapes, patterns, and perspective. Includes 3-D glasses and an answer key.

This guide to Hollywood catalogues major filmic trends from silent films of the 1920s through the Technicolor Age to the electronic era. Visual documentation captures the legendary stars and directors, and each chapter introduces the wider historical and social context of the age.

�Ingrid Bergman was far more than just a sweet, virtuous, �natural� Swedish girl � she was a dark sensualist over whom many men might go mad. Her very gaze delivered a climate of adult romantic expectation.� Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Ingrid Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique and original take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything.

From the silent films of the 20's through the Technicolor age, to the domination of special effects, this book is a guide to Hollywood's movie industry. Chronicling the glitz, the glamour and the power struggles against a backdrop of the era's historical and social context, it is filled with classic photography of legendary stars and directors.

Book by Thomson, David

This book is both more and less than history, a work of imagination in its own right, a piece of movie literature that turns fact into romance.' Gavin Lambert was reviewing the first edition of David Thomson's monumental work in 1975. In the eight years since the third edition was published, careers have waxed and waned, reputations been made and lost, great movies produced, trends set and scorned. This fourth edition has 200 entirely new entries and every original entry has been re-examined. Thus the roster of directors, actors, producers, screenwriters and cameramen is both historical and contemporary, with old masters reappraised in terms of how their work has lasted. Each of the 1,000 profiles is a keenly perceptive, provocative critical essay. Striking the perfect balance between personal bias and factual reliability, David Thomson - novelist, critic, biographer and unabashed film addict - has given us an enormously rich reference book, a brilliant reflection on the art and artists of the cinema.

Ultimately an examination on how movies affect the way we think and how film not only shapes our perceptions and our memories but in some ways comes to stand in for them, Suspects can be read as an unsettling examination of identity and the construction of self through the medium of narratives, or simply as a fascinating take on movie...

Features writings on 1000 of the films that the author has particularly liked - or in some cases, abhorred. This work features love stories, westerns, musicals, war stories, comedies, and dramas. It also discusses about British, Japanese and European cinema.

David O. Selznick, the iconic producer behind Gone With the Wind, is vividly depicted in this comprehensive biography, the first to access his extensive and revealing papers, which include script notes, production reports, and personal letters. Selznick was a unique figure in Hollywood, leaving behind a wealth of documentation that reflects his charm, intellect, work ethic, and complex personality. His life encapsulates the evolution of the film industry, from immigrant beginnings to the heights of café society. A chronic romantic, he first married Irene, daughter of Louis B. Mayer, and later Jennifer Jones, whom he transformed into a star. The narrative features a colorful cast, including his father, Lewis J., who experienced the highs and lows of silent films, and his brothers—Myron, a pioneering but troubled agent, and Howard, whose struggles impacted the family. Key figures in Selznick's life included Jock Whitney, a wealthy friend; directors like George Cukor and Alfred Hitchcock; and stars such as Vivien Leigh and Orson Welles. The biography details Selznick's influential films, including What Price Hollywood?, Rebecca, and A Star is Born, while providing an in-depth account of the tumultuous production of Gone With the Wind, revealing the intricate interplay of personal and professional dynamics in Hollywood.

This book details many different aspects of the Alien films: the different directors, the making of the films, the themes, the actors and the tensions on the set. Published to coincide with the release of the fourth Alien film.