Directors

T to Z by Director's last name

Kitano Takeshi
Aaron Gerow
In this illuminating study of Kitano Takeshi's films, Aaron Gerow explores the issues of auteurship and stardom as they relate to problems of personal and national identity in Japan confronting an age of globalisation. Gerow, a renowned expert on Japanese cinema who has himself participated in the debates about Kitano in Japan, provides a nuanced account of the work of this intriguing and unpredictable film-maker. Softcover, 264 pp. $28.95.

Tarantino
Jim Smith
Reservoir Dogs launched Quentin Tarantino as a pioneering young filmmaker. Since then, his hip-talking, ultraviolent, hypnotically shot films have reinvigorated American moviemaking and spawned a host of imitators. Jim Smith's acclaimed guide examines the iconic films Tarantino has directed as well as the Tarantino scripts that have been filmed by other directors. Softcover, 295 pp. $11.95.

Quentin Tarantino: The Man, The Myths and His Movies
Wensley Clarkson
Bold, pioneering and always unpredictable, Quentin Tarantino is the ultimate movie director with a fascinating story. With more than a hundred interviews with colleagues, close friends and family, author Wensley Clarkson explores the enigmatic cinematic legend in depth. Discover it all with this gripping account of his life and times. Hardcover, 310 pp. $31.95.

Raised by Wolves: The Turbulent Art and Times of Quentin Tarantino
Jerome Charyn
A high-school dropout who never attended film school, Quentin Tarantino got all the education he needed while working the register at Los Angeles's fabled Video Archives. His enthusiasms -- for pop culture (foreign and domestic), eye-popping aesthetics, and genre films -- would become notorious and infectious, and the outrageous success of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and the Kill Bill films have nearly killed off Tarantino the man and signaled the birth of Tarantino the myth. Raised by Wolves is a portrait of both the man and the myth -- and the mind behind them both. Softcover, 195 pp. $19.50.

Quintessential Tarantino
Edwin Page
Author Edwin Page discusses each of the eight films that Quentin Tarantino has written, directed, or both -- in an attempt to find out how the former video store clerk has realised his ultimate fantasy and become one of the most powerful players in Hollywood. Includes analyses of Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2, and the Tarantino-directed episodes of TV drama series ER and CSI. Softcover, 263 pp. $25.95.

Quentin Tarantino: The Film Geek Films
Paul A. Woods
Trascending his reputation as a maker of violent movies, Quentin Tarantino is recognised by his fans and admirers as a spokesman for the obsessions of a media-literate generation. Movies, TV shows, comic strips and old Top Ten records all merge to form the Tarantino pop-culture aesthetic. In charting his career, Quentin Tarantino: The Film Geek Files provides a colourful guide to the brash, image saturated world that spawned the premier filmmaker of his generation. Softcover, 190 pp. $26.95.

Tarkovsky
Edited by Nathan Dunne
The work of Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky, is among the most significant in the istory of the moving image. In Tarkovsky, leading writers and filmmakers assess the relevance of Tarkovsky's work now and the impact of the visual arts on his films. Hardcover, 463 pp. $60.00.

Jacques Tati
David Bellows
A biography of the great French filmmaker whose singular vision was to have focused on the ordinary and transformed it into the surreal; he turned cinema into an arena in which to display the paradoxical business of daily life. Illustrated. Hardcover, $62.50; Paperback, $22.95.

Julie Taymor: Playing With Fire
Third Edition
Eileen Blumenthal & Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is one of the most imaginative and provocative directors and designers working in the performing arts. Throughout her award-winning body of work she has created some of the most arresting images ever seen on the stage and screen. What better way to pay tribute to her career than with this highly visual biography, illustrated, cover-to-cover, with eye-popping images. This new edition of this classic volume has been updated to include all new sections on her Oscar-winning film Frida, the movie-musical Across the Universe, and the opera Grendel. Hardcover, 274 pp. $34.99.

Francois Truffaut Interviews
Edited by Ronald Bergan
The French New Wave was one of the most seismic events in cinema's history, and among the movement's contributors Francois Truffaut was a key figure. As this collection of interviews progresses, we follow Truffaut's creative evolution almost as much as we follow his alter-ego Antoine Doinel through Truffaut's semi-autobiographical film series. Always concerned with the process as well as the product of his profession, Truffaut maintained his role as critic and commentator throughout his career and was equally as good an interviewer. Softcover, 150 pp. $25.50.

Francois Truffaut: The Complete Films
Robert Ingram & Paul Duncan
Beginning his career as a film critic, Francois Truffaut graduated to film director and is today remembered as one of the most brilliant figures in postwar French film. This beautiful book from Taschen celebrates the great director's career with a chronological discussion of his life and work, and a glorious collection of colour and black & white stills. Softcover, 192 pp. $29.95.

Truffaut
Antoine de Baecque & Serge Toubiana
A new biography of one of the masters of the French New Wave. With access to Truffaut's papers the authors have written a richly detailed book which is an authoritative revelation of a singular genius. Hardcover, $42.00; Softcover, $30.95.

The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan
John Lahr
Irreverent, indiscreet, wildly funny, sad, shocking, and inspiring, the legendary diaries of Kenneth Tynan are above all compelling literature. For over three decades, on both sides of the Atlantic, Tynan was at the epicentre of the film worlds. These diaries bear superb witness to the fame he courted and the price he paid for it. Softcover, 439 pp. $21.95.

Luchino Visconti
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
Luchino Visconti (1906-76) was without question one of the greatest European film directors. This updated and expanded third edition, written by esteemed film scholar Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, is the definitive critical examination of his films. Softcover, 250 pp. $29.95.

The Cinema of Lars von Trier: Authenticity and Artifice
Caroline Bainbridge
Lars von Trier is one of the most controversial figures of contemporary European cinema. Since founding the bach-to-basics Dogme philosophy in 1995, von Trier's name has become a by-word for taboo-breaking cinema. This study forges a new understanding of the founder of Dogme 95 as a great democratiser of cinema in the digital age, presenting von Trier as one of the most daring cinematic exponents of postmodern politics and satire. Softcover, 210 pp. $31.95.

Lars Von Trier: Interviews
Lars Von Trier
Without question, Lar Von Trier is Denmark's most famous contemporary filmmaker. These conversations trace his development from the structured, image-obsessed formalism of his early career, through the Dogme 95 years, and up until his experimental film/play Dogville. In these conversations, he is revealed to be impish, forthright, witty, sometimes infuriating, and, above all, deeply committed to the possibilities of cinema. Softcover, 218 pp. $26.95.

Lars Von Trier
Jack Stevenson
In this new study, Jack Stevenson explores the achievements as well as the paradoxes of Lars von Trier, assessing his life, work and critical reception. Utilising sources heretofore unavailable in English, Stevenson's lively yet fact-filled narrative is accessible to students and film enthusiasts. Softcover, 216 pp. $32.95.

Wong Kar-Wai
Peter Brunette
Wong Kar-Wai traces this immensely exciting director's perennial themes of time, love, and loss. Most importantly, Peter Brunette describes the ways in which Kar-Wai's supremely visual films attempt to create a new form of cinema by relying on stunning, suggestive visual images and evocative audio tracks to tell their story, rather than on traditional notions of character, dialogue and plot. The question of Wong Kar-Wai's use of genre film techniques in art films in also explored in depth. Softcover, 149 pp. $23.00.

The Cinema of Andrew Wajda: That Art of Irony and Defiance
John Orr & Elzbieta Ostrowska
A major reassessment of the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who recieved a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 2000, this timely collection covers all aspects of his work. The Cinema of Andrew Wajda is a wide-ranging examination of a prolific film-maker whose work over four decades reflects the changing nature of cinema itself. Softcover, 205 pp. $30.00.

Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne
Callie Angell
The films that Andy Warhol made in the 1960s are now reconized as among the most important works of his career. One of the most ambitious projects of Warhol's cinema is the Screen Tests, a series of 472 short, black-and-white portraits of Warhol's friends, colleagues, and acquaintences filmed over a period of three years, from 1964 through 1966. The 189 people in this series constitute a veritable who's who of the 1960s avant-garde.
Since Warhol withdrew his films from public circulation in the early 1970s, much of his cinema has been shrouded in myth. This book, the first installment of a two-part catalogue raisonne of Warhol's cinema, is the result of more than a dozen years of original research by Callie Angell, Adjunct Curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Hardcover, 316 pp. $78.00.

Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste
John Waters
John Waters is America's most successful trash filmmaker. In this extraordinary diary/manifesto, the director of Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Cry-Baby, and other tasteless masterpieces, proves that he is as gifted a memoirist as he is a filmmaker. Tender, shocking, revealing, and humourous, Shock Value is a true love letter from a legendary director to his friends, family, and fans. Softcover, 244 pp. $22.95.

John Waters: Change of Life
Marvin Heiferman & Lisa Phillips
Dubbed "The Pope of Trash" by William Burroghs, John Waters is the poet-laureate of bad taste cinema. A prolific artist, as well as a filmmaker, he revels in the awkward details of everyday life that polite society would much rather suppress. John Waters: Change of Life, published on the occasion of his first major museum exhibition, presents a survey of his still photographic works and stills from his earliest and seldom-seen no-budget films. Hardcover, 144 pp. $57.50.

Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters
John Waters
Originally released in 1986, Crackpot is John Waters's brilliantly entertaining litany of odd and fascinating people, places, and things. From Baltimore to Los Angeles, from William Castle to Pia Zadora, from the National Enquirer to Ronald Reagan's colon, Waters explores the depths of our culture. A hilarious book from the "Pope of Trash." Softcover, 204 pp. $21.00.

The Films of Peter Weir
Second Edition
Jonathan Rayner
In this fully revised and updated edition of Jonathan Rayner's acclaimed study, the films of Peter Weir are closely scrutinized. Rayner illustrates how the director's films -- from his early Australian works Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, right up to his recent Hollywood efforts The Truman Show and Master and Commander -- have a consistent vision, no matter how disparate their subject matter. Softcover, 287 pp. $25.95.

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What Ever Happened to Orson Welles
Joseph McBride
This fascinating book challenges the conventional wisdom that Welles's career after Citizen Kane was a long decline and that he spent his final years doing little but eating and making commercials while squandering his earlier promise. In this intimate and often surprising personal portrait, Joseph McBride shows instead how Welles never stopped directing radical, adventurous films and was always breaking new artistic ground as a filmmaker. Hardcover, 344 pp. $43.95.

Discovering Orson Welles
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Discovering Orson Welles collects Jonathan Rosenbaum's writings to date on Welles and makes an irrefutable case for the seriousness of his work, illuminating both Welles the artist and Welles the man. The book is also a chronicle of Rosenbaum's highly personal writer's journey and his unceasing efforts to arrive at the truth. Softcover, 336 pp. $32.95.

It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey
Catherine L. Benamou
It's All True, shot in Mexico and Brazil between 1941 and 1942, is the legendary movie that Orson Welles never got to finish. In this book, Catherine Benamou synthesizes new and little-known source material gathered on two continents, including interviews with key participants, to present a compelling, original view of the film and its historical significance. Her book challenges much received wisdom about Orson Welles and illuminates the unique place he occupies in American culture broadly defined. Softcover, 400 pp. $32.95.

Orson Welles: Hello Americans
Simon Callow
When Simon Callow's first biography of Orson Welles was published, it was regarded as a revelation, providing a profound level of insight into Welles's meteoric rise as an artist. His second volume, Hello Americans, picks up where the first left off as it charts the period following Citizen Kane up until Macbeth -- the years in which Welles's Hollywood film career came apart. From his unique perspective as an actor, Callow offers a scrupulous analysis of the complexites of Welles's temperment, his bewildering range of activities, and, of course, his inconsistent oeuvre of films. This compulsivley readable book will provide fans and scholars with a penetrating look into the life of an artist who, to this day, remains so decidedly enigmatic. Hardcover, 507 pp. $49.95.


Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios
Clinton Heylin
Conventional wisdom holds that Orson Welles's career declined steadily and irrevocably after making his stunning film debut, Citizen Kane; however, Welles did make masterpieces after 1941 -- Hollywood just didn't let anyone see them. Based on shooting scripts and schedules, internal memos, interviews with key players, correspondences with and by Welles, as well as the author's own conversations, articles, and lectures, Despite the System shatters the myths and reveals how Welles was not a victim of his own genius but rather of real people with real motives. Hardcover, 402 pp. $37.95.

The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles
Berg Chuck
The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles is a complete guide to Welles' extraordinary career as a filmmaker, a performer, and an entrepreneur. Entries cover his work in theatre, film, radio, and television; key figures in his life and work, including collaborators, actors, producers, screenwriters, composers, and critics; film theory, criticism, and documentaries; and in-depth discussion of significant topics. Softcover, 462 pp. $29.95.

Orson Welles: Interviews
Mark W. Estrin
In this exceptional array of interviews, the majestic mind and talent of Orson Welles are made brilliantly apparent. Originally published between 1938 and 1989, these interviews, profiles and press confrences confirm that Welles's career was multidimensional and furthermore throughly interwoven with his unique persona. Softcover, 228 pp. $29.95.  

Wim Wenders
Jason Wood & Ian Haydn Smith
In essays, interviews, and comments from his collaborators, the cinema of Wim Wenders is carefully chronicled in unique volume. Illustrated throughout with film stills, and rare behind-the-scenes photographs. Softcover, 95 pp. $43.95.

Pictures From the Surface of the Earth
Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders, whose description as filmmaker, writer, photographer and traveler is still inadequate, has for years carried round an old panoramic camera that has come in handy when the extent or impressive nature of experience is beyond normal measure. And with as passionate a keen-sighted person as Wenders, that is frequently the case: landscapes stretch into infinity, horizons divide the world into water, earth and air, deserts and mountain ranges are overwhelming in their silence, street fronts, whether in Havana, Houston, Texas or Berlin, draw our gaze to the very depths of civilization, or to the abyss of horror and destruction as at Ground Zero shortly after September 11, 2001. Softcover, 133 pp. $32.00.

The Cinema of Wim Wenders: The Celluloid Highway
Alexander Graf
Why did modern cinema, a recording art solely composed of sounds and images, naturally develop into a primarily narrative medium, a domain traditionally associated with words and sentences? This is the central premise behind Wim Wenders's cinema, as well as the provocative subject of this fascinating book. Softcover, 179 pp. $32.95.

James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters
James Curtis
Although he worked in a variety of genres, director James Whale found his greatest success with what many consider the definitive horror film of its period, Frankenstein. His take of Mary Shelly's classic tale ushered in a whole new era sophisticated, tragic and morbidly humorous horror films. This brilliant biography provides a detailed and honest account of this talented director's life and career. Softcover, 455 pp. $29.95.

Wild at Heart: The Films of Nettie Wild
Mark Harris & Claudia Medina
Nettie Wild, one of Canada's leading documentarians, came to film from a background in journalism and theatre. Since then, she has gone on to win awards and screen her films around the world. Featuring an essay and an interview, this monograph is the first book-length assessment of her body of work. Softcover, 111 pp. $15.00.

Nobody's Perfect: A Personal Biography
Charlotte Chandler
This revealing and vastly entertaining book is a wonderful, timely tribute to this great writer-director, a legacy of Billy Wilder's wit, insight, and remarkable wisdom. Herein you'll find facts about Wilder's troubled family history, copius production stories pertaining to the making of all of classic films, and contributions from many of the stars whom he worked with. A terrific read and an indispensible resource. Softcover, 352 pp. $26.95.

Billy Wilder: The Complete Films
Glenn Hopp
Glorious frame enlargements, candid behind-the-scenes photographs, and a lucid text are combined in this tribute to the films of Billy Wilder. No fan of cinema will want to be without this terrific book. Softcover, 191 pp. $29.99.

Billy Wilder: Interviews
Robert Horton
With a career that spans over fifty years, Billy Wilder was one of the most prolific talents ever to work in Hollywood. This collection of interviews give evidence to the fact that this writer-director was also a dazzling raconteur, spinning anecdotes on the subject of show business and delivering penetrating and instructive observations on his craft. Softcover, 200 pp. $29.75.  

Winner Takes All: A Life of Sorts
Michael Winner
Michael Winner, the controversial film director, screenwriter and food critic, is a colourful figure who had led a remarkable life. His reputation is for being outspoken, and, true to form, his autobiography is crammed with sharp and insightful revelations. In Winner Takes All, he speaks not only about his professional career, but also about his private life in a series of compelling anecdotes which amply display his abilities as a natural raconteur. Hardcover, 360 pp. $40.95.

5 Films by Frederick Wiseman
Barry Keith Grant
One of America's foremost documentary filmmakers, Frederick Wiseman has made more than thirty feature-length documentaries during a career that has spanned five decades. Providing complete transcripts (with notes on the soundtrack and editing, in addition to the dialogue) of five of his most remarkable films -- Titicut Follies, High School, Welfare, High School II, and Public Housing -- this volume is a monumental supplement to Wiseman's enduring filmography. Softcover, 432 pp. $41.95.

John Woo: Interviews
Robert K. Elder
First discovered by Western audiences through his Hong Kong films The Killer and Hard Boiled, director John Woo would go on to translate his signature bullet ballets and hyper-kinetic, blood-splattered action sequences to such Hollywood hits as Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible II. In John Woo: Interviews, unprecedented access to the director reveals a peace-loving, devoutly religious man at odds with his reputation as the master of cinematic violence. Softcover, 194 pp. $27.95.

Edward Yang
John Anderson
Rooted in questions about what it means to be Taiwanese, Edward Yang's films reveal the complexity of life within the islands patchwork culture. In Edward Yang, John Anderson offers a comprehensive overview of the writer-director, from his breakthrough feature That Day, on the Beach to the epic Yi-Yi. To that end, Anderson identifies the key narrative strategies, formal devices, moral vision, and sociopolitical concerns evident in Yang's cinematic oeuvre. Softcover, 128 pp. $23.00.

The Cinema of Robert Zemeckis
Norman Kagan
Robert Zemeckis is one of the most successful directors working in Hollywood today. This book considers all of the films that he has worked on -- everything from 1941 to Cast Away -- and subjects them to a close critical examination. Meticulously researched and illustrated with over forty film stills, The Cinema of Robert Zemeckis is the definitive overview of this intriguing and wildly popular filmmaker. Softcover 254 pp. $29.95.

Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business
Ethan Mordden
In Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business, Ethan Mordden re-creates the lost world of the Follies, a place of long-vanished beauty masterminded by one of the most inventive, ruthless, street-smart, and exacting men ever to fill a theatre on the Great White Way: Florenz Ziegfeld. Hardcover, $36.50.

Fred Zinnemann: Interviews
Gabriel Miller
Covering over thirty years of conversations, this book provides a revealing glimpse into the director's vision as he discusses, in his cultivated, elegant voice, his varied experiences as a filmmaker. Filled with intelligent commentary and recollections about his 50-year career, the interviews disclose an artist committed to his craft, his vision, and the human enterprise. Softcover, 161 pp. $28.95.

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Last modified January 5, 2010.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.