Spanning several generations--from newcomers to Oscar Award-winning veterans--this volume features a discussion of the movies that shaped the careers of these filmmakers and, in turn, cinema history. Here directors, including Peter Bogdanovich, Kimberly Peirce, Arthur Hiller, and John Waters, explore the film they saw at an especially formative moment, how it influenced their own work--or, in some cases, led them to tell stories through movies themselves--and the effects it had on their thoughts about cinema. Revealing stories include how after watching Rebel Without a Cause , John Woo started combing his hair like James Dean and even began talking like him; Apocalypse Now inspired Danny Boyle to take risks and make larger-than-life films; and a line in The Wizard of Oz --"Who could ever have thought a good little girl like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness?"--has become almost a personal mantra or prayer for John Waters.

The Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark

Robert K. Elder

Chicago Review Press

Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

Director John Woo (b. 1946) reinvented the modern action movie and helped open the door for Asian filmmakers to the Western world. His hyper-violent, highly choreographed style made him a box office powerhouse, a respected auteur, and a revered figure among fellow directors. 
 First discovered by Western audiences through his Hong Kong films The Killer and Hard Boiled, Woo introduced the world to a new brand of psychologically frenzied action film. After coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Woo produced a trilogy of hard-charging action films--Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible II--that were both popular and critically acclaimed. But Woo's signature bullet ballets, his kinetic, blood-spattered action sequences, represent a dichotomy in the director's philosophy. John Woo: Interviews reveals a peace-loving, devoutly religious man at odds with his reputation as the master of cinematic violence. 
 Unprecedented access to the director helped editor Robert K. Elder create in John Woo: Interviews the first authoritative English-language chronicle of Woo's career.

John Woo: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

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Books by Robert K. Elder