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- A Book For Anyone Who Has Ever Seen A Movie
- A Remarkable Book on a Remarkable Man
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On Cukor
Gavin Lambert
Manufacturer: Rizzoli International Publications
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George Cukor: A Double Life : A Biography of the Gentleman Director
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George Cukor: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)
ASIN: 0847822974
Release Date: 2000-10-13 |
Book Description
Long out of print and much sought after by collectors, On Cukor is finally being reissued in a revised, updated, and beautifully redesigned book, published to coincide with the broadcast of an American Masters film directed by Robert Trachtenberg. For this new edition, Gavin Lambert has rewritten the introduction, added new material from his original taped interviews with Cukor, assembled never-before-published photographs from Cukor's personal collection and updated a complete filmography that includes movies reshot by Cukor without credit.
The heart of the book remains intact. In an unusually candid series of taped interviews with Lambert in the early 1970s, one of Hollywood's finest directors shared some revealing and intimate thoughts on his craft. He discussed his most famous films, including What Price Hollywood?, Dinner at Eight, Little Women, David Copperfield, Camille, Holiday, The Women, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, Pat and Mike, The Marrying Kind, It Should Happen to You, A Star is Born, and My Fair Lady.
In this fascinating text, George Cukor recalled Hollywood as it evolved during his lifetime, the movies he wanted (but was never able) to make, and the movie (Gone with the Wind) from which he was fired. He sketched vivid portraits of personal friends and professional colleagues, such as Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, David Selznick, Vivien Leigh, Somerset Maugham, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Cecil Beaton, and many others. And this great survivor signed off with memorable advice on how to remain sane despite the humiliating reversals that fifty years of Hollywod filmmaking inevitably entails.
"There will be other studies of George Cukor, but Lambert's will not be supplanted," The Los Angeles Times correctly predicted when On Cukor was first published in 1972. Indeed, this rich and glorious portrait remains a seminal work about one of the film industry's true creative geniuses.
Customer Reviews:
A Book For Anyone Who Has Ever Seen A Movie.......2000-12-03
An intelligent and affectionate tribute to one of Hollywood's great directors. The photo collection is an amazing scrapbook of a career that seems impossible, but lasted for almost a century. He worked with everybody! Robert Trachtenberg has meticulously chronicled the life of this remarkable and gentle man and captured the magic of movies through familiar images that now have even more relevance. Is this the same "R. Trachtenberg" -- the photographer, whose name I've seen in magazines? His artist's eye is as keen as his choice of subject. George Cukor is an American treasure. You will treasure this book that celebrates his life and work.
A Remarkable Book on a Remarkable Man.......2000-11-29
When I first saw this book I asked myself, "is it just another standard Hollywood biography?" However, after a few minutes into it, I realized this is the kind of book one encounters rarely and values enormously -- provocative, highly literate, engaging, terrifically insightful, beautifully constructed (in its writing and art direction, including some magnificent photographs of Cukor and his actors). It truly gives the impression that you are not only "inside" Cukor's elegant, complicated mind ... but inside one of his classic movies. It's a perfect Christmas gift for anyone interested in Hollywood.
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George Cukor, Master of Elegance: Hollywood's Legendary Director and His Stars
Emanuel Levy
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0688112463 |
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- Fascinating Story of Holocaust Survival & Ultimate Success
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Before The Silver Cord Is Snapped Looking Back On My Journey: Looking Back On My Journey
Peter Cukor
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1413456073 |
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Fascinating Story of Holocaust Survival & Ultimate Success.......2005-05-29
As a small child, Peter Cukor survived a Nazi workcamp along with his mother and grandmother. As a young adult in Hungary, he took part in the Revolution of 1956 and escaped to the US. There, he earned a PhD in Chemistry and had a successful career. He married, raised a family and became an important contributor to his community. His book "Before the Silver Cord is Snapped" is a fascinating account the challenges he faced and how he succeeded despite them.
I recommend the book as a personal history of the Holocaust and post-war Hungary, and also as an account of how an individual succeeded despite enormous difficulties.
Amazon.com
George Cukor is best known for directing witty comedies, but he also made wonderful dramas and musicals. He adapted many of his films from theatrical productions, but with such technical proficiency that they rarely felt stagy. In his long and productive career, he made classics such as Camille, Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, Adam's Rib, A Star is Born, and My Fair Lady. Patrick McGilligan's excellent biography gives the story behind the making of these and many other movies as well as terrific insights into Cukor's Jewish upbringing, his homosexuality, his reputation as a "woman's director," and his long-time association with Katharine Hepburn, with whom he made 10 films.
Customer Reviews:
George Cukor: Gentleman Director of Hollywood's Golden Age.......2006-07-21
George Cukor (1899-1983) grew up in a lawyer's middle class
and cosy home in New York. Cukor's family heritage was Hungarian and Jewish (Cukor was a secular Jew). All of his life Cukor
fought an inferiority complex based on his ugliness, weight and
life in Anti-Semetic America. His biggest secret was his overt
and active homosexuality. Among the major directors of the glory years of Hollywood he was the only one who was gay.
Cukor directed several blockbusters such as The Philadelphia Story; Adam's Rib; Pat and Mike' The Women; Camille; Born Yesterday Holiday and My Fair Lady (for which he won his only
Oscar for best director) This book contains a complete Filmography of Cukor's oeuvre as well as several vintage photographs.
Cukor was a kind man who could show his temper. His famed
Hollywood parties drew the likes of Garbo, Kate Hepburn, Spencer
Tracy (who lived in a home on Cukor's estate); Vivien Leigh;
Laurence Olivier; Humphrey Bogart and a large contingent of his
gay friends and lovers. Cukor was a man of wit, intelligence,
culture and artistic proclivity.
The best chapters deal with his complex relationship with David O. Selznick who fired Cukor as director of Gone With the
Wind. Another intriguing chapter deals with the disaster than
was A Star is Born the comeback vehicle for the tortured Judy Garland. Cukor
was the director of Marilyn Monroe's last film Something's Got to
Give until she was fired for failing to show up on time. Cukor
was kind to her.
The book is a typical Hollywood biography where the films and
the backstage life of the personality are discussed in length.
Many readers might find this dull. For the classic movie buff,
however, this McGilligan biography is well researched and written.
Follow Cukor's Example and Take Your Time.......2001-03-12
This platter is full of many good pieces: enlightenment, gossip, display, speculation and journalistic integrity. Before recommending it for immediate consumption, however, one should ponder the notion that while some bites are indeed chunky and tasty, some have been diced into inedibly large pieces; and while at times the meal is juicy and succulent, at others it is bland and overcooked. More than anything, it is FAR too much to digest in one sitting. It might be better to eat as leftovers than as a buffet.
I could not think of a more comprehensive text about Cukor's interesting existence; however some people and relationships (especially with Katherine Hepburn) seem cnspicuously more fleshed-out than others that are teased upon (to this reviewer, it is most obvious with Cukor's father, Spencer Tracy and George Towers, all very influnetial people in Cukor's life with mere paragraphs describing them). The text also suffers at times from trying TOO hard to be fair to Cukor. Certainly, to the author's credit, nasty and contradictory elements are introduced, but it seems that just as much effort is placed on balancing this with excuses or possible alternatives. Cuko was not universally popular, and very few attended his funeral (not even Hepburn was there); so the fairness seems a bit of a disguise.
I would recommend a grain of salt to make this tastier; and I would also recommend less than a chapter a day. The book is long on filmography, can be slow reading, and takes time to digest. Overall, it is pleasing, as are Cukor's films, for the most part; but they all took lots of time, according to most accounts. Do the same.
Uninformed bio.......1998-09-18
This book is subject to what so many Hollywood biographies suffer from: total ignorance on the part of the author as to how films are actually made. Authors of these kinds of books are tempermentally predisposed to disinterest in anything except gossip. What emerged from this book was a portrait of a shallow man whose career rested upon his ability to socialize. Why are so many books on film history so damned bad?
Spotlight on another slice of Hollywood History.......1997-11-26
Very solid biography of the director, George Cukor, covering his long life and career. McGilligan does well covering the dual nature of Cukor's personality, how his homosexuality both colored and hindered his film projects. Very well researched, the book vividly portrays the Hollywood gay society of the 30's - 50's and does well analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of both Cukor and his films. McGilligan is not balanced in his judgments on the films, however. He denigrates many of Cukor's more popular works ("The Women") and lavishes praise on the director's own favorites (the overrated "Adam's Rib"). His assessment of the much-debated firing of Cukor from "Gone With The Wind" also seems simplistic. Overall, a worthwhile read and a fine overview of a major Hollywood career and an important figure in film history.
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George Cukor: A Critical Study and Filmography
James Bernardoni
Manufacturer: Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0899501761 |
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What Price Hollywood? (RKO Classic Screenplays)
George Cukor , and
Gene Fowler
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0804460949 |
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Cukor & Co.
Gary Carey
Manufacturer: Museum of Modern Art
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ASIN: 0870703315 |
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Cukor (Cinema One)
Carlos Clarens
Manufacturer: Secker & Warburg
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 043609942X |
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Cukor Es Korbacs
Spencer Walls
Manufacturer: PAN KONYVKIADO KFT
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ASIN: 9630195186 |
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Analyzing Popular Music
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 052177120X |
Book Description
How do we "know" music? We perform it, compose it, sing it in the shower; cook, sleep and dance to it. Eventually we think and write about it. This book represents the culmination of such shared processes. Portraying a wide range of genres (rock, dance, TV soundtracks, country, pop, soul, easy listening, Turkish Arabesk), the essays cover methodology, modernism, postmodernism, Marxism and communication.
Download Description
How do we 'know' music? We perform it, we compose it, we sing it in the shower, we cook, sleep and dance to it. Eventually we think and write about it. This book represents the culmination of such shared processes. Each of these essays, written by the leading writers on popular music, is analytical in some sense, but none of them treats analysis as an end in itself. The book represents a wide range of genres (rock, dance, TV soundtracks, country, pop, soul, easy listening, Turkish Arabesk) and deals with issues as broad as methodology, modernism, postmodernism, Marxism and communication. It aims to encourage listeners to think more seriously about the 'social' consequences of the music they spend time with and is the first collection of essays to incorporate contextualisation in this way.
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Distributed by ProQuest Information and Learning
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Analyzing Popular Music.(Vernacular Musics)(Book Review): An article from: Notes
Lori Burns
Manufacturer: Music Library Association, Inc.
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Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B00082PBH2
Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on June 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1665 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Analyzing Popular Music.(Vernacular Musics)(Book Review)
Author: Lori Burns
Publication:
Notes (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 2004
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: 60
Issue: 4
Page: 953(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Were you ever advised to “just relax” before making a big speech? Or to focus on learning from your mistakes at work? In Overachievement, John Eliot, a rising star in the field of perfor-mance enhancement, says that these and many other traditional strategies are not only ineffective, but may actually hurt your ability to excel. Much of the conventional wisdom about performance enhancement—including visualization and trying to achieve “flow”—is simply wrong.
Eliot explains the latest research into why goal setting, relaxation, visualization, stress management, and flow just don't work for most people. And he offers his own counterintuitive and unconventional concepts—“Definitely Put All Your Eggs in One Basket,” “Think Like a Squirrel,” and “Butterflies Are a Good Thing”—that will not only make you better at what you do but will also teach you to thrive on pressure, not just endure it.
Overachievement is based on Eliot's cutting-edge work with clients such as Merrill Lynch, Olympic athletes, top surgeons at the Texas Medical Center, and musicians like Dave Matthews. Mixing scientific insights with real-world stories of people who achieved more than they ever thought possible, this powerful book will help readers achieve consistent success on the job, on the playing field, or in any stressful situation.
Customer Reviews:
Performance Improvement Without the Hype.......2007-07-02
Dr. Eliot,
I thought I would submit this review in the form of a letter I wrote to the author.
Dr. Eliot,
I am hoping this letter gets to you.
Just finished reading and enjoying "Overachievement."
As one who has been reading personal improvement books for about forty five years, I commend you for writing something of quite another breed--not the kind of typical inflated hyper-motivational book filling the bookshelves of every book store, but one which consistently and believably focuses on the mindset of actual overachievers in multiple disciplines. Your findings coincide with and reinforce recent intuitive insights of my own, and are helping me to function better in my own "sweet spot"--the point where basic abilities, acquired skills, spiritual gifts and life-calling coincide.
Good job.
Two problems you must address for your own credibility. First, there are at least two or three glaring editing errors in your book which make it appear either that (1) you are ignorant of grammatical niceties; (2) Your publishing company is second rate, since good editing would have caught the errors that crept through. Either way, since you are a PhD unknown to most of the people reading your book, you can ill afford to apear ignorant--it undermines your credibility.
On a related manner, as I am sure you already know, your book sets people up to visit your website, which is not as of this date fully operational. For example, the book promises supplementary materials there and an opportunity to leave personal stories there, yet neither of these opportunities are currently available.
As on PnD to another (mine is in Intercultural Studies), thank you for a helpful book. Next edition, please make sure the grammatical glitches are corrected (as the reference to "right of passage" a couple of pags before the end). Also, please fix your website. Its current condition suggests you started a venture you later abandoned. Finally, I suggest adding some technical footnotes to the book. It will make the book appear to be less the views of only one man.
Thanks for you effort--it is already enriching my life and enhancing my productivity.
Interesting but flawed.......2007-01-08
The title of this book is self explanatory and I label it interesting because it discusses a lot of unorthodox thinking techniques designed to engineer superior performance. I call it flawed because the book uses elite athletes and high performance executives in its case studies and makes the ambitious assumption that all of their thinking techniques can be used by average people to achieve exceptional levels of performance.
The most important contribution of this book is the notion of using the "trusting mindset" as opposed to the "training mindset". When performing a task, the training mindset occurs when one actively tries to keep track of all the variables and nuances that one has been taught in prior learning sessions. The trusting mindset is a Zen type of thinking where one focuses upon nothing, instead trusting instinct to take over and deliver optimal performance. From my own experience I know that I often fumble the proverbial ball by over analysing a situtation so this was an important tool to add to my thinking arsenal. Eliot also discusses other important principles such as thriving under pressure, working smarter not harder and developing demonic levels of confidence.
However, the book's advice does diminish in quality when it advocates being "unrealistic" and putting "all the eggs in one basket". One of his examples actually begins with "What if...you want to play on the PGA tour...". Granted if you are already an elite athlete then indeed you do have to set "stretch" targets such as setting world records, breaking into the major leagues and so forth. However, if are an office worker with a weekend warrior golf game but with PGA tour aspirations then I absolutely fail to see how cultivating those aspirations will ever lead to any type of overachievement, at least on the golf course. The author eschews probability and risk/reward calculations, and espouses the view that anybody can achieve anything. However, I think this is a very reckless attitude to have and I'm a firm believer that at least some grounding in reality is required. The author's "anyone can do anything" philosophy is too extreme for my taste.
The second part of the book is about practical steps that can be taken to implement the exceptional thinking described in the first part of the book. This part of the book is a little lightweight and rehashes a lot of concepts that I have heard before. He discusses pre performance routines, evaluating processes and not outcomes and defining a performance philosophy among other things. To be fair the author does stress that the descriptions are necessarily generic because exceptional performance must be tailored to the individual. Nonetheless the reader is left with the impression that the author is at times clutching at straws. Overall I can't really recommend this book instead I would point to "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell for a much more practical and entertaining exploration of the trusting mindset.
Good insights but reads like a College textbook.......2006-10-21
I bought this book due to the overwhelmingly positive reviews so I must say from the outset I was disappointed. The information is thought provoking and I will try the techniques to see if they actually work. The problem I had is with the writing. It again appears to be a case of stretching a 100 page book into 250 pages. John Eliot throws every profession together, (with major emphasis on athletes) so whether you are an athlete or a shoe salesman these techniques are supposed to work. In this regard the book is unfocused, attempting to be all things to all people. As opposed to one size fits all, Eliot should have had chapters on how specific professions could benefit from his techniques. Instead we are given anecdotes on how an athlete performed on a given occasion due to a change in approach.
I really wanted to like this book but found it too clinical and yes boring. Halfway through the book I found myself counting the pages to the end. I finally finished and felt I had completed a College textbook written by a sports coach that was just NOT engaging.
I'm sorry if I sound harsh but my expectations were very high and unfortunately not met.
Your mental habits may not be everything you need for success, but it is certainly the most fundamental.......2006-07-07
I liked this book and will recommend it to my children (adults and teenagers, all) and friends. It is another contribution to the now decades old literature on how thinking affects performance. The author, John Eliot, is a Ph. D. and has a practice helping athletes, business people, and whomever raise their level of performance by thinking about their life in different ways. And that is really the point of this book. You can't just tweak this or that and expect to fundamentally change your achievements all that much. Eliot has the goal of unleashing all your potential, which he believes to be vastly greater than you can imagine in your present mode of thinking.
While there are lots of lists and charts in this book, as you would expect if you know this literature, it is the list of the Trusting versus the Training mindset that is most fundamental to the author's approach. Most of us are focused on being good, hardworking, dutiful, and conscientious employees that we think that this should produce the rewards. It won't beyond a certain point. And that point isn't where you want to be if you are after excelling in what you do. The Trusting mindset is a kind of belief in yourself, an agility, a confidence, and a focus that puts you "in the arena": It is impossible to win the contest as a spectator on sitting on the bench. Eliot takes all this apart and in such a way that you want to take the focus of control into yourself and go get whatever it is you are after. And that is the point.
So, if you are after a change of attitude and what a coach to help you get into the game in a strong competitive way, this is a good book for you. However, there is a lot more to success that your mental approach. However, without it, none of the others matter much.
Recommended.
Simply the best achievement book !.......2006-04-14
I'm yet another poor soul who was sucked into the whole self-help craze. I've taking many self tests, work books, learned all the "techniques" and "technologies" of "success." It's all junk. But it all led me to this book. It's not about overcoming depression, or being a little happier in life. It's about being exceptional. Buy it NOW!!!!
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