Sam Wasson

A multifaceted dissection of the infamous noir film ... good reading for any American cinema buffKirkus Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making. In Sam Wassons telling, it becomes the defining story of its most colorful characters. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage murder of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered deal-making of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Townes fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation. Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the 70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today.

Hollywood: The Oral History covers the history of Hollywood from the Silent era up to the 21st century. What makes this book unique from any other survey of Hollywoods history is that it is the history of an art form through the words of those people who created it - from Harold Lloyd to Katharine Hepburn to Warren Beatty to Jane Fonda and beyond, including directors, writers, producers, editors, designers of sets and costumes. As such, the authenticity of the text is irrefutable. The material in the book - gathered over the decades by the American Film Institute - has never been published before, has never been heard before. It is comprehensive - a monument that will never age nor be surpassed.

Say Coppola and The Godfather immediately comes to mind. But Coppola isnt Corleone -- hes more than that. Hes a visionary who predicted that digital cameras - no larger than ones hand - would allow anyone to make movies. And then set up a studio, Zeotrope, to make his dreams a reality. The book presents the highs and lows of both his personal and professional life, as Coppola sets out to transform the process of making movies. Sam Wasson masterly captures the larger-than-life figure of a man who pursued a vision of the world of movies and all the wonder of what that would be.

The definitive account of the legendary Francis Ford Coppola s decades long dream to reinvent American film making if not the entire world Supremely entertaining New York Times Mouth watering Sizzingly vivid and compulsive Daily Telegraph Acclaimed writer Sam Wasson weaves together an extraordinary portrait of Coppola having conducted hundreds of interviews with the director and those who have worked closely with him A man who is charming brilliant but also plagued by restlessness recklessness and a desire to operate perpetually at the extremes It is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest quixotic masterpieces ever attempted Apocalypse Now That story already the stuff of legend has never been fully told until this extraordinary book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERSo smart and entertaining it should come with its own popcorn PeopleA bonbon of a book As well tailored as the little black dress the movie made famous. Janet Maslin, New York TimesFifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson is the first ever complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffanys. With a cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, director Blake Edwards, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties, before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the nation, changing fashion, film, and sex, for good.With delicious prose and considerable wit, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills presenting Breakfast at Tiffanys as we have never seen it beforethrough the eyes of those who made it.

Chinatown es uno de los filmes más memorables de la que posiblemente sea la decada más memorable del cine estadounidense. Incluido de manera habitual en las listas de las mejores películas de la historia, su exquisita mezcla de clasicismo y modernidad, nostalgia y desencanto, belleza y sordidez, le han garantizado un lugar especial en el corazon de numerosos cinefilos, pero hasta ahora nadie habia contado al detalle la increible historia real que rodeo tanto la preparacion como el rodaje de este autentico hito de Hollywood. Tomando la realizacion de Chinatown como punto de partida, Sam Wasson va mucho mas alla del simple "como se hizo" para explorar y contextualizar el filme como un punto de inflexion en la cultura general, retratando el glorioso periodo que lo alumbro y entretejiendo de paso las vidas de cuatro individuos sumamente imperfectos (Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, Robert Evans y Robert Towne) y el modo en que llegaron a coincidir una sola vez para crear una obra de arte casi perfecta.