I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon

Book Description

A year before his death, the great Italian film director Federico Fellini sat down with documentary-maker Damian Pettigrew for a series of intimate, in-depth interviews. I'm a Born Liar contains the highlights of these conversations. With great candidness, Fellini discusses every aspect of his work, from his early life to his relationship with Italian culture to the inspiration behind his films.

Pettigrew's immensely readable interviews illuminate the life of the director of La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8(tm), and other classic films, and demonstrate his wild imagination, his energy, and his passion. Fellini reveals much, on subjects ranging from women ("the unknown planet") to his neuroses ("fabulous treasure buried at the bottom of the city") to his actors ("puppets"). In between, the director muses on marriage, memory, cinema, and Marcello Mastroianni.

Accompanying the interviews are 125 film stills and never-before-published photographs from the Fellini Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna. Published on the 10th anniversary of Fellini's death and in conjunction with the release of Pettigrew's film of the same name, I'm a Born Liar provides rare insight into one of the world's most innovative and influential directors.

Customer Reviews:

Spiritual Testament.......2004-01-23

This deluxe edition of what renowned Fellini specialist Tullio Kezich describes as the Maestro's "spiritual testament" (in his superb foreword to the book) is bona fide Fellini-esque. Hilarious anecdotes are squeezed in beside a number of very moving meditations on old age, sex, LSD, unemployment, Trivial Pursuit, God, Dante, death and the Hereafter. The newly restored black-and-white photos capturing the Italian director's surreal world are well-served by an excellent English translation. The final entry in the lexicon is a fairy tale titled "Zio Lupo" or "Uncle Wolf" and it pretty much defines Fellini's insatiability. Highly recommended.

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Fellini Lexicon
Sam Rohdie
Manufacturer: British Film Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Films of Federico Fellini (Cambridge Film Classics)

ASIN: 0851709346

Book Description

Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was one of the most inventive filmmakers and to this day one of the best loved. Director of many celebrated films--among them La Strada (1954), The Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), Otto e Mezzo (1963), and Amarcord (1973)--he created melancholy, magical worlds peopled by clowns, dreamers, conmen, trumpeters, and werewolves. This book explores the forms and substances, significances and insignificances, and objects and shadows in Fellini's work--the dance and music of his characters, the color, light, and movement in his images. Fellini Lexicon accompanies Fellini's films, rather than seeking to possess them, taking pleasure in their incongruities, exaggerations, absur-dities, and surprises. The entries are reversible, overlapping, often unlikely, combining careful analysis of the films with a celebration of their richness. Fellini Lexicon is a delightfully original approach to Fellini's work and to the practice of film criticism.

I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon (ISBN: 0810946173)

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I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon (ISBN: 0810946173)
Damian Pettigrew
Manufacturer: Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LCBUQK

Book Description

In his fascinating last book, Edward Said looks at a selection of essays, poems, novels, films, and operas to determine what late style may explain about the evolution of the creative life. He discusses how the approaching death of an artist can make its way “with anachronism and anomaly” into his work, as was the case in the late work of Thomas Mann, Richard Strauss, Jean Genet, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and C. P. Cavafy. Said examines Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Genet’s Le captif amoureux and Les paravents, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Visconti’s film of Lampedusa’s The Leopard, Euripides’ The Bacchae and Iphigenia at Aulis, and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, among other works.

He points out that one can also find an “unearthly serenity,” in last works, for example, in Sophocles, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Matisse, Bach, and Wagner, which, as Said puts it, “crown a lifetime of aesthetic endeavor.” But in On Late Style he concentrates on artistic lateness as “intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction.” He also writes about Theodor Adorno and about Glenn Gould, who chose to stop performing, thereby creating his own form of lateness. Said makes clear that most of the works discussed are rife with deep conflict and an almost impenetrable complexity. In fact, he feels that lateness is often “a form of exile.” These works frequently stood in direct contrast to what was popular at the time, but they were forerunners of what was to come in each artist’s particular discipline—works of true genius.

Eloquent and impassioned, brilliantly reasoned and revelatory, On Late Style is Edward Said’s own great last work.

Customer Reviews:

Late Style Said.......2007-06-18

Edward Said's writings never aim to make the obvious observation but instead seek to discover underlying strands of ideas that buoy up the work at hand and reveal subterranean layers of meaning. When he accomplishes this, his writings brim with the enthusiasm of a new discovery or the pleasure of understanding a familiar work in an unfamiliar way.

The cost to the reader not infrequently consists of wading through thickets of inpenetrable prose, prose that needs be hacked at to decipher the meaning intended. This necessity may be exacerbated in this collection by the fact that it was left unfinished and unpolished at his death. Nonetheless, skill in reading Theory and the jargon that attends it is required to comprehend, not to say appreciate, much of the early chapters. Happily much of this falls away as the book proceeds and many pearls are revealed undisguised and in fascinating verbal settings.

I continued to have difficulties with much of the entire enterprise: to wit, are Mozart's late operas really "late style" considering the man died so young? Surely they became "late style" by way of premature mortality alone. Extrapolating late style from one book wonders such as Di Lampedusa also stretches the point.

And yet incomplete, impenetrable and, as always, arguable Said, paradoxical as it sounds, remains more intellectually stimulating than most comparable critics, and still repays the effort it takes to read him.

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Mozart from the Heart
"Piano, piano, si va lontano"

Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life
Robert Spaethling
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393328309

Book Description

"A wonderful collection that gives Mozart a voice as a son, husband, brother and friend."—New York Times Book Review

In Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life, Robert Spaethling presents "Mozart in all the rawness of his driving energies" (Spectator), preserved in the "zany, often angry effervescence" of his writing (Observer). Where other translators have ignored Mozart's atrocious spelling and tempered his foul language, "Robert Spaethling's new translations are lively and racy, and do justice to Mozart's restlessly inventive mind" (Daily Mail). Carefully selected and meticulously annotated, this collection of letters "should be on the shelves of every music lover" (BBC Music Magazine). Published for the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday. 16 pages of illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Mozart from the Heart.......2007-02-02

Almost since the moment of his death in December 1791, people have been writing about W.A. Mozart, some of it accurate, but a great deal misguided, and false. Although I have enjoyed reading various Mozart biographies (Maynard Solomon's is my favorite), I found it quite refreshing to finally to read a collection of Mozart's own words. While the composer was certainly a prankster in his younger days (a stereotype unfortunately perpetuated by the reknowned film "Amadeus"), his letters undeniably demonstrate that Mozart was also a very thoughtful and passionate human being who enjoyed the highs and endured the lows of life, just like the rest of us. In this book, readers will get to know a man who wanted to be loved and lead a full life, only to die at the young age of 35!
Mozart's correspondence show that he sought a coveted position as a kappellmeister or court composer somewhere in Europe, which would mean steady demand for compositions, as well as a handsome salary. In February 1778, he wrote to his father: "I am a composer, and I was born a Kapellmeister. I must not and cannot bury my Gift for Composing, that a benevolent God has bestowed upon me in such rich a measure." Despite his relentless determination and marvelous talent as a performer and composer, Mozart never received the court post he so desperately desired, and this lack of a steady income pushed him deeper into debt during his last few years. Considering his financial problems and the other demands in his life, the quantity and quality of the work he produced in his final days is mind-boggling. Mozart's life was also marred by other tragic events; the gut-wrenching letters describing his mother's death in Paris in 1778 are particulary moving, as are his emotional attempts to mend the strained relationship with his father after Mozart left Salzburg and moved to Vienna in the early 1780s. Perhaps most interesting of course, are Mozart's discussions of his art. My favorite quote of all, perhaps, comes from a letter of December 27, 1777, in which Mozart told his father as he sat at the organ, "The playing just flowed from my heart." To me, that one line captures why this remarkable man and his incredible music still captivate us today. This book does not seek to provide a completely rounded view of Mozart's life and times, but it is still a wonderful collection of Mozart's correspondence that will inspire and inform.

"Piano, piano, si va lontano".......2006-05-06

These letters are pleasing to read, a dignified but casual translation. Spaethling's commentary is never intrusive, always enlightening. It's fascinating to trace Mozart's maturity, his move away from his father, his flirtatiousness, sometimes erotic writing, with his wife. The preening and posturing show the genuis's very human side.

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Mozart and Leadbelly
Ernest J. Gaines
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1400096456
Release Date: 2006-10-17

Book Description

In this collection of stories and essays, the beloved author of the classic, best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying shares the inspirations behind his books and his reasons for becoming a writer. Told in the simple and powerful prose that is a hallmark of his craft, these writings by Ernest J. Gaines faithfully evoke the sorrows and joys of rustic Southern life. From his depiction of his childhood move to California — a move that propelled him to find books that conjured the sights, smells, and locution of his native Louisiana home — to his description of the real-life murder case that gave him the idea for his masterpiece, this wonderful collection is a revelation of both man and writer.

Writings of German Composers: Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Weil and Others (German Library)

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Writings of German Composers: Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Weil and Others (German Library)
James Steakley
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Meeting Mr. Mozart

Letters of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Hans Mersmann , and M. Bozman
Manufacturer: Dorset Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0880290870

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Meeting Mr. Mozart.......2002-06-29

This selection of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's letters show the same ebullient and warm-hearted spirit that vibrates through his music. It is obvious that these letters were not written for publication. They are as natural as conversation, as intimate as friendship and as warm as love. And they are tremendously fun to read.

One of my favorites concerns a statement that Mozart makes concerning the ease of difficulty in composing opera in German. In a letter dated February, 1783, Mozart writes to his father, "I side with the German. I prefer it even if it costs me more trouble. Every nation has its own opera, why not Germany? Is not German as singable as French and English? Is it not more so than Russian?"

"Even if it costs me more trouble," he writes. Aha! says I. He admitted that it's more trouble to put the German language to music. Gotcha!

To those of us who love his music, Mozart is rendered in these pages, in his own words, just as we expect. I envy the reader who meets him the first time in this book, then approaches his music. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Book Description

In this collection of stories and essays, the beloved author of the classic, best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying shares with us the inspirations behind his books, how he came to choose the vocation of a writer, the childhood in rural Louisiana that he continually re-creates in his fiction, and his portrayal of the black experience in the South.
Told in the simple and powerful prose that is a hallmark of his craft, these writings faithfully evoke the sorrows and joys of rustic Southern life. They begin with Gaines’s move to California at the age of fifteen to complete school. Missing the Louisiana countryside where he was raised by his aunt propelled him to find books in the library that would invoke the sights, smells, and locution of his native home. Gaines never agreed with the authors’ portrayal of black people: “either she was a mammy, or he was a Tom,” he explains in “Miss Jane and I.”

From that initial disappointment stemmed a literary career that has spanned forty years and includes five novels, which in the words of USA Today reviewer Suzanne Freeman have “made the smallest truths, the everyday sorrows of hard choices, add up to moments of pure illumination.” These are cherished and popular books like The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and the 1993 blockbuster A Lesson Before Dying, which has sold more than two million copies around the world, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and in 1997 was picked for Oprah’s Book Club. It has been continually selected for City Read programs and praised by critics as “an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives” (Charles R. Larson, Chicago Tribune). In the essay “Writing A Lesson Before Dying,” Gaines describes the real-life murder case that gave him the idea for his masterpiece.

Included here are short stories that transport us to the rural Louisiana of the 1940s and the influences that shaped him–most lastingly, the people and the places of Gaines’s own past. This wonderful collection of autobiographical essays and fictional pieces is a revelation of both man and writer.

Customer Reviews:

A Man for His Times.......2007-09-12

Mozart and Leadbelly is a collection of short stories, essays and talks that Ernest Gaines has produced over the years. I was drawn to this short but repetitious book because I've read two Gaines novels this year and wanted to learn more about Gaines as a writer, more about his creative process, and more about the man that he is.

Ernest J. Gaines was born in Louisiana in 1933, a time when many black families were still tied to the land that their ancestors had worked as slaves. It was, in effect, a watered down version of the plantation system which had once thrived in that part of the state. Gaines learned many lessons before he left Louisiana to go to California for an education, lessons that serve him well to this day. He was raised by a crippled aunt who managed to cook meals, clean house and raise a vegetable garden by crawling on the ground much as a six-month-old baby might crawl. Her example taught Gaines that nothing is impossible and that quitting is not an option. He became a writer when he started producing letters for the illiterate friends of his aunt who came to him on her front porch and asked him to write to their distant family members. Seldom did they have anything to say other than "I'm fine and things here are fine," asking him to fill up the rest of a couple of pages with something interesting.

The essays will be of particular interest to fans of the Gaines novels, A Lesson Before Dying, A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman because of the insights offered into how those novels were conceived and constructed. In addition, there are five early short stories, including the first one Gaines ever wrote, "The Turtles," that display Gaines' remarkable talent for recreating a time through the eyes of the ordinary people who lived it. Not surprisingly, Gaines was influenced and learned from the writers who preceded him, in particular writers like Twain, Joyce, Turgenev, Chekhov and Tolstoy. But he also took inspiration from the great paintings which seemed to him to tell a story as well as any novel could do it, and from music ranging from Mozart to Leadbelly.

A Gifted Writer Shares Some Insights And Stories.......2006-05-11

I can still remember seeing THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITMAN on television in the early 1970's. I was in the fourth grade and for some reason, I was able to stay up and watch the entire movie which ended far past my bedtime. Maybe it was a holiday weekend or perhaps my parents were out of the house, I'm not sure which was the case but I vividly recall an elderly Cicely Tyson fearlessly walking up to a water fountain marked whites only and taking a drink. I was captivated by the power of this character. Fast forward to the late 1990's: I'm reading a book about an African American teacher in the pre-civil rights South. He's too ambitious to be in a classroom, yet teaching is the only job he can get that uses his talents. He's lonely, isolated, and is asked to bring some dignity to a man on death row. Once again I'm captivated. The character's name is Grant and he's the protagonist of the novel A LESSON BEFORE DYING. I'm not sure I have all that much in common with either Grant or Miss Jane, yet they are both memorable characters created by a gifted writer Ernest J. Gaines.

MOZART AND LEADBELLY is a book that is a gift to fans of Gaines' writing or people interested in how a writer creates a work. In this collection, Gaines tells how he created some of his most memorable characters and novels. The style of the writing is conversational and would be writers will find it informative. Teachers will also find it useful. Many schools now use A LESSON BEFORE DYING in the classroom, so it's the perfect guide to show how an author brings a work to life. Gaines also includes some shorter works and the stories are good, but the essays and the transcript of a panel discussion at the end of the book are what make the book a great resource and enjoyable read.

In one of the essays, Gaines states that all writer hope to be another Scott Turrow or John Grisham. Sales wise maybe, and if I ever get my novel completed and it sells like a Grisham or Turrow thriller, I'd be happy. If I was compared with Ernest J. Gaines, I'd be honored.

One of my favorites.......2005-11-20

Ernest Gaines is one of my favorite writers. I had moved to Nebraska to do a Ph.D. in philosophy, until one day at the public library I discovered Mr. Gaines' fiction. After reading Bloodline and A Lesson Before Dying, I dropped out of the doctoral program and started writing fiction.

And that's what I've been doing for the past four years: writing fiction. As I read and re-read Gaines' work, I was hoping he would publish a new novel or short story collection. So when I heard Mozart and Leadbelly was coming out, I was excited.

This new book is a collection of essays, interviews, and Mr. Gaine's early fiction (including his first published short story "The Turtles"). These essays are beautiful pieces of writing; each one tells a different story: Gaines' early life as a boy from Louisiana, his college days in San Francisco, advice on writing, and much more. The interviews show Gaines in a more informal settings as he sits on his front porch in Louisiana discussing his favorite writers as well as other influences on his fiction (painters and composers). This is a fun book, and I have marked off several passages that have allowed me to crystalize what I'd been trying to say about writing but couldn't until I read this book.

Also, after reading Mozart and Leadbelly, you'll learn that Mr. Gaines is at work on a new novel, something his friends hope will be his next masterpiece.

Ernest Gaines is a fine writer, and it's amazing how simple and beautiful the language is. He has created a world all his own and his voice is unmistakable. This is a major accomplishment from one America's finest living writers.

Also recommended: The Gospel of Arnie

Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity

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Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity
Karol Berger
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

In this erudite and elegantly composed argument, Karol Berger uses the works of Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to support two groundbreaking claims: first, that it was only in the later eighteenth century that music began to take the flow of time from the past to the future seriously; second, that this change in the structure of musical time was an aspect of a larger transformation in the way educated Europeans began to imagine and think about time with the onset of modernity, a part of a shift from the premodern Christian outlook to the modern post-Christian worldview. Until this historical moment, as Berger illustrates in his analysis of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, music was simply "in time." Its successive events unfolded one after another, but the distinction between past and future, earlier and later, was not central to the way the music was experienced and understood. But after the shift, as he finds in looking at Mozart's Don Giovanni, the experience of linear time is transformed into music's essential subject matter; the cycle of time unbends and becomes an arrow. Berger complements these musical case studies with a rich survey of the philosophical, theological, and literary trends influencing artists during this period.

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Don Juan's Wager (Cultural Studies)
Francois Rachline
Manufacturer: Other Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1892746808

Book Description

Samir Dayal introduces Rachline's book and captures the essence of Rachline's argument from a psychoanalytic perspective. Dayal says, "Giovannism is a celebration of love, not irresponsibility in love. Through a refusal to pay what one owes, the contemporary attitude of giovannism is paradoxically an opening to the other, a sustaining of the interdependence of human beings in social relationships...(W)hen we cede repetition (repetitive modes such as assembly-line production) to the province of the machine, then the singular can become more properly the realm of the truly human, and thus make the human freer. This is one of Rachline's genuinely bracing and refreshing ideas."

Essays on the Viennese Classical Style: Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven

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Essays on the Viennese Classical Style: Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
H.C. Robbins Landon
Manufacturer: MACMILLAN COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OL8G3I

Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies in the Music of the Classical Period. Essays in Honour of Alan Tyson

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Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies in the Music of the Classical Period. Essays in Honour of Alan Tyson

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198163622

Book Description

Alan Tyson is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is a leading authority on composers and music of the Classical period, especially Mozart and Beethoven. He has made a greater contribution to the dating of sketches and compositions than any other scholar. His international reputation stems from his outstanding contribution to the dating and cataloguing of these composers' sketches, manuscript compositions, and early printed editions. This collection of 19 essays in his honour comprises scholarly contributions from an international group of distinguished musicologists under the editorship of Sieghard Brandenburg. The book also includes a complete checklist of Alan Tyson's writings on music.

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