Bøker av David Thomson

A notable work by the doyen of writers about cinema

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy

Since 2012, hundreds have left Western countries to join jihadist groups fighting in Syria. Many are still there, many have been killed, but some have chosen to return to their countries of origin. In this remarkable book, journalist David Thomson has gathered their testimonies and analyses with nuance the factors that led to their radicalisation.

Details the different aspects of the "Alien" films - the different directors, the making of the films, the themes, the actors, and the tensions on the set.

Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respected and insightful writers on movies and theater, answers this question with intelligence and wit. In this fresh and thought-provoking essay, Thomson tackles this most elusive of subjects, examining the allure of the performing arts for both the artist and the audience member while addressing the paradoxes inherent in acting itself. He reflects on the casting process, on stage versus film acting, and on the cult of celebrity. The art and considerable craft of such gifted artists as Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis, and others are scrupulously appraised here, as are notions of "e;good"e; and "e;bad"e; acting. Thomson's exploration is at once a meditation on and a celebration of a unique and much beloved, often misunderstood, and occasionally derided art form. He argues that acting not only "e;matters"e; but is essential and inescapable, as well as dangerous, chronic, transformative, and exhilarating, be it on the theatrical stage, on the movie screen, or as part of our everyday lives.

In this triumphant work David Thomson, one of film's greatest living experts and author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, tells the enthralling story of the movies and how they have shaped us.Sunday Times, New Statesman, The Times, Guardian, Observer and Independent BOOKS OF THE YEARTaking us around the globe, through time and across multiple media, Thomson tracks the ways in which we were initially enchanted by this mesmerizing imitation of life and let movies - the stories, the stars, the look - show us how to live. But at the same time he shows us how movies, offering a seductive escape from the everyday reality and its responsibilities, have made it possible for us to evade life altogether. The entranced audience has become a model for powerless citizens trying to pursue happiness by sitting quietly in a dark room. Does the big screen take us out into the world, or merely mesmerize us? That is Thomson's question in this great adventure of a book. A passionate feat of storytelling that is vital to anyone trying to make sense of the age of screens - the age that, more than ever, we are living in.

This is possibly the most entertaining, surprising and enjoyable film book ever written. Thomson set himself the near-foolhardy task of writing one page each on 1000 of the films that he has particularly liked or in some cases, abhorred. Some half-million words of funny, vigorous, wayward prose later, we are all the happy beneficiaries of his deranged labour. Always unexpected, never repetitive, Have You Seen ? can be read consecutively from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to Zabriskie Point or dipped into over many years, and it is a masterclass in how to write about films and how to love them. Sometimes Thomson will be interested in the director, sometimes in the culture that made such a film possible at such a time, sometimes in the stars (always in the stars, to be honest), and sometimes even in the outrageous cynicism and corruption of most financial backers. Have You Seen ? is crammed with great love stories, westerns, musicals, war stories, comedies, and dramas. It is as in awe of film noir as of silent farce, and adores Hollywood but also favours British, Japanese and European cinema: camp disasters, kitsch and pretention hold no fears. If Thomson has a bottom line it is his incredulity that so much that is so enjoyable and moving and worthwhile was ever made at all and that thanks to DVD we can now watch it forever. Have You Seen ? will redirect how you spend your evenings for the rest of your life for the better.

Between the middle of January and the end of March 1912 five men died in the attempt to return from the South Pole to their base on the edge of Antartica. Their leader, the last to die and the man whose diary described their agonies was Robert Falcon Scott. The expedition had been beaten to the Pole by a band of racing Norwegians, led by Roald Amundsen. The bodies of the last three to die were found seven months later and, ever since, Scott's men have been British heroes. It is that legend, as much as their ordeal that is the subject of this book. Scott's men and the supporting characters, Amundsen and Shackleton, his rivals; Clement Markham, his discoverer; his wife Kathleen -- give a fascinating picture of English society before the First World War. The story of the drama becomes also an illustration of human and social character. And, to the extent that Scott is legendary in England, the book tells something about the English and their attitude to duty.

* 'A History of Hollywood, Its Money and Dreams - and what it did to us

Set in the 1920s, this marvellously sensitive autobiography recreates the varied community of Nairn, with its fishermen and townsfolk, its crofters and its prosperous upper-middle-classes.

This work charts the life of a man who stilled the world with his performance in "Citizen Kane" in 1941. Orson Welles seemed to possess inhuman energy and a phenomenal voice but in the final rootless years when he yielded to obesity, this cinematic genius became a tragic figure.

A history of Europe since Napoleon, covering all of the main topics of that period.

Woodbrook is a rare house that gives its name to a small, rural area in Ireland, not far from the old port of Sligo. He stayed for ten years. This memoir, acknowledged as a masterpiece, grew out of two great loves - for Woodbrook and for Phoebe, his pupil.