Cela fait trente-cinq ans que je tiens des journaux intimes. J'y consigne mes réussites et échecs, mes joies, mes chagrins, les choses qui m'ont émerveillé et celles qui m'ont fait rire aux éclats. Trente-cinq ans à prendre conscience, à me souvenir, à me rendre compte, à comprendre, à rassembler et à griffonner ce qui m'a ému ou excité en route. Comment être juste. Comment moins stresser. Comment m'amuser. Comment moins blesser les autres. Comment être moins blessé. Comment être un type bien. Comment obtenir ce que je veux. Comment trouver un sens à la vie. Comment être plus moi-même.
Récemment, j'ai trouvé le courage de m'attaquer à ces journaux et de les relire en entier. Ce que j'ai trouvé?? Un catalogue d'histoires, de leçons que j'avais apprises et oubliées, de poèmes, de prières, de recommandations, de réponses à des questions que je me posais, de questions que je me pose encore, d'affirmations, de doutes, de professions de foi sur ce qui importe vraiment, de théories sur la relativité, et toute une ribambelle de slogans.
J'ai découvert ce qui, dans mon approche de la vie, m'avait donné le plus de satisfaction à l'époque et m'avait guidé. J'ai appelé ça attraper les feux verts. C'est un thème solide.
Donc j'ai pris mes journaux sous le bras et me suis offert un confinement en solitaire dans le désert, où je me suis mis à écrire ce que vous lisez à présent?: un album, une trace, une histoire de ma vie jusqu'à ce jour.
Les choses que j'ai vues, rêvées, cherchées, données et reçues.
Les vérités explosives qui ont tellement court-circuité mon espace-temps que je n'ai pu les ignorer.
Les contrats que j'ai passés avec moi-même, que j'honore pour beaucoup, et dont pour la plupart je cherche encore à me rendre digne.
Voilà ce que j'ai vu, et comment - mon ressenti et mes trouvailles, mes moments de classe et de honte. Les grâces, les vérités et les beautés de la brutalité.
Les initiations, les invitations, les calibrages et transitions.
Les «?je m'en sors à bon compte?», les «?je me fais choper?», et les «?je me mouille en essayant de danser entre les gouttes?».
Les rites de passage.
Ce livre raconte aussi comment choper les feux verts, réaliser que les feux orange et les rouges peuvent changer de couleur aussi.
Ce livre est une lettre d'amour.
À la vie
From Drugstore Cowboy to Elephant, Milk and Good Will Hunting, Gus Van Sant?s films have captured the imagination of more than one generation. Alongside his filmaking, however, Van Sant is also an artist, photographer and writer. Based on a series of completely new and exclusive interviews, this book provides a personal insight into how Van Sant successfully approaches these different and very varied artforms, providing an inspirational look into the working life of one of America?s most pivotal cultural and creative practitioners.
Piper Kerman est une jeune femme ordinaire : un emploi, un compagnon, une famille aimante. Elle est très loin de l'intrépide étudiante qui a livré une valise d'argent sale dix ans plus tôt. Mais le passé la rattrape : condamnée à quinze mois de prison, elle devient le matricule 11187-424.
Rien ne l'a préparée aux surveillants abjects ou indifférents à sa souffrance, aux douches crasseuses, à la promiscuité et à la solitude. Ni aux rencontres avec les autres détenues, amies ou ennemies, féroces ou résignées. C'est ce monde humiliant et déshumanisant qu'elle décrit ici. Elle parvient cependant à surmonter cette épreuve, à résister au désespoir, à contourner les règles de la prison.
Déchirant, drôle et révoltant, le récit de Piper Kerman a inspiré la série télévisée du même nom.
Annoncé comme une « expérience repoussant les limites de l'esprit », L'Homme qui venait d'ailleurs (The Man Who Fell to Earth) de Nicolas Roeg, sorti en 1976, a sidéré le monde du cinéma. Véritable coup de maître dans l'art de la science fiction, le film n'a pas seulement provoqué des hallucinations visuelles et proposé une exploration obsédante de la folie contemporaine, il a aussi permis à une légende du glam-rock, David Bowie, de faire ses débuts d'acteur, dans le rôle principal de l'extraterrestre paranoïaque Newton.
Inspiré du roman de science-fiction L'Homme tombé du ciel (The Man Who Fell to Earth) signé Walter Tevis, L'Homme qui venait d'ailleurs suit le destin de Newton, un extraterrestre débarqué sur terre pour y trouver de l'eau : sa transformation en riche entrepreneur grâce aux technologies révolutionnaires de sa planète d'origine, son éveil à la sexualité avec la jeune Mary-Lou, puis la révélation de son identité d'extraterrestre, son emprisonnement, son abandon et son basculement vers l'alcoolisme. Dans tout le film, Roeg convainc par son séduisante casting, dont Bowie bien sûr, excellent dans son personnage de voyageur de l'espace décalé, mais aussi Candy Clark, Rip Torn et Buck Henry, interprètes parfaits dans leur rôle.
Pour célébrer les 40 ans de ce film culte, TASCHEN sort son The Man Who Fell to Earth avec une profusion d'images extraites du film ou prises pendant le tournage par le photographe de plateau David James, y compris les nombreux clichés d'un Bowie jouant à plein sur son ambiguïté. Une introduction inédite dévoile le tournage du film et son impact au-delà, grâce au récit exclusif de David James, témoin direct de la naissance de ce chef-d'oeuvre de la science-fiction.
The first collected edition of legendary writer, actress, and adventurer Cookie Mueller's stories, featuring the entire contents of her 1990 book Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, alongside more than two dozen others, some previously unpublished.
Legendary as an underground actress, female adventurer, and East Village raconteur, Cookie Mueller's first calling was to the written word: I started writing when I was six and have never stopped completely, she once confessed. Muellerís 1990 Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, the first volume of the Semiotext(e) Native Agents series, was the largest collection of stories she compiled during her life. But it presented only a slice of Mueller's prolific work as a writer. This new, landmark volume collects all of Mueller's stories: from the original contents of Clear Water, to additional stories discovered by Amy Scholder for the posthumous anthology Ask Dr. Mueller, to selections from Mueller's art and advice columns for Details and the East Village Eye, to still new stories collected and published here for the first time. Olivia Laing's new introduction situates Mueller's writing within the context of her life--and our times.
Thanks to recent documentaries like Mallory Curley's A Cookie Mueller Encyclopedia and Chloé Griffin's oral biography Edgewise, Mueller's life and work have been discovered by a new generation of readers. Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories returns essential source material to these readers, the archive of Mueller's writing itself. Mueller's many mise en scènes--the Baltimore of John Waters, post-Stonewall Provincetown, avant-garde Italy, 1980s New York, an America enduring Reagan and AIDS--patches together a singular personal history and a primer for others. As Laing writes in her introduction, Collected Stories amounts to a how-to manual for a life ricocheting joyously off the rails . . . a live corrective to conformity, conservatism, and cruelty.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER David Lynch - co-creator of Twin Peaks and writer and director of groundbreaking films such as Eraserhead , The Elephant Man , Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive - opens up about a lifetime of extraordinary creativity, the friendships he has made along the way and the struggles he has faced to bring his projects to fruition. Room to Dream is both an astonishing memoir told in Lynch's own words and a landmark biography based on hundreds of interviews, that offers unique insights into the life and mind of one of the world's most enigmatic and original artists.
For readers of Nora Ephron, Tina Fey, and David Sedaris, this hilarious, poignant, and extremely frank collection of personal essays confirms Lena Dunham - the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO''s ''Girls'' - as one of the brightest and most original writers working today. ''If I could take what I''ve learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine was worthwhile. I''m already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you, but also my future glory in having stopped you from trying an expensive juice cleanse or thinking that it was your fault when the person you are dating suddenly backs away, intimidated by the clarity of your personal mission here on earth. No, I am not a sexpert, a psychologist, or a dietician. I am not a mother of three or the owner of a successful hosiery franchise. But I am a girl with a keen interest in having it all, and what follows are hopeful dispatches from the frontlines of that struggle.''
*The new autobiography coming this autumn*
They say that sometimes ghosts don't realize they're dead and wander around screaming because no one is paying them any attention. Well, in show business you may have been dead five years before you finally twig. You howl around the corridors of power while the elected march straight through. Then one day you catch yourself in a mirror and there is nothing looking back. In his highly anticipated third memoir, Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him. (And everyone else.) Travelling across Europe, he weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends. There are celebrities, of course. But we also meet the glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta, who introduces Rupert (aged three) to the joys of make-up. In 80s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. While in 70s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Unflinchingly honest and hugely entertaining, Tainted Glory offers a unique insight into the 'snakes and ladders' of filmmaking. It is also a soulful and thought-provoking autobiography from one of our best-loved and most talented actors and writers.
At last, the Academy, Tony, and three-time Emmy Award-winning actor and trailblazer, Cicely Tyson, tells her stunning story, looking back at her six-decade career and life.
'Coming from Glasgow, it's weird, I don't really tell jokes, like Irish jokes and all that. I tell wee stories. And some of them don't even have punchlines. But you'll get used to it as the night goes on, and on, and on, and on and on...' In December 2018, after 50-years of belly-laughs, energy, outrage and enjoyment, Billy Connolly announced his retirement from stand-up comedy. It had been an extraordinary career. When he first started out in the late Sixties, Billy played the banjo in the folk clubs of Glasgow. Between songs, he would improvise a bit, telling anecdotes from the Clyde shipyard where he worked. In the process, he made all kinds of discoveries about what audiences found funny, from his own exaggerated body movements to the power of speaking explicitly about sex. He began to understand the craft of great storytelling too. Soon the songs became shorter and the monologues longer, and Billy quickly became recognised as one of the most exciting comedians of his generation. Billy's routines always felt spontaneous. He improvised, embellished and digressed as he went: a two-minute anecdote could become a 20-minute routine by the next night of a tour. And he brought a beautiful sense of the absurd to his shows as he riffed on holidays, alcohol, the crucifixion, or naked bungee jumping. But Billy's comedy could be laced with anger too. He hated pretentiousness and called out hypocrisy where ever he saw it. He loved to shock, and his startling appearance gave him license to say anything he damn well pleased about sex, politics or religion. It was only because he was so likeable that he got it away. Billy had the popular touch. His comedy spanned generations and different social tribes in a way that few others have ever managed. Tall Tales and Wee Stories brings together the very best of Billy's storytelling for the first time and includes his most famous routines including, The Last Supper , Jojoba Shampoo , Incontinence Pants and Shouting at Wildebeest . With an introduction and original illustrations by Billy throughout, it is an inspirational, energetic and riotously funny read, and a fitting celebration of our greatest ever comedian.
A message from the Captain: 'On behalf of myself and the entire Ayoade team, welcome to Ayoade on Top . At last, the definitive book about perhaps the best cabin-crew dramedy ever filmed: View from the Top , starring Gwyneth Paltrow.' Buckle up for the flight of your life. 'The most profoundly silly book on film I've ever read and somehow one of the most insightful too.' Edgar Wright 'A brilliant satire of film, academia, commerce and Richard Ayoade . . . The funniest book I've ever read.' Jesse Eisenberg 'I haven't laughed this much reading a book in a long time. The man is a national treasure.' Big Issue
''No one ever fully recovers from their past. There is no cure for it. You just learn to manage and prioritise it. I believe the second you feel you have triumphed or overcome something you have merely decided to stop being vigilant and embraced denial as your modus operandi. And that is what this book is about, and for: to remind you not to buy in to the Hollywood ending.'' Baggage chronicles the actor''s life in Hollywood and the ways in which work has repeatedly whisked him away from personal calamities to sets and stages around the world. Taking us through the highs and lows of his career, his struggle with mental health, each failed relationship or encounter with a legend (Liza! X Men! Gore Vidal! Kubrick! Spice Girls!), every bad decision or moment of sensual joy, Cumming shows how every experience - good or bad - has shaped who he is today: a happy, flawed, vulnerable, fearless middle-aged man, with a lot of baggage. Startlingly honest, both poignant and joyous, Baggage shines a light on how to embrace the complicated messiness of life.
Walking with Ghosts is the stunningly evocative memoir by Irish actor and Hollywood star, Gabriel Byrne. ''Dreamy, lyrical and utterly unvarnished'' - Colm Toibin As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harboured a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory labourer to get by. In his spare time he visited the cinema, where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of ''60s Ireland. He revelled in the theatre and poetry of Dublin''s streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theatre. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and on Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies. ''Make no mistake about it: this is a masterpiece . . . poetic, moving and very funny'' - Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
'The best book on the subject I've read. Quite brilliant' Tony Jordan, creator/writer, Life on Mars, Hustle We all love stories. But why do we tell them? And why do all stories function in an eerily similar way? John Yorke, creator of the BBC Writers' Academy, has brought a vast array of drama to British screens. Here he takes us on a journey to the heart of storytelling, revealing that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative forms - one that echoes the fairytale journey into the woods and, like any great art, comes from deep within. From ancient myths to big-budget blockbusters, he gets to the root of the stories that are all around us, every day. 'Marvellous' Julian Fellowes 'Terrifyingly clever ... Packed with intelligent argument' Evening Standard 'The most important book about scriptwriting since William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade' Peter Bowker, writer, Blackpool, Occupation, Eric and Ernie
Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century?
As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films. Grace Kelly, Carey Grant and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style, and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds.
Alfred Hitchcock wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight, in the corner of the shot.
''The book is great: moving but also properly funny.'' Hadley Freeman, The Guardian ''A memoir with an unusual sense of purpose. . . pithy, highly readable'' The Times The entire world knows Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, the teenage sidekick of Doc Brown in Back to the Future. His two previous bestselling memoirs, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up , dealt with how he came to terms with the illness, all the while exhibiting his iconic optimism. In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, ageing, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality. Thoughtful and moving, but with Fox''s trademark sense of humour, his book provides a vehicle for reflection about our lives, our loves, and our losses. Running through the narrative is the drama of the medical madness Fox recently experienced, that included his daily negotiations with the Parkinson''s disease he''s had since 1991, and a spinal cord issue that necessitated immediate surgery. His challenge to learn how to walk again, only to suffer a devastating fall, nearly caused him to ditch his trademark optimism and "get out of the lemonade business altogether." Does he make it all of the way back? Read the book.
Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout--involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis--in the heart of New Yorks diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a masters take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote. For in this book, Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, gives us both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on forty years of experience on movies that range from Long Days Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict --and with such stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino--Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic.
In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge. In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon , Midnight Express , and Scarface . Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of the high and low moments: we sit at the table in meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface , Platoon , and Born on the Fourth of July ; relive the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); experience his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface ; and see his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino. We also learn of the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and witness tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express . The culmination of the book is the extraordinarily vivid recreation of filming Platoon in the depths of the Philippine jungle with Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp et al , pushing himself, the crew and the young cast almost beyond breaking point. Written fearlessly, with intense detail and colour, Chasing the Light is a true insider's story of Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s, and Stone brings this period alive as only someone at the centre of the action truly can.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Daily Mail Book of the Year. A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year. Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir. For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight - or the headlines. Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years - all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception. As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress - and, always, if she was simply good enough. As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life - laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender - a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman''s at once ordinary and iconic life.
A silent comedy star whose legendary slapstick routines are recognisable to this day, Charles 'Charlie' Chaplin's My Autobiography is an incomparably vivid account of the life of one of the greatest filmmakers and comedians, with an introduction by David Robinson As a child, Charlie Chaplin was awed and inspired by the sight of glamorous vaudeville stars passing his home, and from then on he never lost his ambition to become an actor. Chaplin's film career as the Little Tramp adored by the whole world is the stuff of legend, but this frank autobiography shows another side. Born into a theatrical family, Chaplin's father died of drink while his mother, unable to bear the poverty, suffered from bouts of insanity. From a childhood of grinding poverty in the south London slums, Chaplin found an escape in his early debut on the music hall stage, followed by his lucky break in America, the founding of United Artists with D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, the struggle to maintain artistic control over his work, the string of failed marriages, and his eventual exile from Hollywood after personal scandals and persecution for his left-wing politics during the McCarthy Era. Sir Charles 'Charlie' Chaplin (1895-1976) was born in Walworth, London. Best known for his work in silent film, his most famous role was The Little Tramp, a universally recognisable and iconic character who appeared in films such as The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). His other films include Modern Times (1936), a commentary on the Great Depression, and The Great Dictator (1940), a satirical attack on Hitler and the Nazis. If you enjoyed My Autobiography , you might like Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol , also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Tells so much about this curious, difficult man ... a wonderfully vivid imagination' The New York Times 'The only genius to come out of the movie industry' George Bernard Shaw
Viola Davis is a critically revered, award-winning actress of film, television and theater. She is the first Black actress to win Tony ( Fences & King Hedley II ), Oscar ( Fences ) and Emmy ( How to Get Away with Murder ) awards - The ''Triple Crown'' of acting. Davis starred in the Shondaland show "How to Get Away with Murder," a role for which she became the first African American actress to receive the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series." In 2012, Davis and her husband founded their production company, JuVee Productions, with its focus being on giving a voice to the voiceless through strong, impactful and culturally relevant narratives. Davis will next star in Showtime''s The First Lady, portraying Michelle Obama. Finding Me is her first book.>