The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Fifth Edition, Completely Updated and Expanded

If you're looking for a standard reference work, look elsewhere (Katz is probably your best bet). That said, this is one of the finest books I've discovered in years. You can read it from cover to cover and never get bored, which is probably impossible to say about any other reference book.David Thomson is absolutely brilliant. I disagree with about half of what he writes here, but even when I disagree I respect his opinions and greatly admire the way in which he articulates them. Very often in these entries you will find that unexpected beauty and strangeness that are the hallmarks of all great literature and all great art in general. Some of the passages are heartstopping. Here's Thomson on Jean Vigo:"L'Atalante is about a more profound attitude to love than Gaumont understood. It is love without spoken explanation, unaffected by sentimental songs; but love as a mysterious, passionate affinity between inarticulate human animals."Have you ever heard a more haunting, uncanny definition of love than this one? I haven't. After reading these words for the first time, I sat there like a fool in shock for five or six minutes, ruminating on their simple profundity.Thomson is also not afraid to be nasty, which is refreshing in this age of mindless, frothy hype being spewed in all directions on just about everyone. Here he is on Roberto Benigni:"Then came the thing called La Vite E Bella. As a matter of fact, I often echo that sentiment myself, but if there is anything likely to mar the bella-ness, it is not so much Hitlerism (I am against it), which is fairly obvious, as Benigni-ism, which walks away with high praise, box office, and Oscars. I despise Life Is Beautiful, especially its warmth, sincerity, and feeling, all of which I belive grow out of stupidity. Few events so surely signaled the decline of the motion picture as the glory piled on that odious and misguided fable."Sometimes that nastiness reaches the heights of pure poetry. Here is Thomson on Richard Gere:"There are times when Richard Gere has the warm affect of a wind tunnel at dawn, waiting for work, all sheen, inner curve, and posed emptiness. And those are not his worst times."Lest you think that Thomson is merely a fusty old curmudgeon, let me emphasize that in many other places (through most of the book, in fact), he displays a humanity and generosity of spirit that are nothing short of exemplary.This book is not so much a reference on film as a meditation on life and everything in it. In these past hundred years movies have covered exactly that kind of encyclopedic range, both in their subject matter and in the lives of their makers. Thomson uses the world of cinema as a vehicle with which to explore the magnificent enigma of life and existence, and somehow manages to pack more of that life into its 963 pages than practically any other book of any genre. Opinionated, yes, but then again so is the Bible. A true desert island book. An absolute masterpiece.

I have bought every edition of this book (this is the fourth) and find each one well worth the money. Thomson is the best writer among the movie critics, probably the best writer that has ever reviewed movies. His writing is so good, even when disagreeing with him, I still love reading the reviews or biographical sketches. He has a tremendous poetic economy with the English Language: consider the following:About Bruce Dern in the film Coming Home:". . . A rapturous embrace between Jane Fonda and Jon Voight was being watched by a wistful, suspicious Bruce Dern, his eyes lime pits of paranoia and resentment."Or Basil Rathbone:"The inverted arrow face, the razor nose, and a mustache that was really two fine shears stuck to his lip. Ladies looked fearfully at him, knowing that one embrace could cut them to ribbons."Both these passages capture the essence of the star perfectly. Just perfectly. The book is full of this kind of superior writing.The update has all the new stars, some who probably wish they were excluded. Who can not read a reviewer that says of Ben Affleck: ". . . Mr. Affleck is boring, complacent, and criminally lucky to have got away with everything so far."As I say, Thomson has a way of capturing things perfectly in a few words.

I am relieved to see that it's not necessary for me to reveal for the first time the utter inadequacy of this mistitled tome. Let me just add a few details. The extensive entry on Hitchcock never MENTIONS "Shadow of a Doubt ," to my mind one of his greatet films. The omission is made possible, like so many others, by Thomson's mistake of incorporating titles in a rambling, discursive, mostly chronological narrative rather than a simple list. There are innumerable such omissions, both within entries and in listings; I shuddered repeatedly as I discovered no listing at all for one after another expected name (e.g. Red Skelton). Thomson's errors of judgment are equally crippling. He carps at David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia," the incidental value of which in helping us understand the West's inability to understand "the Arab street" is enormous right now, calling the film "incoherent. Terry Gilliam gets less than half a page, his almost universally admired "Brazil" is reduced to "art direction at the expense of any scrutiny" without a mention of the famous battle with Universal or of the terrifyingly powerful vision so many have admired it for, and "Twelve Monkeys," which Thomson says he likes, gets only a dismissive contrast with films he likes better. Similarly Stanley Kubrick seems not to have produced five minutes of film worth watching since "The Killing" in 1957. Other reviewers here have demonstrated how Thomson's eccentric judgment weakens his entries for major figures like FelliniI. I'll add another, chosen virtually at random: Peter Sellers, whose universally acclaimed portrayal of three characters in "Doctor Strangelove," of which Thomson says only "his own pretensions vied with those of the director."*

There is an obscure connection between David Thomson and the Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse - film buffs will understand - and this book is like the restauarant - you will either love it or find it insufferably elitist. You may find Thomson's opinions cranky or but they are sincere and and founded on the the simple pleasures of being "at the movies".The book is equally weighted across time, meaning earlier film figures don't get short shrift. Particularly good are tantalizing references to early French and Japanese film figures, Ozu and Pagnol for example, that will make you want to seek out these hard-to-find treasures. I don't always agree with Thomson (am I the only person who loved "1941"?), but it's always interesting to pull out this book and see where our overrated-lists agree (Affleck!) and disagree ("1941"!!).

good

pleased with purchase

Belle présentation, donne l'impression d'un boulot fait sérieusement. Petit regret sur l'absence de Melina Merkouri ou Irène Papas, par exemple.Reste un bel outil.

Wer David Thomsons spitze Feder schätzt, wird am Inhalt dieses Buchs Freude haben.Leider liess sich die Kindle Edition (gekauft Juni 2013) in der iOS-Version für iPhone/iPad zunächst nur sequenziell lesen (also Seite um Seite wie ein Roman), da das (ohnehin etwas sonderbare) Inhaltsverzeichnis, welches nur aus den Buchstaben A-Z besteht, die entsprechenden Seiten nicht ansteuerte. Ein technischer Mangel, der einem professionellen Verlag nicht unterlaufen dürfte. Auf MacOS hingegen funktionierte dies einwandfrei.Inzwischen hat der Verlag den Mangel behoben; für einen Update des Buchs unter Mein Konto > Mein Kindle > Meine Geräte verwalten > automatische Buchaktualisierung einschalten.Nebenbei sei noch bemerkt: Ein Personenverzeichnis würde die Orientierung im Buch wesentlich erleichtern, da das Werk immerhin über 1000 reale Seiten aufweist.

いったん本を開くと、夢中になって、あっという間に時間がたってしまいます。ポーリン・ケールの "5001 Nights at the Movies" とともに、いつでも手元に置いておきたい一冊です。ケール女史同様、文章が面白いので、自分と意見が違っても納得しちゃいます。タイトルは「新・映画人名辞典」ですが、辞典というには、著者の個性が強すぎるし、網羅的でもありません。２段組で1000ページ弱あるので、かなりのボリュームですが、それでも1300名ほどしか扱っていません。だから、データブックとしてよりも、個人による評論集として読んだほうが良いと思います。プロデューサー、カメラマン、音楽家、脚本家、映画批評家なども少し取り上げていますが、監督と俳優がほとんどです。アメリカが中心で、有名な監督や俳優は網羅されているようだし、デカプリオやブラッド・ピットなどもちゃんと論じています。私は最近の映画をよく知らないので、テレビで放映される映画を見ようかどうしようか迷ったときに、監督や俳優から調べていけば、作品の評価も、ある程度分かります。アメリカ以外の国の映画人もエントリーされています。日本の場合、監督は溝口健二、小津安二郎、黒澤明、成瀬巳喜男、五所平之助、市川崑、今村昌平、木下恵介、衣笠貞之助、小林正樹、大島渚、女優は田中絹代、原節子、山田五十鈴、京マチ子、高峰秀子、男優は三船敏郎と森雅之がエントリーされています（ざっと調べただけなので、抜けがあるかもしれません）。こういった人たちが国際的なんだろうけど、かなり古めかしい感じがします。大島渚の「御法度」をほめてたりもしますが、この本の初版が出た1976年から、それほど変わっていないようです。ハワード・ホークスの「脱出」の写真を表紙で使用している以外、文字だけなので、デジタル版も買ってみたくなりました。