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500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII
A thrilling deep dive into the creation of the revered PlayStation RPG.Comprising over thirty interwoven voices, this beautifully produced book offers unprecedented insight into the craft and ambition behind the revered PlayStation RPG. An extended adaptation of Matt Leone’s celebrated 27,000 word history, published online by Polygon in January 2017, this physical version has been designed by Rachel Dalton and features sixteen specially commissioned illustrations by sparrows, eight new standalone interviews, and a foreword by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.
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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: The official novel of the highly anticipated new game (Assassin’s Creed, 10)
Journey deeper in the world of Assassin’s Creed in the official novel of the incredible game: Odyssey.
Greece, 5th century BCE.
Kassandra is a mercenary of Spartan blood, sentenced to death by her family, cast out into exile. Now she will embark on an epic journey to become a legendary hero – and uncover the truth about her mysterious lineage.
The Assassin’s Creed novels have sold more than 1 MILLION COPIES around the world – see what readers are saying:
‘A brilliant read’ *****
‘I love this book’ *****
‘Original and unique’ *****
‘A brilliant accompaniment to the games’ *****
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Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds
A dazzling look at modern videogame worlds seen through an architectural lens, utilizing maps, diagrams and graphic illustrations to offer new perspectives on the art of virtual world building.Videogame Atlas presents a journey through twelve well-known videogame worlds via panoramic maps, intricate exploded diagrams and detailed illustrations. The book offers a playful new way of seeing these beloved virtual worlds using the practices and academic rigour that underpins real-world architectural theory.
Titles such as Minecraft, Assassin’s Creed Unity and Final Fantasy VII are explored in exhaustive detail through over 200 detailed illustrations of the micro and macro, each with supporting commentary and architectural theory. Taking influence from high-end architectural monographs, the book is carefully designed to the smallest of details and its production is intricately executed.
This book, printed in five colours, with neon ink throughout, is a culmination of Luke and Sandra’s work, which includes founding the Videogame Urbanism studio at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL that promotes the use of game technologies in architectural education.
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£28.90£38.00Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds
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Music Is History: Questlove
New York Times bestselling Music Is History combines Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years―now in paperback Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapes, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate conversation with one of music’s most influential and original voices, Music Is History is a singular look at contemporary America.Read more
£11.80£13.30Music Is History: Questlove
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Unfinished Business – The Life & Times of Danny Gatton
(Book). Danny Gatton was a players’ guitar player, hailed by both Rolling Stone and Guitar Player as the greatest unknown guitarist anywhere. His legend has only grown since his untimely suicide in 1994, along with appreciation for his blinding speed, effortless genre-hopping, flawless technique, and never-ending appetite for tinkering and problem-solving. Drawing from first-hand interviews with dozens of friends, family members and fellow musicians, Unfinished Business places Gatton’s musical contributions into context, and documents his influence on those peers who admired him most, including Albert Lee, Vince Gill, Arlen Roth and Lou Reed.Read more
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Limelight: Rush in the ’80s: Rush in the ’80s (Rush Across the Decades): Rush in the ’80s
In the follow up to Anthem: Rush in the ’70s, Martin Popoff brings together canon analysis, cultural context, and extensive firsthand interviews to celebrate Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart at the peak of their persuasive power. Rush was one of the most celebrated hard rock acts of the ’80s, and the second book of Popoff’s staggeringly comprehensive three part series takes readers from Permanent Waves to Presto, while bringing new insight to Moving Pictures, their crowning glory. Limelight: Rush in the is a celebration of fame, of the pushback against that fame, of fortunes made — and spent… In the latter half of the decade, as Rush adopts keyboard technology and gets pert and poppy, there’s an uproar amongst diehards, but the band finds a whole new crop of listeners. Limelight charts a dizzying period in the band’s career, built of explosive excitement but also exhaustion, a state that would lead, as the ’90s dawned, to the band questioning everything they previously believed, and each member eying the oncoming decade with trepidation and suspicion.
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Love Saves the Day: A History Of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979
Opening with David Mancuso’s seminal “Love Saves the Day” Valentine’s party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music culture in the 1970s—from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell’s Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire transmission through America’s suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, and Miami.Tales of nocturnal journeys, radical music making, and polymorphous sexuality flow through the arteries of Love Saves the Day like hot liquid vinyl. They are interspersed with a detailed examination of the era’s most powerful djs, the venues in which they played, and the records they loved to spin—as well as the labels, musicians, vocalists, producers, remixers, party promoters, journalists, and dance crowds that fueled dance music’s tireless engine.
Love Saves the Day includes material from over three hundred original interviews with the scene’s most influential players, including David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Tom Moulton, Loleatta Holloway, Giorgio Moroder, Francis Grasso, Frankie Knuckles, and Earl Young. It incorporates more than twenty special dj discographies—listing the favorite records of the most important spinners of the disco decade—and a more general discography cataloging some six hundred releases. Love Saves the Day also contains a unique collection of more than seventy rare photos.
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Rave New World: Confessions of a Raving Reporter
‘Love this book! It triggers so many memories of the rave era. Thoroughly recommended.’ – FATBOY SLIM‘Captures the hedonism and humour of the nineties with a laugh-out-loud honesty. The perfect Ibiza holiday read…if you can get it through customs!’ – JUDGE JULES
As a humble barman at the M25 Orbital raves, Kirk Field witnessed the moment acid house exploded. Inspired by media lies to start writing the truth about what he saw unfolding, Kirk became a ‘raving’ reporter for the clubbers’ bible Mixmag, covering the historic parties from the inside and sending sweat-soaked dispatches from distant dancefloors as the scene expanded across Europe and beyond.
With a cast of characters including Diego Maradona, Timothy Leary, the KLF, Michael Eavis, Genesis P-Orridge, Brigitte Nielsen, Boris Yeltsin, Boy George, Saddam Hussein’s wife, the president of Tunisia, the CIA, the KGB, Dave Courtney, Norman Lamont’s dominatrix and even Her Majesty the Queen, Kirk’s whirlwind account of the golden age of clubbing tells the story of what really happened in the ‘naughty ’90s’, exposing the seedy underbelly of rave culture while also capturing the nostalgic spirit of the era.
Told through a mixture of vivid first-person narrative, surreal insider anecdotes and incisive social commentary, this honest, hilarious and uncensored postcard of hedonism will appeal to anyone who’s ever put their hands in the air like they just don’t care.
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£16.70£19.00Rave New World: Confessions of a Raving Reporter
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Too Late To Stop Now: More Rock’n’Roll War Stories
More than 40 stories from the glory days of rock’n’roll, featuring Lou Reed, Elton John, Sting and The Clash.
Allan Jones brings stories – many previously unpublished – from the golden days of music reporting. Long nights of booze, drugs and unguarded conversations which include anecdotes, experiences and extravagant behaviour.
– A band’s aftershow party in San Francisco being gatecrashed by cocaine-hungry Hells Angels
– Chrissie Hynde on how rock’n’roll killed The Pretenders
– What happened when Nick Lowe and 20 of his mates flew off to Texas to join the Confederate Air Force
– John Cale on his dark alliance with Lou ReedAllan Jones remembers a world that once was – one of dark excess and excitement, outrageous deeds and extraordinary talent, featuring legends at both the beginnings and ends of their careers.
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£12.30£16.10Too Late To Stop Now: More Rock’n’Roll War Stories
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Music: The Business (8th edition): (8th edition)
This essential and highly acclaimed guide, now updated and revised in its eighth edition, explains the business of the British music industry.
Drawing on her extensive experience as a media lawyer, Ann Harrison offers a unique, expert opinion on the deals, the contracts and the business as a whole. She examines in detail the changing face of the music industry and provides absorbing and up-to-date case studies.
Whether you’re a recording artist, songwriter, music business manager, industry executive, publisher, journalist, media student, accountant or lawyer, this practical and comprehensive guide is indispensable reading.
Fully revised and updated. Includes:
· The current types of record and publishing deals, and what you can expect to see in the contracts
· A guide to making a record, manufacture, distribution, branding, marketing, merchandising, sponsorship, band arrangements and touring
· Information on music streaming, digital downloads and piracy
· The most up-to-date insights on how the COVID-19 crisis has affected marketing
· An in-depth look at copyright law and related rights
· Case studies illustrating key developments and legal jargon explained.Read more
£25.70£33.30Music: The Business (8th edition): (8th edition)
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Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey
‘You will love this book.’ – RICHARD OSMANShortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize
A Rough Trade Book of the Year
A Resident Book of the Year
A Monorail Book of the Year
A Virgin Radio Book of the YearIn 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which ‘indie’ was born.
But what happened next to all those musical dreamers?
Some of the bands, like Primal Scream, went on to achieve global stardom; others, such as Half Man Half Biscuit and The Wedding Present, cultivated lifelong fanbases that still sustain their careers today. Then there were the rest – the ones who endured general indifference from the record-buying public and ultimately returned to civvy street.
Now, thirty-five years on, journalist Nige Tassell tracks down the class of C86, unearthing members of all twenty-two bands and sharing the stories, both tragic and uplifting, of these long-lost musicians.
Told with warmth, compassion and humour, this is a very human account of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on music – or, more accurately, after music gives up on you. It’s a world populated by bike-shop owners, dance-music producers, record-store proprietors, ornithologists, driving instructors, solicitors, caricaturists and possibly even an Olympic sailor. And let’s not forget the musician-turned-actor gainfully employed as Jeremy Irons’ body double…
More than simply the tale of the tape, Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? is an exploration of C86’s wide-reaching and often surprising legacy.
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Later … With Jools Holland: 30 Years of Music, Magic and Mayhem
’You never knew what you were going to be confronted with when you went on Later…’ Nick Cave
‘Later… is a voyage of discovery for us as well as the viewers’ Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl and Alicia Keys loved it, Björk treasured it, Ed Sheeran’s life was changed by it, Kano felt at home while Nick Cave was horrified but inspired, and they all kept coming back.
This first-hand account of the BBC’s Later… with Jools Holland takes you behind the scenes of one of the world’s great musical meeting places. Legends including Sir Paul McCartney, Mary J. Blige and David Bowie found a regular welcome, alongside the next generation of superstars including Adele, Ed Sheeran and Amy Winehouse. Part of what has made the show so special is the format – all those bands, singers, stars and newbies brought together to listen as well as to perform in Jools’ circle of dreams. But there’s always been plenty of mayhem alongside the magic of convening a room full of musicians hosted by one of their own.
Written by the show’s co-creator and 26-year showrunner, music journalist Mark Cooper, this is the story of how Later… grew into a musical and TV institution. It was Mark who had to explain to Jay-Z why he couldn’t just do his numbers and split, who told Seasick Steve why he had to play ‘Dog House Boogie’ on the Hootenanny and persuaded Johnny Cash that he simply had to come in, even when The Man in Black wasn’t feeling well.
From Stormzy to Björk, from Smokey Robinson to Norah Jones, from Britpop to trip hop, here is the word on how Later… began, evolved and has endured, accompanied by exclusive interviews with some of the show’s regular stars as well as the unique pictorial record of Andre Csillag who photographed the show for over 20 years. A must-read for music fans everywhere, Later… with Jools Hollandpulls back the curtain on classic performances to reveal that the show is just as magical, if even more chaotic, than you imagined.
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Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition
The 50th anniversary edition of a classic text, featuring an expanded selection of color studies
“The landmark 1963 book by Josef Albers . . . isn’t just for aspiring artists. Its mesmerizing illustrations are a revelation for anyone interested in color theory and human perception.”―Pilar Viladas, New York Times
“A visionary work.”―Malcolm Jones, Newsweek
Josef Albers’s classic Interaction of Color is a masterwork in art education. Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this influential book presents Albers’s singular explanation of complex color theory principles.
Originally published by Yale University Press in 1963 as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates, Interaction of Color first appeared in paperback in 1971, featuring ten color studies chosen by Albers, and has remained in print ever since. With over a quarter of a million copies sold in its various editions since 1963, Interaction of Color remains an essential resource on color, as pioneering today as when Albers created it.
Fifty years after Interaction’s initial publication, this anniversary edition presents a significantly expanded selection of close to sixty color studies alongside Albers’s original text, demonstrating such principles as color relativity, intensity, and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusion of transparency and reversed grounds. A celebration of the longevity and unique authority of Albers’s contribution, this landmark edition will find new audiences in studios and classrooms around the world.Read more
£9.70£11.40Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition
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Palestine
A powerful graphic novel, capturing the heart of day-to-day life in occupied Palestine.
In late 1991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes.
Upon returning to the United States he started writing and drawing Palestine, which combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling to explore this complex, emotionally weighty situation. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour.
The nine-issue comics series won a l996 American Book Award. It is now published for the first time in one volume, befitting its status as one of the great classics of graphic non-fiction.
‘The bar is set extremely high when it comes to graphic books and the Middle East: one thinks of Joe Sacco’s Palestine’ Guy Delise
‘Palestine is utterly compelling, and as affecting as the work of any war photographer or poet’ Varsity
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£13.60£16.10Palestine
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Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants and Trees [Illustrated Edition]
2012 Reprint of 1960 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In this unique and fascinating book, two collectors of pictorial symbols tell the story of flower symbolism, explaining its religious, magical and legendary significance and revealing hundreds of curious and little know facts. This is an essential work for folklorists, for artists and designers in all fields, for botanical and gardening specialists, and for all those who would be familiar with the hidden language of flowers, plants and trees. Profusely illustrated.Read more
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African Designs from Traditional Sources (Dover Pictorial Archive)
These 378 linocut prints in crisp black-and-white designs reflect traditional work from Zulu, Masai, and dozens of other tribes. This pictorial archive includes masks, abstract motifs, and much more.Read more
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Treasury of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures: 1,087 Renderings from Historic Sources (Dover Pictorial Archive)
Drawing on fifty centuries of human history, this encyclopedic collection of images is filled with demons, monsters, animal-gods, totemic figures, and other supernatural beasts from the darker realms of man’s imagination. Works range from prehistoric rock paintings to the drawings of Max Ernst, from the masks of black Africa to the gargoyles of Notre Dame.Read more
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Dad’s Army: The making of a TV legend
Dad’s Army has been an enduring highlight of the small screen since its debut on British television in 1968. The show, which follows the exploits of the Home Guard of Walmington-on-Sea, a fictional seaside town on the south coast of England, ran for nine series in total, comprising 80 episodes, and regularly attracted viewing figures of over 18 million at the height of its popularity. Today, it is still shown weekly on BBC 2 and was recently placed fourth in a BBC poll of Britain’s Best Sitcoms Ever. The show has permeated British society, with the characters’ signature catchphrases (particularly Captain Mainwaring’s ‘Stupid boy!’) having entered the lexicon of popular culture. Such is its appeal that in August 2008 Jonathan Ross paid tribute to Dad’s Army with an hour-long special, looking back on the show’s success and reliving its funniest moments. Yet Dad’s Army is also credited with drawing attention to the important role that Local Defence Volunteers (later known as the Home Guard) played in the Second World War, in guarding coastal areas of Britain and other important industrial and military sites such as factories and explosives stores, and in observing and reporting enemy aircraft. Bill Pertwee found fame as ARP Warden Hodges in the series and has put together a comprehensive tribute to all aspects of the show. This book includes extensive features on the two creators of Dad’s Army, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, along with biographies of the whole cast of actors who brought this British comedy classic to life, paying particular attention to such memorable figures as Arthur Lowe (Captain Mainwaring), John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Wilson), Clive Dunn (Corporal Jones) and Ian Lavender (Private Pike). As an integral part of the show itself, Bill Pertwee is uniquely positioned to give an intimate view of his co-stars, their families and the supporting production team. His colourful account includes many hilarious incidents on and off the set, such as filming for Columbia Pictures and being invited to tea at 10 Downing Street. Numerous colour photos as well as a fine selection of well-reproduced original stills supplement the informative text, and a full episode listing is included, together with articles on the many Dad’s Army spin-offs and side projects, including the highly successful stage play, movie adaptation and radio series.Read more
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Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers
A razor-sharp and achingly funny memoir of the men and movies that shaped one woman’s life…
A unique memoir, ‘Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers’ is the story of how a young female film critic’s love-life is affected and nearly ruined by her obsession with male movie stars. As her increasingly hapless hunt for the right man unfolds and her television and newspaper career unravels, our heroine finally begins to understand that difficult truth: that life is not like the movies.
Entwined with the narrative of her real-life love affairs is a kaleidoscope of digressions on great screen actors – her dream-life with Gerard Depardieu, a personal ad seeking out Tom Cruise, a disastrous climactic encounter with Jeff Bridges. It’s a helter skelter ride through love and the movies which reads like a screwball comedy. And the screwball is our heroine, who seems to know everything about movies and the human heart, and nothing about anything else.
Written in a fresh and utterly engaging voice, ‘Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers’ is both moving and hilarious, a bittersweet and endearingly honest one-off.
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The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes
In his classic sequence of films, Patrick Keiller retraces the hidden story of the places where we live, the cities and landscapes of our everyday lives. This collection explores the surrealist perception of the city; the relationship of architecture to film; how cities change over time, as well as an urgent portrait of post-crash Britain. The View from the Train establishes Keiller as one of the most perceptive writers and thinkers about the city, landscape and politics.Read more
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British National Cinema (National Cinemas)
The first substantial overview of the British film industry with emphasis on its genres, stars, and socioeconomic context, British National Cinema by Sarah Street is an important title in Routledge’s new National Cinemas series. British National Cinema synthesizes years of scholarship on British film while incorporating the author’ fresh perspective and research. Street divides the study of British cinema into four sections: the relation between the film industry and government; specific film genres; movie stars; and experimental cinema. In addition, this beautifully illustrated volume includes over thirty stills from every sphere of British cinema. British National Cinema will be of great interest to film students and theorists as well as the general reader interested in the fascinating scope of British film.
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Very Naughty Boys: The Amazing True Story of Handmade Films
It all started when Beatle George Harrison stepped in to fund Life of Brian when Monty Python’s original backers pulled out. His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong… This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders’ story of what happened…Read more
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Censorship And The Permissive Society: British Cinema and Theatre, 1955-1965
Stage or film presentations of Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alfie, and Darling were much changed, even transformed, by censorship between 1955-1965. Indeed, censorship altered the progression of the artistic and creative renaissance of the period, and John Osborne, Shelagh Delaney, Alan Sillitoe, Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, and John Schlesinger are just a few of the people who were forced to change their work.Censorship and the Permissive Society explores the predicament writers and directors faced, and highlights the debate over the liberalizing or progressive aspects of the sea changes affecting British society at the time.Read more
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Delivering Dreams: A Century of British Film Distribution
Film Distributors are the unsung heroes of cinema. Without them, the film industry would grind to a halt. Drawing on the archives of the Film Distributors Association (FDA), as well as on interviews with leading British distributors of today, Delivering Dreams tells the, largely unacknowledged, story of how films were, and are, brought to British cinema-goers. It profiles some of the most flamboyant and controversial figures involved in UK distribution over the last 100 years, ranging from the founders of huge companies to visionaries who have launched small art house labels. Geoffrey Macnab also explores how the sector has reacted to a rapidly changing market and technological environment, from the transition to sound in the late 1920s to the spectre of TV in the 1950s and the move to digital in the 2000s. Ranging from the films of Charlie Chaplin to The King s Speech, and published to coincide with the centenary of the FDA s creation in December 1915, this book highlights the crucial role that distributors have played in maintaining the solid foundations of the British film industry.Read more
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Arrows of Desire: Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger formed one of the greatest creative partnerships in the history of British cinema – The Archers. Their films were often controversial – Churchill tried to suppress the release of “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”. Later, “The Red Shoes” and “The Tales of Hoffman” startled and enchanted cinema audiences with their use of colour, form amd music. However, in the last ten years the magic, poetry and passion of their work has been acknowledged around the world and they are firmly in the pantheon of film masters. This book is a comprehensive analysis of their films and is a useful guide to their work.Read more
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Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down: How One Generation of British Actors Changed the World
Alan Bates, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, Robert Shaw and Terence Stamp: They are the most formidable acting generation ever to tread the boards or stare into a camera, whose anti-establishment attitude changed the cultural landscape of Britain.
This was a new breed, many culled from the working class industrial towns of Britain, and nothing like them has been seen before or since. Their raw earthy brilliance brought realism to a whole range of groundbreaking theatre from John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger to Joan Littlewood and Harold Pinter and the creation of the National Theatre. And they ripped apart the staid, middle-class British film industry with kitchen-sink classics like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar before turning their sights on international stardom: Connery with James Bond, O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, Finney with Tom Jones and Caine in Zulu.
Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down brings alive the trail-blazing period of theatre and film from 1956-1964 through the vibrant energy and exploits of this revolutionary generation of stars who bulldozed over austerity Britain and paved the way for the swinging 60s. What Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders Raging Bulls did for American cinema writing so Don’t Let the Bastards will do for the British cinema.
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Directory of World Cinema: Britain (Directory of World Cinema Series Book 14)
Bringing to mind rockers and royals, Buckingham Palace and the Scottish Highlands, Britain holds a special interest for international audiences who have flocked in recent years to quality exports like Fish Tank, Trainspotting and The King’s Speech. A series of essays and articles exploring the definitive films of Great Britain, this addition to Intellect’s Directory of World Cinema series turns the focus on England together with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
With a focus on the most cerebral and critically important films to have come out of Britain, this volume explores the diversity of genres found throughout British film, highlighting important regional variations that reflect the distinctive cultures of the countries involved. Within these genres, Emma Bell and Neil Mitchell have curated a rich collection of films for review – from Hitchcock’s spy thriller The 39 Steps to Emeric Pressburger’s art classic The Red Shoes to the gritty but heartfelt This is England. Interspersed throughout the book are critical essays by leading experts in the field providing insight into shifting notions of Britishness, important industry developments and the endurance of the British film industry. For those up on their Brit film facts and seeking to test their expertise, the book concludes with a series of trivia questions.
A user-friendly look at the cultural and artistic significance of British cinema from the silent era to the present, Directory of World Cinema: Britain will be an essential companion to the country’s bright and resurgent film industry.
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Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema
This deluxe, expanded new full colour edition includes an updated filmography and previously unpublished interview material and stills. In this title, Simon Sheridan traces the history of the British sex film from its beginnings in coy nudist camp films such as Some Like It Cool (directed by Michael Winner in 1960) through the boom years of the Confessions films to its demise in the early 1980s.Read more
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The Art of Invective: Selected Non-Fiction 1953-94: Selected Non-Fiction 1953-1994
Dennis Potter (1935-94) was Britain’s leading television dramatist for almost thirty years and remains an inspiration to today’s programme makers, as a result of such ground-breaking work as Pennies from Heaven, Blue Remembered Hills and The Singing Detective. But he also engaged with his audience through reviews, journalism, interviews, broadcasts and speeches. The Art of Invective, the first collection of its kind, brings together some of his finest non-fiction work. Published to mark 80 years since Potter’s birth, this book includes his merciless television columns, penetrating literary criticism and angry writings on class and politics, as well as his sketches for Sixties satire shows including That Was the Week That Was. From Frost-Nixon to Coronation Street, David Hare to Doctor Who, Orwell to Emu, this collection shows Potter’s distinctive voice at its entertaining, thought-provoking and uncompromising best.Read more
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Vision on: Film, Television and the Arts in Britain (Nonfictions)
Vision On narrates the turbulent yet distinguished history of one of the fundamental pillars of British broadcasting–the arts. This volume chronicles the years of dynamic and often controversial collaboration between broadcasters and the Arts Council, a key player in bringing art films to the wider public audience. Beginning with the earliest TV documentaries, the arts became central to the remit of public broadcasters, and by the 1980s Channel 4 and the Arts Council were boldly redefining the relationship of the arts and the media by commissioning and airing exclusive and innovative films. With detailed discussion of the cultural role of television programmes such as Civilisation (1966) and Arena (1974 onwards), close analysis of over 25 films and exclusive access to the Arts Council’s collection of the 450 films supported between 1953 and 1999, this volume illuminates the vanguard role the arts have played in the proud history of British public broadcasting, and attempts to locate the place of arts broadcasting in today’s multi-channel, multi-media world.Read more
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The Encyclopedia of British Film: Fourth Edition
With well over 6,300 articles, including over 500 new entries, this fourth edition of The Encyclopedia of British Film is a fully updated invaluable reference guide to the British film industry. It is the most authoritative volume yet, stretching from the inception of the industry to the present day, with detailed listings of the producers, directors, actors and studios behind a century or so of great British cinema.
Brian McFarlane’s meticulously researched guide is the definitive companion for anyone interested in the world of film. Previous editions have sold many thousands of copies and this fourth edition will be an essential work of reference for enthusiasts interested in the history of British cinema, and for universities and libraries.
— .
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Emeric Pressburger: Life and Death of a Screenwriter: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter
A Hungarian Jew who lived and worked in half a dozen European countries before arriving in Britain in 1935, Pressburger’s reputation rests on the series of strikingly original films he made in collaboration with Michael Powell under the banner of The Archers. The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp all bear the unique credit ‘Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’.
Frequently controversial, always experimental, The Archers suffered a long period of neglect before being rediscovered by such prominent admirers as Martin Scorsese, Derek Jarman and Francis Ford Coppola.
Written by his grandson, and containing extracts from private diaries and correspondence, this biography defends the notion of film as a collaborative art and illuminates the adventurous life and work of the film-maker who brought continental grace, with and style to British cinema.
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All of Me: My Extraordinary Life – The Most Recent Autobiography by Barbara Windsor
THE HEART-WARMING AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY BARBARA WINDSOR CHRONICLING HER EARLY CHILDHOOD IN LONDON’S EAST END TO RECEIVING A DBE IN 2000
‘A whopping, no-holds-barred rollercoaster of a book’ Mail on Sunday
`Barbara Windsor emerges from these pages as a personality both strong and sunny’ Sunday Telegraph
Born in the East End of London just before the war, Barbara Windsor made her first stage appearance at the age of 13. From her early roles as the original Carry On dolly bird to her longest role as Peggy Mitchell in the award-winning BBC drama EastEnders, her spectacular success in theatre, film and TV has made her a British icon – the Cockney kid with a dazzling smile and talent to match.
Here, for the first time, she talks in depth about the people and events that have shaped her career: her lonely childhood, her doomed marriage to Ronnie Knight, her legendary affairs, how she never let her fans down whatever her personal anguish. This is the heart-warming story of a courageous woman and consummate performer who has always made sure the show goes on.
‘By living up to its title alone it makes a nonsense of every other showbiz bleat ‘n’ brag ever put to paper’ Julie Burchill
‘Infinitely more interesting than the sentimental schmaltz we have read about her before’ Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph
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Subterranean Cities: The World beneath Paris and London, 1800–1945
The underground has been a dominant image of modern life since the late eighteenth century. A site of crisis, fascination, and hidden truth, the underground is a space at once more immediate and more threatening than the ordinary world above. In Subterranean Cities, David L. Pike explores the representation of underground space in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period during which technology and heavy industry transformed urban life.The metropolis had long been considered a moral underworld of iniquity and dissolution. As the complex drainage systems, underground railways, utility tunnels, and storage vaults of the modern cityscape superseded the countryside of caverns and mines as the principal location of actual subterranean spaces, ancient and modern converged in a mythic space that was nevertheless rooted in the everyday life of the contemporary city. Writers and artists from Felix Nadar and Charles Baudelaire to Charles Dickens and Alice Meynell, Gustave Doré and Victor Hugo, George Gissing and Emile Zola, and Jules Verne and H. G. Wells integrated images of the urban underworld into their portrayals of the anatomy of modern society. Illustrated with photographs, movie stills, prints, engravings, paintings, cartoons, maps, and drawings of actual and imagined urban spaces, Subterranean Cities documents the emergence of a novel space in the subterranean obsessions and anxieties within nineteenth-century urban culture. Chapters on the subways, sewers, and cemeteries of Paris and London provide a detailed analysis of these competing centers of urban modernity. A concluding chapter considers the enduring influence of these spaces on urban culture at the turn of the twenty-first century.
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Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling
In this official centennial history of the greatest studio in Hollywood, unforgettable stars, untold stories, and rare images from the Warner Bros. vault bring a century of entertainment to vivid life.
The history of Warner Bros. is not just the tale of a legendary film studio and its stars, but of classic Hollywood itself, as well as a portrait of America in the last century. It’s a family story of Polish-Jewish immigrants-the brothers Warner-who took advantage of new opportunities in the burgeoning film industry at a time when four mavericks could invent ways of operating, of warding off government regulation, and of keeping audiences coming back for more during some of the nation’s darkest days.
Innovation was key to their early success. Four years after its founding, the studio revolutionized moviemaking by introducing sound in The Jazz Singer (1927). Stars and stories gave Warner Bros. its distinct identity as the studio where tough guys like Humphrey Bogart and strong women like Bette Davis kept people on the edge of their seats. Over the years, these acclaimed actors and countless others made magic on WB’s soundstages and were responsible for such diverse classics as Casablanca, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Star Is Born, Bonnie & Clyde, Malcolm X, Caddyshack, Purple Rain, and hundreds more.It’s the studio that put noir in film with The Maltese Falcon and other classics of the genre, where the iconic Looney Tunes were unleashed on animation, and the studio that took an unpopular stance at the start of World War II by producing anti-Nazi films. Counter-culture hits like A Clockwork Orange and The Exorcist carried the studio through the 1970s and ’80s. Franchise phenomena like Harry Potter, the DC universe, and more continue to shape a cinematic vision and longevity that is unparalleled in the annals of film history. These stories and more are chronicled in this comprehensive and stunning volume.
Copyright © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
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£28.30£33.30Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling
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1971: 100 Films from Cinema’s Greatest Year
1971 was a great year for cinema. Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Dario Argento, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Nicolas Roeg and Steven Spielberg, among many others, were behind the camera, while the stars were also out in force. Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Sean Connery, Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Vanessa Redgrave all featured in films released in 1971.
The remarkable artistic flowering that came from the ‘New Hollywood’ of the ’70s was just beginning, while the old guard was fading away and the new guard was taking over. With a decline in box office attendances by the end of the ’60s, along with a genuine inability to come up with a reliable barometer of box office success, studio heads gave unprecedented freedom to young filmmakers to lead the way.
Featuring interviews with cast and crew members, bestselling author Robert Sellers explores this landmark year in Hollywood and in Britain, when this new age was at its freshest, and where the transfer of power was felt most exhilaratingly.
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£16.40£19.001971: 100 Films from Cinema’s Greatest Year
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The Shepperton Story
This exhaustive and affectionate history is crammed with information and rare pictures from the famous Shepperton Studios. From assistants to directors, producers, stars, prop men, production managers and studio executives, the author has interviewed over 200 industry people and has painstakingly researched the history of the studio site from its first recorded use in the Doomsday Book through its redevelopment as one of Britain’s first major film studios in 1932. The studio has housed classic movies featuring comedy great Will Hay, to blood-churning horrors starring Todd Slaughter through the studio’s covert use during the Second World War as a camouflage manufacturing plant and on to its reopening with great classics such as The Third Man, The Tales Of Hoffman, Dr Strangelove and I’m All Right Jack, and on to modern greats such as Flash Gordon, Alien, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, The Crying Game, Chaplin, Gladiator, Troy, Batman Begins, The Da Vinci Code and The Golden Compass. This is their story.
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£20.10£23.80The Shepperton Story
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The UK Film Finance Handbook: How to Fund Your Film
The reader – from beginner making their first short film, through to experienced producer packagin an international multi-million pound co-production – is guided through the entire process of raising finance, in a book packed with interviews, case studies, expert tips and details of more than 200 funds.The UK Film Funding Guide 2003/04 was originally published by Shooting People and went on to sell almost 4,000 copies amongst the UKÂ’s guerilla filmmaking scene. This second edition – the UK Film Finance Handbook 2005/06 – from the same authors, is published by Netribution and has been fully revised, updated and expanded.
• All forms of production finance fully explained – including the new UK 20% tax credit
• International and co-production incentives for over 20 countries
• 101 tips and tricks from low-budget filmmakers for more affordable films
• Directory comprising over 400 film contacts across all sectors
• Top level interviews including UK Film Council execs, the head of BBC Films and Nik Powell, co-founder of Virgin and one of the UK’s most seasoned producers.Read more
£3.30