Adventures of a Suburban Boy
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
John Boorman came of age as a filmmaker in the 1960s--the golden age of world cinema. Then as now, his celebrated films embrace the spirit of the era: challenging authority, questioning accepted morality, and examining the thin line between civilization and savagery. In Adventures of a Suburban Boy, Boorman delves deeply into these themes, applying his subversive sensibility to his life story as well as to some of the most important political and cultural events of the twentieth century. The result is a heady fusion of personal memoir and cinematic study, as a child of the London Blitz becomes the influential director known for films such as Point Blank, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, Deliverance, and The General--discussing the cultural role of the motion picture and the art of filmmaking along the way.
With a vividly depicted supporting cast that includes Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Burt Reynolds, and Cher, among others, this entertaining and witty tour through the life, times, and works of one of the cinema's great practitioners is not only essential for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of Boorman's incredible body of work, but is also indispensable resource for anyone who is fascinated by film's impact on our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British film director Boorman, famed for Deliverance, Excalibur and The General, is a product of WWII. More specifically, he comes out of the semidetached suburbs of WWII London. His memoir part family history, part film bio is both tender and restrained. Boorman's emotional life was shaped by his parents' triangulated marriage his mother was in love with his father's best friend and his longing to escape the drabness of suburban life. "I vacillated between overweening ambition and despair," he notes. Enamored of broadcasting, he got a job editing news clips for Britain's ITN network in 1955 and became so adept, he was recruited by the BBC, where he rose to produce documentaries. Yet film remained his first love. He got his break in 1965 with Catch Us if You Can. The die was cast: Boorman became a darling of British cinema, eventually seeking recognition in Hollywood. By all accounts, he did not achieve the financial success others did, but he managed, despite occasional setbacks, to fulfill his artistic vision. Why, he asks, are people so drawn to moviemaking? "We are escaping the vague dissatisfactions of safe and comfortable lives. We want to be extended, tested." Boorman pushes the envelope, creating inspired cinema on small budgets, often in dangerous locales. A devoted father, he also discovers the gift of friendship with Lee Marvin and Jon Voight. Not a lurid tell-all, this is an honest appraisal of a life well lived. It begins and ends with Hope and Glory, Boorman's semi-autobiographical film about a boy's suburban childhood, whose critical acclaim proves that the suburbs served him well. 40 b&w photos.
