99 books match the query 'Motion picture producers and directors' and 4 start with o

cover of Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Holllywood Ten

Odd Man Out

A Memoir of the Holllywood Ten

Edward Dmytryk

Southern Illinois University Press, 1996

In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee rudely interrupted the successful career and life of Edward Dmytryk, citing him with contempt of Congress. As a result, Dmytryk was fired by RKO and spent three years in England before returning to the United States to serve a six-month jail sentence and undergo a second round of hearings, during which he recanted and provided evidence against several of his former colleagues.

In this personal and perceptive book, Dmytryk sharply chronicles the history of a particularly turbulent era in American political life while examining his own life before and after the events universally called the witch hunts. He details his brief membership in the Communist Party of America, explaining his initial commitment to what he perceived as communist ideals of civil liberties, economic justice, and antifacism, followed by his eventual disillusionment with the party as itbetrayed those ideals. He goes on to provide a fair assessment of what then happened to him and the effect it had on the rest of his life.

Dmytryk describes the activities, prejudices, and personal behaviors of all the parties enmeshed in the congressional hearings on communism in Hollywood. His reactions to other members of the Hollywood Ten and his recollection of conversations with them lend his book an immediacy that is not only informative but also absorbing. Most importantly, he does not uphold an ideology but rather presents the events as he perceived them, understood them, and responded to them. Dmytryk’s account is characterized by an openness born of a mature awareness of personal trial as history.

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cover of On Story—Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films

On Story—Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films

Austin Film Festival, Edited by Barbara Morgan and Maya Perez

University of Texas Press, 2016

“On Story is film school in a box, a lifetime’s worth of filmmaking knowledge squeezed into half-hour packages.”
—Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times

Austin Film Festival (AFF) is the first organization focused on the writer’s creative contribution to film. Its annual Film Festival and Conference offers screenings, panels, workshops, and roundtable discussions that help new writers and filmmakers connect with mentors and gain advice and insight from masters, as well as refreshing veterans with new ideas. To extend the festival’s reach, AFF produces On Story, a television series currently airing on PBS-affiliated stations and streaming online that presents footage of high-caliber artists talking candidly and provocatively about the art and craft of screenwriting and filmmaking, often using examples from their own films.

On Story—Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films presents renowned, award-winning screenwriters and filmmakers discussing their careers and the stories behind the production of their iconic films such as L.A. Confidential, Thelma & Louise, Groundhog Day, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Silence of the Lambs, In the Name of the Father, Apollo 13, and more. In their own lively words transcribed from interviews and panel discussions, Ron Howard, Callie Khouri, Jonathan Demme, Ted Tally, Jenny Lumet, Harold Ramis, and others talk about creating stories that resonate with one’s life experiences or topical social issues, as well as how to create appealing characters and bring them to life. Their insights, production tales, and fresh, practical, and proven advice make this book ideal for film lovers, screenwriting students, and filmmakers and screenwriters seeking inspiration.

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cover of Our Own Image: A Story of a Maori Filmmaker

Our Own Image

A Story of a Maori Filmmaker

Barry Barclay

University of Minnesota Press, 2015

Acclaimed Maori filmmaker Barry Barclay’s Our Own Image relates the experiences of making his documentaries and his critically acclaimed feature-length film Ngati (1987), widely credited as the first fiction feature by a member of an indigenous community. Barclay details his views on the process of filmmaking within his own Maori community and discusses how his work differed from popular cinema, advocating for indigenous control, participation, and perspectives in media.

Our Own Image gives an in-depth depiction of the changes Barclay’s approach contributed to the field of documentaries, as well as displaying the respect for community Barclay brought to his filming technique. His insistence on letting people speak for themselves demonstrated authenticity to audiences, creating awareness of indigenous cinema in New Zealand and worldwide.


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cover of Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy

Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy

Daisuke Miyao

Duke University Press, 2026

Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy re-examines cinema studies through the work of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu, employing the multiple methodologies and indeterminacy of Ozu’s films as a model for discussions of cinema’s relationship to the world and the formation of film studies as a discipline. Centering a selection of Ozu films in each chapter, Daisuke Miyao builds a method based on the way films directed by Ozu avoid unitary perspective and allow multiple possibilities of standpoint and spectatorial position, which Miyao calls the ethics of indeterminacy. Analyzing Ozu’s use of cinematography, narrative, and color, Miyao theorizes the indeterminate in film—the seen and unseen, human and nonhuman, domestic and international—to initiate a multi-directional dialogue on the study of cinema that reaches beyond auteurism and culturalism to establish a new basis for disciplinary conversations.
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