Description
In Adventures of a Suburban Boy, John Boorman, hailed by the Observer as 'arguably Britain's greatest living director', offers an enthralling memoir of a creative life spent turning dreams into celluloid, and money into light.
One of cinema's authentic visionaries, Boorman nevertheless enjoyed an archetypal English suburban boyhood in the 1940s and 50s, attending Catholic school and finding his first employment in a dry-cleaner's. But his abiding passion was for film, and he got his first break during the 'gold rush' era of British television in the 1960s. After directing several innovative documentaries for the BBC, he graduated to motion pictures, first filming pop stars The Dave Clark Five for Catch Us If You Can, before venturing to Los Angeles to make his first Hollywood picture - and his first masterpiece - Point Blank. The film inaugurated Boorman's profound friendship with star Lee Marvin, which also led to a second professional collaboration on Hell in the Pacific.
What follows are accounts of Boorman's joys and agonies in the making of such extraordinary pictures as the terrifying backwoods adventure Deliverance, the fantastical epics Zardoz and Exorcist II: The Heretic, the glorious Arthurian legend Excalibur, his magnificent drama of imperilled Amazonian tribes, The Emerald Forest, and his semi-autobiographical, multi-Oscar-nominated Hope and Glory. Among the many friends and collaborators of whom Boorman offers vivid portraits are Lee Marvin, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson.
Adventures of a Suburban Boy is film-maker John Boorman's vivid memoir of writing and directing films such as Deliverance and Excalibur, and working with Sean Connery, Helen Mirren and Burt Reynolds.
About the Author
John Boorman was born in London in 1933. After working as a film reviewer for magazines and radio, he joined the BBC in 1955 as an assistant editor, and later directed a number of documentaries. His first feature was Catch Us If You Can in 1965. He is a five-time Academy Award-nominee, and was twice awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for Leo the Last (1970) and The General (1998). He has contributed as a writer or director to numberous other films, including Deliverance (1972), and Hope and Glory (1987). He is the author of Money Into Light: The Emerald Forest - A Diary, as well as the being the co-founder and editor of Faber & Faber's long-running series Projections: Film-makers on Film-making.
Reviews
'He has had a thrillingly interesting life all over the world - and what's more, he can write better than most novelists.' Philip Horne, Daily Telegraph; 'Contains many laugh-aloud anecdotes.' Sunday Telegraph; 'Among the best first-hand accounts of the creative process of directing films.' Scotland on Sunday
Book Information
ISBN 9780571216963
Author John Boorman
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 210g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 120mm * 20mm
