Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1010327 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-30
• Released on: 1999-01-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

From Amazon.com
If the U.S. were to boast one great independent film director, he would be John Sayles. Since 1979, more than 10 years before the new wave of Indie pictures challenged the conventions of Hollywood moviemaking, Sayles has been creating magnificent and utterly original films. Even more remarkably, they differ radically from one another. Who could guess that the director of The Return of the Secaucus Seven and Baby It's You could turn around and make The Brother from Another Planet, that the man behind the fabulous Secret of Roan Inish was capable also of the socially conscious Matewan, City of Hope, and Lone Star?

This interview book, another in Faber and Faber's remarkable series devoted to filmmakers on their work, is published to coincide with the release of Men with Guns, Sayles's film for 1998. The director speaks about the way he works ("I wrote The Brother from Another Planet in about a week."), the themes of his films ("There is a fantasy children's movie in The Secret of Roan Inish, but finally there is also this realistic core to it."), and his political sensibilities ("One of the ideas I was trying to get at in Lone Star is that race is an illusion but culture is very real."). Perhaps because he is such a fine writer, Sayles proves an amazingly articulate speaker. Fans of the director, as well as those discovering Sayles for the first time, will be delighted by the director's personal insights and stories.

From Publishers Weekly
Smith's book-length interview with independent filmmaker John Sayles chronicles Sayles's start as a novelist (Union Dues, 1977, was nominated for a National Book Award), his apprenticeship writing horror scripts (The Howling, 1980) for producer Roger Corman, occasional work as an actor and a playwright, a sojourn writing television and directing music videos and, primarily, the writing and directing of independent features like Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996). Sayles speaks with refreshing candor and lack of pretension. His voice enjoyably mixes the vocabulary of a lifelong reader and writer with the idioms of a street-smart survivor: "The writing in both [The Return of the] Secaucus Seven and Lianna is generally very oblique. There's a lot of kitchen sink quotidian detail." His discussions of his films and his attempts?for aesthetic and financial reasons?to preserve the spontaneity of acting and to keep his editing austere ("A cut is very much a tear") place him in the tradition of cinematic realists. One highlight is Sayles's analogy comparing the flash-cutting techniques of style-conscious films to a fast-talking vacuum-cleaner salesman out to close a deal before the customer can stop and think. Smith, an associate editor at Film Comment magazine, provides well-directed questions, and Sayles responds so that hardly a page goes by without an insight about filmmaking and film trends, an engaging digression or an apt turn of phrase.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Sayles, critically acclaimed and more than established, has proven his directing, editing, writing, and even acting ability in relation to independent filmmaking. But what many people probably don't know is just how creative this man is. He has published novels and short stories, directed plays, made some of Bruce Springsteen's music videos, and written screenplays for numerous other directors' television and movie productions. Sayles is a man of many hats, few pretenses, and a great deal of thought. Though his language, in this interviewlike format, is utterly down to earth, his ideas are big and his dedication to the craft of filmmaking, from whatever angle, is obvious. Sayles believes that the personalism of his work in based, not in the facts of his life, but in the interests he has, which he pursues through his scripts and films. There is something truly self-sacrificing in that approach, particularly for a writer in this confessional-trend culture, and it must certainly account for the sincerity and subtlety in Sayles' fine body of work. Janet St. John

Customer Reviews

For lovers of Sayles' work this book is essential
If you're new to Sayles' movies or a long time fan, this book is a must. Gavin Smith asks probing and significant questions and Sayles provides insights about himself that are refreshingly matter of fact. The book is organized chronologically and examines each of Sayles' films. I have only seen Eight Men Out and Lone Star as of now but after this book I'm trying to see as many as I can. I've seen Lone Star twice and I'm going to buy the video. I rank it as one of my 10 all-time favorite movies because it is brilliant on so many levels.