Joseph Mcbride: 8 books

At the age of twenty-five, Orson Welles (1915-1985) directed, co-wrote, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely regarded as the greatest film ever made. But Welles was such a revolutionary filmmaker that he found himself at odds with the Hollywood studio system. His work was so far ahead of its time that...

At the age of twenty-five, Orson Welles (1915--1985) directed, co-wrote, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely regarded as the greatest film ever made. But Welles was such a revolutionary filmmaker that he found himself at odds with the Hollywood studio system. His work was so far ahead of its time...

John Ford's classic films--such as Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, and The Searchers--have earned him worldwide admiration as America's foremost filmmaker, a director whose rich visual imagination conjures up indelible, deeply moving images of our collective...

Orson Welles called Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947) “a giant” whose “talent and originality are stupefying.” Jean Renoir said, “He invented the modern Hollywood.” Celebrated for his distinct style and credited with inventing the classic genre of the Hollywood romantic comedy and helping to...

Moviegoers often assume Frank Capra's life resembled his beloved films (such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life). A man of the people faces tremendous odds and, by doing the right thing, triumphs! But as Joseph McBride reveals in this meticulously researched, definitive biography,...

Until the first edition of Steven Spielberg: A Biography was published in 1997, much about Spielberg's personality and the forces that shaped it had remained enigmatic, in large part because of his tendency to obscure and mythologize his own past. But in this first full-scale, in-depth biography of...

Writing in Pictures is a refreshingly practical and entertaining guide to screenwriting that provides what is lacking in most such books: a clear, step-by-step demonstration of how to write a screenplay. Seasoned screenwriter and writing teacher Joseph McBride breaks down the process into...

"I read Hawks on Hawks with passion. I am very happy that this book exists." -- François Truffaut Howard Hawks (1896--1977) is often credited as being the most versatile of all of the great American directors, having worked with equal ease in screwball comedies, westerns, gangster...