Synopses & Reviews
Ingrid Bergman was far more than just a sweet, virtuous, natural Swedish girlshe was a dark sensualist over whom many men might go mad. Her very gaze delivered a climate of adult romantic expectation.”
Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here the renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything.
David Thomson is, among many other things, the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando), and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. His latest work is the acclaimed Have You Seen . . . ?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.
Ingrid Bergman was far more than just a sweet, virtuous, natural Swedish girlshe was a dark sensualist over whom many men might go mad. Her very gaze delivered a climate of adult romantic expectation.”
Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here the renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything. David Thomson is, without doubt, the greatest living film historian.” Allen Barra, Los Angeles Times
"What Thomson does not know or feel about films is not worth knowing or feeling."Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian (UK)
The stars shine bright in this series of brief biographies of four of classic Hollywood's most enduring icons. Eminent film critic Thomson (The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder, 2009, etc.) brings a historian's acumen and poet's sensibility to his portraits of Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper. The author seeks to identify the mythic essence of each of the star's cinematic personae, and the ways in which key films and carefully managed public perceptions shaped those ideas. Davis enjoyed a long reign as Hollywood's top star in the era of great stars, despite and because of her variable looks, peppery temperament and air of starchy New England superiority. Bergman was the 'natural' country girl, beautiful and virtuous, whose selfish passion for her career and compulsive promiscuity both fueled the love fantasies of her audience and ultimately led to international scandal and disgrace. Bogart, the sensitive tough guy, was hounded by insecurity and a host of other personal demons, his upperclass background lending an innate dignity and honor to his fabled menagerie of wisecracking gangsters and gumshoes. Cooper is presented as a hapless, weakwilled adulterer whose lean body, rugged handsomeness and preternatural stillness translated on camera as a quintessentially American rectitude and heroic stoicism. In clean, allusive prose, Thomson assesses the filmographies of these titans, offering surprising judgments and insightshe despises Cooper's beloved Sergeant York (1941) and the Davis classic The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)and defining the magic of a vanished kind of stardom, an orchestrated mystique that made these men and women dream figures for a mass audience. The books are full of fascinating tidbits of gossip regarding his subjects' sexual peccadilloes, financial maneuverings and studio politicking, and Thomson is wickedly funny and startlingly poetic in his observations . . . Indispensable additions to any American film library.”Kirkus Reviews
The author of the standard reference The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (4th ed., 2004) begins the Guest Star series with fact-packed critical briefs on four American movie icons, managing to give each slim volume its own distinctive tone. Thomsons account of Bette Davis is the most loving of the four . . . Its clear that Thomson loves the luminescent Bergman but doesnt like her very much. He loves her onscreen persona as the ethereal Ilsa of Casablanca; in the darker, sexually charged atmosphere of Hitchcocks Notorious; and even radiating the understated but unmistakable erotic heat she brings to the Spencer Tracy Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He relishes her Hollywood-like rise, seemingly both unexpected and preordained, from talented Swedish actress to Hollywood goddess. Yet she was so beautiful, so willing to place career before family, so willing and even eager to fall into bed with powerful Hollywood players. How could she not succeed? Which is not to say Thomson accuses her of careerism. He reserves his harshest criticism not for her increasingly chaotic private life but for how, after her brilliance in the 1940sCasablanca, Gaslight, and the Hitchcock masterpieces Spellbound and Notorious, and moreshe settled into a kind of unsatisfying mediocrity in the 1950s and 1960s. Thomson speculates that her fortunes faded with her legendary beauty. But as he makes that observation, its hard not to hear behind it a stern, half-stated moral and aesthetic judgment.”Jack Helbig, Booklist (starred review)
In the initial volumes of this new series, noted film critic/historian Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film) brings his opinions to bear on the lives and careers of four stars of the golden age of American cinema, all of whom remained active until their deaths. With classic films such as Jezebel, Dark Victory, and Now, Voyager, Bette Davis was the premiere leading lady at Warner Brothers for some 17 years. Gary Cooper (High Noon) became a star with the introduction of talking pictures and remained one, albeit somewhat diminished, to the end of his life. After being frequently cast as the snarling petty crook, Humphrey Bogart played a series of distinguished roles, climaxing with his Oscar-winning triumph in The African Queen. Ingrid Bergman's roles in Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Gaslight seemed to presage a lengthy stardom, but the scandal concerning her affair with director Roberto Rossellini stalled her in the late 1940s. Thomson presents little more than a brief overview of each star's career but discusses what he considers their best films in somewhat more detail. His look at the actors' personal lives includes his quirky suppositions about their sex lives, and he often writes as if speaking, sometimes quite disconcertingly, directly to the reader . . . These books seem intended primarily for film buffs with limited knowledge of these particular stars as well as curious general readers.”Roy Liebman, formerly with California State Univ., Los Angeles, Library Journal
Review
“David Thomson is, without doubt, the greatest living film historian.” —ALLEN BARRA, Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
“Ingrid Bergman was far more than just a sweet, virtuous, ‘natural Swedish girl—she was a dark sensualist over whom many men might go mad. Her very gaze delivered a climate of adult romantic expectation.”
Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here the renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything.
About the Author
DAVID THOMSON is, among many other things, the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando), and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. His latest work is the acclaimed Have You Seen . . . ?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.