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by David Thomson

David Thomson Arts and Literature English

ISBN: 0747584338
Author: David Thomson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; Export Ed edition (2006)
Language: English
Pages: 320
ePub: 1481 kb
Fb2: 1547 kb
Rating: 4.8
Other formats: lrf lrf txt azw
Category: Biography
Subcategory: Arts and Literature

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Ostensibly a critical biography of Nicole Kidman, David Thomson’s new book comes off as a weird and unseemly mash note. In his previous book, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, David Thomson devoted an entire chapter to Nicole Kidman.

Ostensibly a critical biography of Nicole Kidman, David Thomson’s new book comes off as a weird and unseemly mash note. Fondness? Attraction? What Thomson has is a full-blown obsession, and it has erupted into his latest book, Nicole Kidman. Ostensibly a critical biography, it comes off as a weird and unseemly mash note.

From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman-and what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is-in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.

David Thomson (born 18 February 1941) is a British film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books

David Thomson (born 18 February 1941) is a British film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books.

Veteran cineaste David Thomson is besotted with Nicole Kidman, but his entertaining eulogy to her . Trickily, the book slithers from critical observation to subjunctive daydreaming

Veteran cineaste David Thomson is besotted with Nicole Kidman, but his entertaining eulogy to her often veers dangerously close to pornography, says Peter Conrad. Trickily, the book slithers from critical observation to subjunctive daydreaming. Thomson has his own 'viewer's cut' of Kidman's films and concocts scenes that he imagines persuading her to perform. Thus, he adds a menstrual spillage to Birth, imagines that the secret she conceals in The Others is an affair with a Gestapo officer and phantasmally casts her as all the other women who taunt Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. The inventions are ingenious, but they too often stray into territory best left to pornography.

From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman-and. From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman-and what it means to be a top actress today.

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David Thomson, or "David Thomson"? Critic or stalker? David Thomson is often described as a "film critic," but film .

David Thomson, or "David Thomson"? Critic or stalker? David Thomson is often described as a "film critic," but film criticism is not quite what he does. Nor is he a journalist or a biographer or a historian by any traditional definition of those terms. Last week, Kidman's reps said Thomson had misrepresented himself in the one telephone interview he did with Kidman for his ostensible biography, being sold under the title "Nicole Kidman. From The Daily Mail: According to the star's publicist Wendy Day: "Nicole has never met David Thomson. She has only spoken to him briefly on the phone about her acting processes and various films.

бесплатно, без регистрации и без смс. From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidmanand what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she isin our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen

Электронная книга "Nicole Kidman", David Thomson At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is-in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.

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The ultimate biography of Hollywood's most beguiling star by Hollywood's most revered film commentator. Could one see a magazine deciding that Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez or Angelina Jolie were 'intriguing'? There is something mysterious and not quite settled with Nicole Kidman. That's why David Thomson, one of the world's greatest writers on film, knew he wanted to write about her, because while there may (just) be more attractive women on the screen, and even more consistent actresses, there isn't any modern career that has so transformed itself. It's as if Nicole Kidman suddenly decided no, I'm not just Mrs Tom, I'm not just a nice red-headed Sheila, I'm an actress, a businesswoman, I'm something - and I'm going to show you all. How else does one reconcile the Kidman of the early and middle 1990s, the woman who was so often pretty but not much else in Days of Thunder, Billy Bathgate, Far and Away, Malice, Batman Forever, The Portrait of a Lady and even Eyes Wide Shut, with the steady progression of Moulin Rouge, The Others and Birthday Girl, and then The Hours, Cold Mountain and others? Not all her recent films are good and she's not a triumph in all of them - but she is a dangerous actress, a risk-taker, someone pushing at her own talent. This is a biography of an Australian girl who has become world famous. It's also the record of an actress as she grew. The book is a vivid portrait, a searching treatment of acting and of a business career, but also a tribute to someone who has it in her to move millions of strangers.

Comments: (7)

Black_Hawk_Down

This book is unlike a standard biography written about Nicole Kidman. I've read a couple of them, they sound as if they were written by a publicist. This book presents Nicole in a very different light, for both the good and bad, in reality probably a lot closer to how she really is (I bet she hated it!). However, the reader has to put up with the author when reading this book. He "offers" us long winded speeches, going into great detail about what movies Nicole should have made. I found out much more about him than I needed to know. But, that being said, I thought it was overall a fun, quick read. I felt like a got a different take on Nicole and came to respect her as an actress even more than I already did. So I would suggest it for the serious Nicole fan only. However, proceed with an open mind, this is a very odd biography.

Zainn

One of the worst book I have started to read.

sobolica

This is NOT a biography! This is... well, creepy is what it is. Thomson is obviously a retirement-age film critic who is madly in lust with Nicole Kidman, but you will not find biographical details here. In fact, he points out early on that he will intentionally not talk about certain of her films; he refuses to discuss "Far and Away" because - as he puts it - sometimes films are made "for no other reason than that the people involved were in love. It's their business." But he takes great delight in trashing most of her other films: "Malice," "The Peacemaker" (a "stupid picture"), "The Others," "The Interpreter," "Bewitched," and even points out that people have asked him why he would write a book about an actress who has done so many bad films. "I tell them there are great things to come, and I hope that I am right" is his reply to them.

When he does talk about her films, he goes out of his way to discuss how nude she gets in each one, whether you get to see "the curve of her bottom" or whether the scene cuts away "before you can see anything." In describing magazine features of her, he makes sure to note what color bra she is wearing over her "comma-shaped" breasts (huh?). He points out how the films she did make could have been better, and also talks a great deal about films Kidman was never in but he wished she was, including his own fantasy version of "Belle de Jour," which he even dreams about. That's all fine and good, but unfortunately he felt the need to share with us the details of his dream, in which a Gestapo officer and an elderly Chinaman "were having their way with Nicole" while he watched.

But the book is not just about Kidman. He spends a great deal of time dissing Meg Ryan and Elisabeth Shue, saying when they turned 40 they became Hollywood has-beens because "her looks suffered" when she turned 40 (Ryan) or "I suspect she had a weight problem that was difficult to control" (Shue). He even delights in telling us how he could have been intimate with Tuesday Weld (apparently a well-regarded actress in his day). Here is his logic of how that could have happened: 1) they were attending the same film tribute event, 2) they were only four years apart in age, and 3) his wife was out of town. Wow, that means anything could have happened!

The book goes right up to May 2006, when Kidman allegedly had romantic involvements with Lenny Kravitz, Stephen Bing, and Keith Urban. "Perhaps there were others," Thomson writes. "I hope so, because this trio does not seem especially substantial or rewarding." He notes that because she is a celebrity, it is harder for her to meet "real people... the kind of people who might love her and talk to her for years" - real people like himself, is the unwritten implication. The book ends with a June 2006 postscript that admits, sadly, yes, Kidman married Keith Urban.

I really could not fathom what possessed Thomson to write such a train wreck of a book. That's where, for once, the Acknowledgments of a book come in handy: "This book was the brainchild of Mike Jones at Bloomsbury and my agent, Laura Morris. They say they thought it up over a lunch." I can only hope their lunch settled better on their stomachs than this book did on mine. Avoid like the plague!

Xcorn

The book begins with the chapter titled "Strangers," and an Australian woman is quoted as saying that in the 20 years she's known Nicole Kidman, the woman feels she doesn't know the actress. "A lot of actors . . . don't exist when they aren't playing a part," she says.

From her porcelain skin and icy blue eyes to her infamous romances with Hollywood leading men, Nicole Kidman has seen her own star rise. Now author and noted film critic David Thompson felt she commands another facet of the media spotlight: a biography aptly titled Nicole Kidman.

At the outset, I thought the first few chapters were a long introduction because Thompson fails to properly delve into Kidman's life. He focuses instead mainly on her movie role characters and the psychology of being an actress in a cutthroat business. But as I moved further into the book, I realized all the chapters were like that.

We learn more and more about Kidman as an actress--the way she throws herself into a part, how Kidman could identify with her particular character and the plot of the film. She's commanded great roles, such as Virginia Woolf in "The Hours" alongside screen legend Meryl Streep, Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" with soon to be ex-husband Tom Cruise and Baz Luhrman's "Moulin Rouge." Kidman's personal tidbits are almost sprinkled into the chapters as a mere afterthought.

From her humble Australian upbringing (and, actually, she lived in the United States for a brief time growing up) to her first small film role in Australia and finally making it big in America, Kidman has definitely made an indelible mark in the American cinema.

Author David Thompson is a gifted film critic, and his knowledge of Kidman's films is superb. Thompson clearly reveres Kidman, and says so many times throughout the book, but if he's hoping to crack that icy veneer, he too has failed to do so. When the book ends, there's still this unquenched thirst for a crack at Kidman's true persona.

Armchair Interviews says: Disappointing because so much was about her movies--and not about the woman who is the movie star.

Enditaling

I chose this book not because of its subject so much as because David Thomson wrote it. I own his "New Biographical Dictionary of Film" and have enjoyed reading the mostly thorough entries and catty comments it contains. "Nicole Kidman" is a tiresome and creepy disappointment, however. It is more filmography than biography and consists largely of Thomson's fantasies of how Kidman's films could be remade to better suit him, as well as a good deal of fretting about her "advancing age" (she will turn 40 this year) and the inexorable concomitant decline of her beauty, sex appeal, etc., which the author seems to take entirely for granted. I recommend this book only to diehard Kidman fans (a member of which I am not, although I have managed to see and enjoy most of her films anyhow, and think much of her work is just fine the way it is) who will read anything printed about her, no matter how bizarre or repugnant. Critics (and dirty old men) like Thomson should find someone more deserving of being picked on.

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