Glenn Frankel

This well-researched book begins with the actual kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl by Comanches that inspired first a novel and then a motion picture. Cynthia Ann Parker a captive for more than two decades, but by the time she was rescued and restored to her family, she no longer wanted to live within the white community. She died in misery, missing her sons and wanting to go back to the Comanches. Alan LeMay wrote a fictionalized tale based on her unhappy life and those of her relatives, and John Ford directed the movie starring John Wayne. Glenn Frankel does a good job of drawing comparisons between these three events, the true incident and the fictional accounts that followed. Some of what is stated is repetitive, and bogs down the flow of the story. Readers will learn a bit of what working for Ford was like and about Wayne’s career. Be warned that included are graphic accounts of the torture and killing inflicted by the Indians on their captives.… (plus d'informations)

An excellent concept for a book, this volume has three successive sections, all tied together by the tough cord of John Ford's masterpiece, the classic Western film THE SEARCHERS. In the first section, author Glenn Frankel explores with intelligence and amazing depth the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped by Comanches from her family in 1836 Texas, raised as an Indian while her uncle spent years looking for her, and re-abducted back into white society as a grown woman with children -- one of whom grew up to be the face of the Comanche nation, Quanah Parker. Frankel writes well and with extraordinary detail of the contradictions and ambiguities of the story, complexities that fascinated Western novelist Alan Le May, who researched and wrote a compelling novel based loosely on these events. That novel became, in the hands of director Ford and screenwriter Frank Nugent, a film considered by many to be the greatest Western ever made and, in the recent Sight & Sound critics poll, one of the ten best films ever made. Frankel covers all three aspects superbly, drawing on mountains of material on the Parker case and similar abductions in early Texas, as well as on family sources for his coverage of Le May's career and efforts to dramatize the story in novel form. Frankel uses first-hand interviews and documents as well as leaning on published accounts (including Michael Blakes's superb CODE OF HONOR, about the making of THE SEARCHERS and two other classic Westerns) to give the fullest picture yet of the processes before and during the filming of the landmark Western. This is a book that transcends the movie behind it. It portrays real history with insight and intensity and gives enormous resonance to the book and movie drawn from that history.… (plus d'informations)

This book has a lot of superficially interesting stories. Lot's of "this critic said this about that then". He never uses any interesting quotes because his whole deal is to appeal to the imaginary consumer citizen has in his head. This guy reads Time and Newsweek, The New York Times etc. and doesn't know jack about shit. Yes this is another book pitched to a ten year old like all other mass media. God forbid they find writers with anything more to say then another summary of trite assumptions we are still expected to believe in this day and age. I mean come on. This is NPR level crap. The writer doesn't know film and only cares about the money or personality the celebrities are trying to put over. It's really just another business story. And he watched the film apparently. Why did he write about it? It didn't effect him, he didn't understand it. This book is a dead thing written by a dead person in a dead world.… (plus d'informations)

Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic by Glenn Frankel is about so much more than simply shooting the film. It is a history of the book and film, as well as those people involved and the times in which it was made. These are all tied together into a compelling narrative that keeps the reader engrossed from start to finish.

In some ways this is more a history book than a snapshot of the time during which the film was physically made. By telling the personal stories of the book's author (Herlihy) and director (Schlesinger) we are given background into the themes of the film and the cultural environment into which it was released. In this respect it is as much social and cultural history as it is a study of the making of a film.

If you're mostly interested in the making of the film in the more narrow sense, you won't be disappointed. We get the details of what is done, what is considered, and what each person in the production brought to the final cut. I do think, even if you aren't coming to the book with a strong desire to learn as much of the history of the principals and the culture of the period, you will be glad you read it. That information sheds so much light on what will later be decided in the making of the film.

In spite of the big ideas, as highlighted in the book's after colon section, the film and this book both never lose track of the human elements. These are people. Whether we're talking about the characters in the story or the one's responsible for writing the book and making the movie, this is still a story (film and this book) about people.

I recommend this not just to film lovers and those who like this film in particular, but to those interested in social history of mid-20th century, especially New York City, Stonewall, and many of the other movements of the time.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (plus d'informations)