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"If you love films and care about filmmakers, you'll have a hard time putting this book down. These lively conversations reveal just how much one generation of filmmakers influences the next - and how a single movie can change the course of a young person's life and career."
-Leonard Maltin, author of Leanord Martin's Movie Guide -
"A great and provocative read. Elder begins with a simple question and leads a wide variety of filmmakers down all sorts of unexpected paths. Why do we respond so passionately, even irrationally, to the movies that change our lives? The wonderful thing about being a critic or a lifelong movie lover is that life changes all the time in relation to the spells being cast on the screen. Elder's book honors that alchemic relationship many times over. It's addictive."
-Michael Phillips, film critic, Chicago Tribune
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John Waters on The Wizard of Oz
“To me, all these really expensive digital effects are very uninvolving. That tornado scene is as good as Twister to me, and I think it’s done with a nylon stocking. And how radical—the black and white to color is almost like an LSD effect. It is a drug movie almost.”
George A. Romero on The Tales of Hoffmann
“It was really a movie for me, and it gave me an early appreciation for the power of visual media—the fact that you could experiment with it. He was doing all his tricks in-camera, and they were sort of obvious. That made me feel that, gee, maybe I could figure this medium out. It was transparent, but it worked.”
Gurinder Chadha on Purab aur Pachhim
“As a young girl with two long plaits, with a mother who refused to let us cut our hair or anything, this girl was supposed to be like us, with long blond hair and cigarettes and miniskirts. We were like, “God, that would be great! But we’re not allowed to be like that.” That incongruity—that was bizarre.”
Atom Egoyan on Persona
“I was hooked on Persona from the first images: a projector being set off and the arc light coming to life and then a very fragmented sequence of very powerful images—Christ’s hands being nailed into the cross and a strange puppet play. It was like nothing I’d ever seen.”