The World and Its Double
The Life and Work of Otto Preminger
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Otto Preminger was one of Hollywood's first truly independent producer/directors. He sought to address the major social, political, and historical questions of his time in films designed to appeal to a wide public. Blazing a trail in the examination of controversial issues such as drug addiction (The Man with the Golden Arm) and homosexuality (Advise and Consent) and in the frank, sophisticated treatment of adult material (Anatomy of a Murder), Preminger in the process broke the censorship of the Hollywood Production Code and the blacklist. He also made some of Hollywood's most enduring film noir classics, including Laura and Fallen Angel.
An Austrian émigré, Preminger began his Hollywood career in 1936 as a contract director. When the conditions emerged that led to the fall of the studio system, he had the insight to perceive them clearly and the boldness to take advantage of them, turning himself into one of America's most powerful filmmakers. More than anyone else, Preminger represented the transition from the Hollywod of the studios to the decentralized, wheeling and dealing New Hollywood of today. Chris Fujiwara's critical biography--the first in more than thirty years--follows Preminger throughout his varied career, penetrating his carefully constructed public persona and revealing the many layers of his work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Preminger, maker of classics like Anatomy of a Murder and bombs like the LSD-tinged Jackie Gleason vehicle Skidoo, was the archetype of the tyrannical Hollywood director. A cue-ball headed bully who alternated icy sarcasm with frothing rages and had "the sense of humor of a guillotine," Preminger calmed one jittery thespian by shaking him and screaming "Relax! Relax! Relax!" into his face. (In acting roles, Preminger was reliably cast as a Nazi.) Fujiwara's respectful but lively bio sticks closely to his subject's groundbreaking if sadistic creative process. Each chapter covers the making of a single movie, starting with Preminger's wrangles with screenwriters, meddling studio chiefs and Hollywood's prim Production Code, whose hold his risqu films helped break. Production starting brought the director's terrorization of cast and crew (" 'Otto turned on me like a mad dog,' " recalls Faye Dunaway), which drove actors of both sexes to hysterical tears and, some admit, fine performances. Fujiwara's auteurist appreciations of Preminger's work tend toward abstract analyses of, say, "the encounter and resistance of objects in space," but they arouse the reader's interest in revisiting his films. Photos.
