For the first time, Oscar-winning production designer and director Roger Christian reveals his life story, from his earliest work in the British film industry to his breakthrough contributions on such iconic science fiction masterpieces as Star Wars, Alien and his own rediscovered Black Angel. This candid biography delves into his relationships with legendary figures, as well as the secrets of his greatest work. The man who built the lightsaber finally speaks!

Multiple views of the famed Hungarian filmmaker and installation artist who turns home movies into history

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade.

Since the beginning, much of Italian cinema has been sustained by transforming literature into moving images. This tradition of literary adaptation continues today, challenging artistic form and practice by pressuring the boundaries that traditionally separate film from its sister arts. In the twentieth century, director Luchino Visconti is a keystone figure in Italy's evolving art of adaptation. From the tumultuous years of Fascism and postwar Neorealism, through the blockbuster decade of the 1960s, into the arthouse masterpieces of the 1970s, Visconti's adaptations marked a distinct pathway of the Italian cinematic imagination. Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation examines these films together with their literary antecedents. Moving past strict book-to-film comparisons, it ponders how literary texts encounter and interact with a history of cultural and cinematic forms, genres, and traditions. Matching the major critical concerns of the postwar period (realism, political filmmaking, cinematic modernism) with more recent notions of adaptation and intermediality, this book reviews how one of Italy's greatest directors mined literary ore for cinematic inspiration.

Features exclusive interview material, rare images, and exhaustive chapters on all Jodorowsky's films.

(Applause Books). Featuring 28 of the top talents on Broadway! The Alchemy of Theatre lets the top talents in every theatrical field, from producing and writing to publicity and makeup, share their hard-earned wisdom. They speak on how to achieve success in an environment where giant egos are locked up together under mounting financial and emotional pressure, and are expected to deliver greatness. In short, this book is a how-to manual of collaboration by the professionals who do it best. Among those who have packed their lively essays with real-world stories of experience on legendary productions are directors Harold Prince, Susan Stroman, and George C. Wolfe; playwrights Wendy Wasserstein, recently deceased, and Edward Albee; stars Chita Rivera and Brian Stokes Mitchell; set designer Robin Wagner; songwriter Cy Coleman, in one of his last writing efforts before his death; costume designer William Ivey Long; producer Rocco Landesman; theatre operator Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of The Shubert Organization; playwright and librettist Terrence McNally; lighting designers Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Director Paul Gemignani; and more than a dozen more. This book is nothing but true-life stories of how these precepts work in real life for some of the most talented people alive. "Every narrative gives an inside look at what makes theater magical and allows a performance to come together. For those who love the theater, this book is essential." Library Journal