Poetry. "So focused, so distilled the articulation of these poems-the details of country matters so strangely noticed, the dreams so strongly nourished-that initially we are at a loss (though quite happy to be there) to know what to make of this new diction..Though spoken out of a solitude and into one, Cantwell's fresh-cut verses achieve a sort of community of perception, 'untethered from familiar darkness, ' as the poet says. This new poet says it all. Anew" -Richard Howard

From the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making. In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful characters in the most colorful period of Hollywood history. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, as compelling a movie star as there has ever been, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage death of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, the scene of the crime, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered dealmaking of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation. Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today. In telling that larger story, The Big Goodbye will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil's Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written. Praise for Sam Wasson: "Wasson is a canny chronicler of old Hollywood and its outsize personalities...More than that, he understands that style matters, and, like his subjects, he has a flair for it." - The New Yorker "Sam Wasson is a fabulous social historian because he finds meaning in situations and stories that would otherwise be forgotten if he didn't sleuth them out, lovingly." - Hilton Als

This book investigates the scope and significance of Stanley Cavell’s lifelong and lasting contribution to aesthetic understanding. Focusing on various strands of the rich body of Cavell’s philosophical work, the authors explore connections between his wide-ranging writings on literature, music, film, opera, autobiography, Wittgenstein, and Austin to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking. Most centrally, the writings brought together here from an international team of senior, mid-career, and emerging scholars, explore the illuminating power of Cavell’s work for our deeper and richer comprehension of the intricate relations between aesthetic and ethical understanding. The chapters show what aesthetic understanding consists of, how such understanding might be articulated in the tradition of Cavell following Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin, and why this mode of human understanding is particularly important. At a time of quickening interest in Cavell and the tradition of which he is a central part and present-day leading exponent, this book offers insight into the deepest contributions of a major American philosopher and the profound role that aesthetic experience can play in the humane understanding of persons, society, and culture.

Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club includes a poet laureate of Georgia and of the United States¿and the poet who read at President Clinton¿s second inauguration. The oldest was born in 1905 and the two youngest in that ominous year of American history, 1968. The Pulitzer-winning Stanley Kunitz wrote a famous poem about the Indian Mounds. Miller Williams, father of the Grammy winning Lucinda Williams, lived in Macon in the early 1960s and became a friend of Flannery O¿Connor. In the late 1970s, soon after his Mercer days, David Bottoms writes the poems for Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump and wins the Walt Whitman Award. Jud Mitcham wins the Devins Award for his first book, Somewhere in Ecclesiastes, and Seaborn Jones is doing his stint with Mister Rogers¿ Neighborhood and would later connect, in San Francisco, to one of the last pure lines of surrealism in American expression. Several poets came out of Macon or arrived in Macon soon after. Between Mercer University and Macon State College the activity of poetry in Macon thrived. Adrienne Bond wrote her seminal poems and started up the Georgia Poetry Circuit. Judith Ortiz Cofer passed through Macon State at the brink of her position at the University of Georgia and in American letters as an important artistic spokesperson for women¿s experience. From Bruce Beasley and his hybrid poetics, to Stephen Bluestone and his learned craft in the lyric poem, this book presents a selection for all students of Southern Literature some of the best poems of other poets, too, like Anya Silver, Amanda Pecor, Marjorie Becker, and the late Reginald Shepherd who was as well-known at his early death as any poet of his generation. Many of these poets studied with and knew the important poets of their time. The poems, nevertheless, speak for themselves.

This book offers an examination of the films of Roman Polanski, focusing on the impact that his life as an exile has had upon his work. Roman Polanski: A Life in Exile is a revealing look at this acclaimed filmmaker whose life in exile seems to have made his films all the more personal and powerful. Written by a film critic, this insightful book follows Polanski's story from his childhood in a World War II Jewish ghetto to his early films in Poland; from his American breakout, Rosemary's Baby, to his wife's murder by the Manson family; from the spectacular return of Chinatown, to his exile as a convicted sex criminal, to the monumental career peak, The Pianist. The Holocaust, the oppression of communism, the shattering of the swinging 60s, the decadence of Hollywood, the life of a fugitive—Polanski experienced all of these firsthand, and understanding those experiences provides a fascinating pathway through his work.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the venerable "Paris Review" comes a unique anthology based on the themes of modern life.

Presents the scripts for two films from the 1970s, one the story of a private detective in Los Angeles, and the other dealing with two Navy Shore Patrols escorting a prisoner.