Books like Fellini

I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On répète Tête d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished work—the project they struggle with but never complete—holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.

I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On répète Tête d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished work—the project they struggle with but never complete—holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.

I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On répète Tête d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished work—the project they struggle with but never complete—holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.

I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On répète Tête d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished work—the project they struggle with but never complete—holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.

Kubrick has fascinated me since I watched Paths of Glory at MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable. 

Kubrick has fascinated me since I watched Paths of Glory at MoMA, one of Stanley’s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable. 

I love scary books for kids, and scary mysteries in particular. I’m a strong advocate for literacy and reaching reluctant readers, and the author of the multi-award-nominated middle-grade mystery Daybreak on Raven Island and Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, among others. The recent resurgence of horror has brought a fresh new bunch of scary stories for kids. And I love reading these books, even though I’m well out of the target age range. These new scary books for kids blend genres, tackle difficult issues, and show kids that even in the darkest, smallest hour of the night, you can solve the problem at hand and come out on the other side—better, stronger, smarter.

I have turned my childhood fascination with Hollywood into an academic career. For four decades I have explored, not least through extensive archival research, all aspects of the history of American cinema – films, filmmakers, studios, production histories, marketing campaigns, critical reception, audiences. Among other books, I have published three volumes in the British Film Institute’s Film Classics series (on Buster Keaton’s The General and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey). I have focused on some of the most highly acclaimed, most commercially successful, most ardently loved, and most influential movies of all time. The starting point for my work is always my passionate engagement with particular movies.

Years ago, as part of my research, I interviewed Elia Kazan and Abraham Polonsky, two key figures in the blacklist story, and two men who were on different sides in terms of how they responded to the postwar Congressional investigations. These personal encounters – in New York and Los Angeles – fed a fascination with the anti-Communist purge in Hollywood, its dramaturgy, and the way filmmakers of that generation were caught up in it in different ways. There are more specialized works but the books recommended provide a substantive introduction to this still globally resonant topic, calling attention to the problematic and still difficult relationships between citizenship and cultural identity.

I have turned my childhood fascination with Hollywood into an academic career. For four decades I have explored, not least through extensive archival research, all aspects of the history of American cinema – films, filmmakers, studios, production histories, marketing campaigns, critical reception, audiences. Among other books, I have published three volumes in the British Film Institute’s Film Classics series (on Buster Keaton’s The General and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey). I have focused on some of the most highly acclaimed, most commercially successful, most ardently loved, and most influential movies of all time. The starting point for my work is always my passionate engagement with particular movies.