Robert De Niro'sportrayalsof the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather II, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, and Jake La Motta in Raging Bull are among the most vivid ever committed to celluloid. The actor is famously perfectionistic, and the lengths to which he will go to create his characters are legendary. Based on scrupulous research and conversations with De Niro’s friends and colleagues, and featuring a complete filmography, John Baxter’s biography sheds new light on the life and career of this fiercely private star.
专业书评
According to prolific film biographer Baxter (The Hollywood Exiles, etc.), "Rage is Robert De Niro?s gift to the cinema." In this unauthorized, carefully researched biography, Baxter traces the enigmatic actor?s life, starting with his formative years in Greenwich Village, where De Niro tagged along with Italian street gangs and had a complicated relationship with his gay artist father, a fact that Baxter suggests has greatly informed the actor?s choice of morally conflicted characters. Using numerous interviews and anecdotes, Baxter sketches a picture that is never quite flattering, but is empathetic and fascinating. He tells De Niro?s story through the prism of the actor?s most notable cinematic endeavors (including Taxi Driver and Raging Bull) as well as through his biggest failures. As a result, the book is equal parts life story and film analysis. This works to great effect, since De Niro?s artistic choices, many of which involved physical transformations and psychological sparring with his fellow actors, reveal as much, if not more, about his own character as any exposition on the actor?s life experience. As Baxter portrays him, De Niro appears more comfortable being anyone other than himself. His total immersion into characters such as Travis Bickle spooked his co-stars but won him great acclaim, despite what the author describes as a career decline that began with The King of Comedy. In subsequent years, Baxter notes, De Niro has rested on his reputation, choosing mediocre but commercially viable projects that would, in turn, fund his entrepreneurial pursuits in his beloved lower Manhattan neighborhood. De Niro remains one of cinema?s most enduring presences, a human puzzle, perhaps even unto himself. 40 b/w photos.
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Robert De Niro is considered by many to be the greatest screen actor of our time: film portrayals like the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather II, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, and Jake La Motta in Raging Bull are among the most vivid ever committed to celluloid. The actor is famously perfectionistic, and the lengths to which he will go to create his characters are legendary. Based on scrupulous research and conversations with De Niro’s friends and colleagues, and featuring a complete filmography, John Baxter’s biography sheds new light on the life and career of this fiercely private star. As well as his film roles, he examines De Niro’s private life, his fruitful collaborations with directors and actors like Martin Scorsese and Meryl Streep, and the ambitious off–screen activities that have increasingly engaged him in recent years. John Baxter, a British film critic, is the author of Hollywood Exiles, The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg, and The Cinema of John Ford. 媒体推荐
“De Niro mixes intelligent analysis with lurid anecdote… a superior unauthorized biography.” -- The Daily Telegraph作者简介
John Baxter is a film critic, novelist, biographer and broadcaster, whose books include The Hollywood Exiles, The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg, The Cinema of John Ford, and biographies of Ken Russell, Fellini, Bunuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen and George Lucas. Born and brought up in Australia, he has worked in London, taught in the United States, and now lives in Paris.
| 出版社 | HarperCollins UK |
|---|---|
| 作者 | John Baxter |