Recent Releases in Film Books

The Ballad of Rango: The Art & Making of an Outlaw Film
by David S. Cohen
San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions, 2011
156 pp. $44.95

Red Riding Hood: From Script to Screen
by Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay by David Leslie Johnson
San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions, 2011
192 pp. $21.50

Palo Alto
By James Franco
New York:  Simon & Schuster, 2010
224 pp. $27.99

Bossypants
by Tina Fey
New York:  Little, Brown and Company, 2011
288 pp. $29.99

This spring brings forth numerous new film-related books.  Here are a few selections.  The Ballad of Rango: The Art & Making of an Outlaw Film presents the illustrated story behind Gore Verbinski’s film of the same title.  The director – best known for his work in the first three Pirate of the Caribbean films – creates an unlikely hero in the chameleon Rango, and the film’s story is carefully and captivatingly storyboarded in this beautiful coffee-table book by Insight Editions.  Boasting over 300 colour illustrations, and deftly written by Variety and Script Magazine veteran David S. Cohen, this is a stunning companion.

Red Riding Hood, another offering from Insight, is an admirable-looking book that brings together director Catherine Hardwicke’s introduction, notes, and original sketches, David Leslie Johnson’s screenplay, and numerous pages of concept art, storyboards, and illustrations.  The film garnered a score of 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, and has invited numerous comparisons with Hardwicke’s adaptation of the first Twilight film; however, Hardwicke’s retelling of the fairytale comes across much more vividly in this book, which demonstrates much of the film’s unrealized potentials.  Moreover, this beautifully book captures the ambitions and promise of the film.

Here is a caption from the screenplay:

YOUNG VALERIE
Peter…do you have the knife?

PETER
Right here.

Peter whips out a SHARP LITTLE KNIFE.  Their bodies right next to each other.  But then attention is on a CRUDE ANIMAL TRAP.  The kids watch a WHITE RABBIT hop up to the trap.  They hold their breath as it takes the bait – a piece of SHINY RED APPLE.  SNAP.  (16)

Besides these books about films, multi-award-winning actors James Franco and Tina Fey have both released their first books. Franco’s Palo Alto is a collection of short stories about adolescents in suburban America.  Clear and unpretentious writing mark page after page; however, the strength of these stories derive from its largely disinterested narrative voice, which sensitizes us, more fully, to his characters’ experiences.  Franco’s book will be, likely, the first of many; however, a writer can only have one first book.  In many ways, he has much to be proud of.

We are warned never to judge a book by its cover.  However, in many ways, one should judge Tina Fey’s excellent memoir, Bossypants, by its equally comic and disturbing cover art (see below left).  This hugely-enjoyable memoir tackles many pressing social issues, and its writer is by turns self-critical and funny.  Fey’s witticism manifests in every page of Bossypants, and her passion for this project is reflected even in her selection of photographs.  Still, she will likely be remembered for her excellent work on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock.