Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Elia Kazan by Elia Kazan - Available

Elia Kazan

A Life

by Elia Kazan
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 1 copy available
ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • In this amazing autobiography, Kazan at seventy-eight brings us the undiluted telling of his story—and revelation of himself—all the passion, vitality, and truth, the almost outrageous honesty, that have made him so formidable a stage director (A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tea and Sympathy), film director (On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Gentleman’s Agreement, Splendor in the Grass, Baby Doll, The Last Tycoon, A Face in the Crowd), and novelist (the number-one best-seller The Arrangement.)
“This is the best autobiography I’ve read by a prominent American in I don’t know how many years. It is endlessly absorbing and I believe this is because it concerns a man who is looking to find a coherent philosophy that will be tough enough to contain all that is ugly in his person and his experience, yet shall prove sufficiently compassionate to give honest judgment on himself and others. Somehow, the author brings this off. Elia Kazan: A Life has that candor of confession which is possible only when the deepest wounds have healed and honesty can achieve what honesty so rarely arrives at—a rich and hearty flavor. By such means, a famous director has written a book that offers the kind of human wealth we find in a major novel.”    —Norman Mailer
Kazan gives us his sense of himself as an outsider (a Greek rug merchant’s son born in Turkey, an immigrant’s son raised in New York and educated at Williams College). He takes us into the almost accidental sojourn at the Yale Drama School that triggered his commitment to theatre, and his edgy, exciting apprenticeship with the new and astonishing Group Theatre, as stagehand and stage manager—and as actor (Waiting for Lefty, Golden Boy) . . . his first nervous and then successful attempts at directing for theatre and movies (The Skin of Our Teeth, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) . . . his return to New York to co-found the Actors Studio (and his long and ambivalent relationship with Lee Strasberg) . . . his emergence as premier director on both coasts.
With his director’s eye for the telling scene, Kazan shares the joys and complications of production, his unique insights on acting, directing, and producing. He makes us feel the close presence of the actors, producers, and writers he’s worked with—James Dean, Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Sam Spiegel, Darryl Zanuck, Harold Clurman, Arthur Miller, Budd Schulberg, James Baldwin, Clifford Odets, and John Steinbeck among them. He gives us a frank and affectionate portrait of Marilyn Monroe. He talks with startling candor about himself as husband and—in the years where he obsessively sought adventure outside marriage—as lover. For the first time, he discusses his Communist Party years and his wrenching decision in 1952 to be a cooperative witness before HUAC. He writes about his birth as a writer.
The pace and organic drama of his narrative, his grasp of the life and politics of Broadway and Hollywood, the keenness with which he observes the men and women and worlds around him, and, above all, the honest with which he pursues and captures his own essence, make this one of the most fascinating autobiographies of our time.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 16, 2011

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780307959348

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780307959348
      • File size: 13037 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 1, 1988
      Flashes of sudden insight or eloquence keep the reader turning the pages of Kazan's garrulous 864-page autobiography. The famous director, now 78, apparently wanted it all: comfortable domesticity (provided by three wives) and a bachelor's sexual freedom. An ambitious Anatolian of Greek ancestry craving acceptance in America, a bourgeois adventurer, a truth-teller and wearer of masksthese paradoxes in his own character are the driving force of his life and career. Kazan, an ex-Communist, makes no apologies for his agonizing decision to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era. Focusing on Death of a Salesman, America, America and many other plays and films he directed, his expansive memoir includes cutting portraits of Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller, as well as glimpses of Odets, Cagney, Bankhead, Monroe, Brando, Goldwyn, dozens more. Kazan is candid about his own flaws and generous in his assessment of others. Photos not seen by PW. 35,000 first printing.

    • Library Journal

      April 15, 1988
      Noted director Kazan has written a candid account of his amazing life. After years of struggle to be an actor, Kazan found his theatrical forte in directing. In the 1940s he was the toast of both Broadway and Hollywood, with such productions as A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman, and films such as East of Eden. The 1950s brought problems with the House Un-American Activities Committee, with which he cooperated (in a controversial decision) after much soul-searching. Kazan is frank about his constant extramarital affairs. Most fascinating are the characterizations of friends such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, etc. Overlong, perhaps, but always interesting, this is an important addition to collections. Marcia L. Perry, Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.

      Copyright 1988 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 29, 1993
      According to PW , ``flashes of sudden insight or eloquence keep the reader turning the pages of Kazan's garrulous autobiography.'' His expansive memoir makes no apologies for his decision to name names during the McCarthy era, and includes cutting portraits of Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller, as well as glimpses of Odets, Cagney, Bankhead, Monroe, Brando, Goldwyn and dozens more. Photos.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading