The most recommended books about making movies

As Hollywood’s Golden Age sputtered to a close and the old studio behemoths collapsed, United Artists became the Little Studio That Still Could, thanks largely to the discerning eye and risk-taking appetite of David Picker, its young head of marketing and production. Under his leadership, UA made deals that snagged the James Bond series, the Beatles’ two feature films, and Woody Allen’s best movies. Picker’s formula was simple—sign the most intriguing filmmakers in America and Europe to low-budget, one-movie contracts and then leave them alone to do their finest work. Picker praises his pals and lacerates his foes, including Robert Altman, Otto Preminger, and most especially Bill Cosby, whom he despised long before the sexual assault allegations. Anyone recall Cosby’s woeful Leonard Part 6?

I loved this book for its slow-burn charm. However, at first, the heroine, Poppy Lively, had a lot of life problems that were making her very anxious, and I started to feel anxious, too! However, when she starts her new Hollywood job, Poppy comes into her own and begins to make a new life for herself, and it was then that this novel began to charm and delight me.

Poppy is a woman learning how to be herself in a difficult world, and I grew to love her for it. In the end, I was cheering her on as she confronts her past and realises where her real loyalties lie. There's also a really nice hint of romance.

Marissa doesn’t label herself but seems to deal with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In her words, “The best way I can think to describe it is that there’s a beehive in my chest, and most people upset the bees. The nearer they get, the worse it is—and direct contact makes them swarm.” Marissa is more than a diagnosis. She is a film editor struggling to verbalize to producers her inner creative process. I was a film editor for many years and Little’s description of the creative process was spot on. Marissa is trapped on a movie set full of mayhem and murder. How she presents makes it hard for anyone to believe her when she discovers a killer amongst them. The book is a powerful statement on looking beyond how someone presents the truth they are speaking.

There have been so many books about George Lucas’s most famous creation, the Star Wars saga, and about the man himself.

As far as biographical accounts are concerned, Dale Pollock’s volume (initially published in 1983, and updated in 1990 and 1999) has to be given a lot of credit for being the first to properly introduce this unique filmmaker, whose life and career have been so full of unexpected twists and turns, to the world – and to me!

Pollock’s well-researched and very readable book set a high standard for all the writers following in his footsteps.

A massive influence on my own cultural approach to understanding cinema and intersectional representation, hooks offers acute analyses of the way films can affect us on a personal, political, and communal level, for better and for worse.

Hooks is smart, sharp, and switched on to how misogyny and racism can adversely affect the treatment of female characters of colour, especially.

Until David wrote his book, there hadn’t been a biography of Kubrick in over twenty years. While his book is short, it is very readable, and I found it the most intriguing of the short biographies.

Mikics conducted new interviews and visited Kubrick’s archive in London. His readings of Kubrick’s films are precise and elegant.

A sci-fi space opera that’s told like a documentary film.

This was the first book (but certainly not the last) that ever made me jealous I didn’t write, and inspired countless hours of me trying to duplicate.

Set in an alternate 1986 where silent films still reign and using various forms (reality tv, movie, celebrity rags, audio transcripts) this is a genre-bending collective gorgeously told and seriously underread. 

I really enjoy essays and writing about different forms of art, about the genesis of an artwork and the humans who create them, and Ian Penman's book on German director Reiner Werner Fassbinder is among the best of its kind that I've read in recent years.

Written in four weeks to emulate the frantic way Fassbinder scripted and directed his films, this is not a dry, super-detailed biography but a romp through the 1970s and 80s Western European art and history and, at the same time, an ode to the bright screen in the dark room and its powers. 

Apart from presenting George Lucas in his own words, this book offers a concise introduction to his career, including a chronology and a filmography.

The interviews collected herein go from a May 1971 article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the young filmmaker whose first feature, the rather abstract Science Fiction drama THX 1138, had just come out (and flopped!), all the way to a conversation with the Los Angeles Times in January 1999 about the forthcoming release of the first Star Wars prequel Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

Despite dramatic changes in Lucas’s status as a filmmaker (and businessman) across this period, the interviews reveal striking continuities, notably his striving for maximum control over his films and business affairs.

Discovering the art of Alejandro Jodorowsky helped me to remove limitations from my own art. It was a joy to discover his work and it was a further joy to discover that his life has been just as uncompromising, surreal, and magical as his art. He has hung out with circus people, shamans, great artists (Marcel Marceau, Leonora Carrington, Jean Giraud… the list goes on). His novels, autobiographies, comic books, movies, and pictures are all fantastic.