The director of perhaps the finest film of the past 30 years is presented as erratic, grandiose, and mysteriously boring for so great an artist. Schumacher (Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton, 1995, etc.) marches respectfully from Coppola’s birth in Detroit (his middle name was for the automaker) to UCLA film school and through all his films and legal skirmishes. There’s much here, and it should be great fun—his training with Roger Corman, his friendship with George Lucas, his run-ins with the press (including the “I pattern my life on Hitler” remark)—but it’s not. For starters, there’s not quite enough new stuff on the popular films, though a lot is provided on less well-received efforts. On The Godfather, details of the transformation of ponytailed Brando into Don Corleone, James Caan’s prep work for the role of Sonny, and “persuasive methods of blocking production” (e.g., bomb threats) are catnip; more would have been welcome, particularly given the space granted Apocalypse Now and The Cotton Club. Quotes from actors such as Talia Shire and James Caan provide fresh air, but the many Coppola quotes are stifling. His relentless attacks on the press and the film industry, combined with his excessive optimism (or misreading) regarding reaction to his films, undercut reader interest in yet another quixotic venture (say, Tucker), no matter how visionary the director is. In addition, Schumacher’s intermittently off-the-mark film analyses (viewing Peggy Sue Got Married from the male protagonist’s perspective) and bland descriptions (the disastrous casting of daughter Sofia Coppola in The Godfather, Part Three is simply “one of the most controversial casting decisions of his career”) will make film-literate readers feel patronized and suspicious. Coppola emerges as a boorish genius and the book as a comprehensive but exhausting read. When it ends and the glazed eyes refocus, you’re left with the unsettling realization you’ve just spent 500 pages on the man who directed One From the Heart. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-70445-5
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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