Background
David Thomson was born on February 18, 1941 in London, England, United Kingdom.
Dulwich College, Dulwich, London, England, United Kingdom
David Thomson attended Dulwich College.
London Film School, London, United Kingdom
David Thomson attended London School of Film Technique (now London Film School).
(This is a dictionary of film biographies, which includes ...)
This is a dictionary of film biographies, which includes biographies of film stars, producers and directors.
https://www.amazon.com/Biographical-Dictionary-Film-David-Thomson/dp/0233988599/?tag=2022091-20
1975
(Thomson turns Hollywood inside out as he examines directo...)
Thomson turns Hollywood inside out as he examines directors, producers, screenwriters, stars and the movies they are making today to uncover the origins of the crisis.
https://www.amazon.com/Overexposures-American-filmmaking-David-Thomson/dp/0688004008/?tag=2022091-20
1981
(This book recounts Beatty's life and career, compares it ...)
This book recounts Beatty's life and career, compares it with a fictional actor, and attempts to evoke Beatty's complex and enigmatic personality.
https://www.amazon.com/Warren-Beatty-Desert-Eyes-Story/dp/0394757564/?tag=2022091-20
1987
(Drawing on Selznick's personal papers, this biography of ...)
Drawing on Selznick's personal papers, this biography of the Hollywood legend describes Selznick's integral role in the history of Hollywood film, his private life, and the colorful characters of the movie industry.
https://www.amazon.com/Showman-Life-David-Selznick/dp/0394568338/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood as a boy genius, became...)
Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood as a boy genius, became a legend with a single perfect film, and then spent the next forty years floundering. But Welles floundered so variously, ingeniously, and extravagantly that he turned failure into "a sustaining tragedy" - his thing, his song. Now the prodigal genius of the American cinema finally has the biographer he deserves. For, as anyone who has read his novels and criticism knows, David Thomson is one of our most perceptive and splendidly opinionated writers on film. In Rosebud, Thomson follows the wild arc of Welles's career, from The War of the Worlds broadcast to the triumph of Citizen Kane, the mixed triumph of The Magnificent Ambersons, and the strange and troubling movies that followed. Here, too, is the unfolding of the Welles persona - the grand gestures, the womanizing, the high living, the betrayals. Thomson captures it all with a critical acumen and stylistic dash that make this book not so much a study of Welles's life and work as a glorious companion piece to them.
https://www.amazon.com/Rosebud-Story-Welles-David-Thomson/dp/0679772839/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(This text shows how The Big Sleep signalled a change in t...)
This text shows how The Big Sleep signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema, as the director Howard Hawks shot extra scenes, "fun" scenes, to replace the ones in which the murders are explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved.
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Sleep-BFI-Film-Classics/dp/0851706320/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(David Thomson writes about James Stewart in Vertigo, Jack...)
David Thomson writes about James Stewart in Vertigo, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, about Cary Grant ("Having fun, perched somewhere between skill and exhilaration, Grant is both the deft director of the circus and a kid in love with the show"), Greta Garbo ("She knows that she is a latent force that works in the minds of audiences she will never meet") and about stardom in general: "The star is adored but not liked: that is the consequence of a religious respect that enjoys no ordinary relations with the object of its desire."
https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Mulholland-Thoughts-Hollywood-Ghosts/dp/0679451153/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(At once examining and experiencing Nevada, Thomson finds ...)
At once examining and experiencing Nevada, Thomson finds its people, its landscape, and the unexpected questions it inspires equally provocative. He shows us the historical Nevada - a classic Wild West, attracting Spanish missionaries, Mormons, uprooted Native Americans, explorers, and silver miners - and the contemporary influx of cultists, druggies, survivalists, and fortune hunters whose quests lead directly to the gaming table.
https://www.amazon.com/Nevada-Land-People-God-Chance/dp/0679454861/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(From the golden age of silent films to the 2000s, this vi...)
From the golden age of silent films to the 2000s, this video-size volume features captioned stills from memorable movies of each decade. Drawing on the Kobal collection, the world's largest privately owned movie photo archive, Thomson (A Biographical Dictionary of Film) presents a general introduction to the Hollywood film industry and brief commentary on each decade.
https://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-David-Thomson/dp/0756607760/?tag=2022091-20
2001
(A noted film critic and author of Rosebud: The Story of O...)
A noted film critic and author of Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America's most acclaimed actors and offers a critical analysis of his influence on the history of American film.
https://www.amazon.com/Marlon-Brando-Biography-David-Thomson/dp/0789493179/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(With the same style and insight he brought to his previou...)
With the same style and insight he brought to his previous studies of American cinema, acclaimed critic David Thomson masterfully evokes the history of America’s love affair with the movies and the tangled history of Hollywood in The Whole Equation. Thomson takes us from D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and the first movies of mass appeal to Louis B. Mayer, who understood what movies meant to America - and reaped the profits. From Capra to Kidman and Hitchcock to Nicholson, Thomson examines the passion, vanity, calculation and gossip of Hollywood and the films it has given us.
https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Equation-History-Hollywood/dp/0375701540
2004
(From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomso...)
From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman - and what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is - in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.
https://www.amazon.com/Nicole-Kidman-David-Thomson-ebook/dp/B001OM52GA/?tag=2022091-20
2006
(This book is a generous history of film and an enticing c...)
This book is a generous history of film and an enticing critical appraisal written with as much humor and passion as historical knowledge. Not content to choose his own top films (though they are here), Thomson has created a list that will surprise and delight you - and send you to your best movie rental service.
https://www.amazon.com/Have-You-Seen-Personal-Introduction/dp/0307264610/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(Try to Tell the Story is a haunting and unsentimental loo...)
Try to Tell the Story is a haunting and unsentimental look at the fragility of family relationships, a memoir of growing up in the absence of a full-time father, with movies and sports heroes as one’s only touchstones.
https://www.amazon.com/Try-Tell-Story-David-Thomson/dp/0375412131/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situat...)
In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred Hitchcock’s career, recreating the mood and time when the seminal film erupted onto film screens worldwide. Thomson shows that Psycho was not just a sensation in film: it altered the very nature of our desires. Sex, violence, and horror took on new life. Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a film - and, as Thomson brilliantly demonstrates, still does.
https://www.amazon.com/Moment-Psycho-Alfred-Hitchcock-America/dp/0465020704/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(He became a legend as "Bogie," the world-weary, wisecrack...)
He became a legend as "Bogie," the world-weary, wisecracking outsider, but in reality Humphrey Bogart was plagued by doubts and demons. He was born upper-class yet made his name playing mavericks, drank with the Rat Pack, and met four wives on set - including his great love, Lauren Bacall - yet always mistrusted stardom. Here David Thomson, one of film's most provocative writers, reveals the man behind cinema's greatest icon.
https://www.amazon.com/Humphrey-Bogart-Great-Stars-Thomson-ebook/dp/B003H4I5AS/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, ...)
Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, at the height of her career Bergman commanded a love that has hardly ever been matched, until her marriage fell apart and created an international scandal. Here the renowned film writer David Thomson gives his own unique take on a woman who was constantly driven by her passions and by her need to act, even if it meant sacrificing everything.
https://www.amazon.com/Ingrid-Bergman-Great-Stars-Thomson-ebook/dp/B003G0PXT4/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(On screen Gary Cooper was the ultimate all-American hero:...)
On screen Gary Cooper was the ultimate all-American hero: lean, laconic, and masculine, a lone sheriff battling his enemies in High Noon, or a tough individualist in The Fountainhead. Off-screen he bedded a host of leading ladies and carefully honed his image, making hundreds of movies and winning two Oscars in the process. The acclaimed film writer David Thomson explores the career and the contradictions of "Coop," the star who lived the dream in the golden age of Hollywood.
https://www.amazon.com/Cooper-Great-Stars-David-Thomson-ebook/dp/B003P9XMB2/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(Bette Davis was the commanding figure of the great era of...)
Bette Davis was the commanding figure of the great era of Hollywood stardom, with a drive and energy that put her contemporaries in the shade. She played queens, jezebels, and bitches; she could out-talk any male costar; she warred with her studio, Warner Bros., worked like a demon, got through four husbands, was nominated for seven Oscars, and - no matter what - never gave up fighting. This is her story, from the acclaimed film critic David Thomson.
https://www.amazon.com/Bette-Davis-Great-Stars-Thomson-ebook/dp/B003GWX8RG/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(The Big Screen tells the enthralling story of the movies:...)
The Big Screen tells the enthralling story of the movies: their rise and spread, their remarkable influence over us, and the technology that made the screen - smaller now, but ever more ubiquitous - as important as the images it carries.
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Screen-Story-Movies-ebook/dp/B008MWNEKG/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(Moments takes readers on an unprecedented visual tour, wh...)
Moments takes readers on an unprecedented visual tour, where the specifics of the imagery the reader is seeing are inextricably tied to the text. Thomson?s moments range from a set of Eadweard Muybridge?s pioneering photographs to sequences in films from the classic - Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, The Red Shoes - to the unexpected - The Piano Teacher, Burn After Reading.
https://www.amazon.com/Moments-That-Movies-David-Thomson/dp/0500516413/?tag=2022091-20
2013
(In his most inventive exploration of the medium yet, Davi...)
In his most inventive exploration of the medium yet, David Thomson - one of our most provocative authorities on all things cinema - shows us how to get more out of watching any movie. Guiding us through each element of the viewing experience, considering the significance of everything from what we see and hear on-screen - actors, shots, cuts, dialogue, music - to the specifics of how, where, and with whom we do the viewing, Thomson explicates the movie watching experience with his customary candor and wit. Delivering keen analyses of films ranging from Citizen Kane to 12 Years a Slave, in How to Watch a Movie, Thomson shows moviegoers how to more deeply appreciate both the artistry and the manipulation of film - and in so doing enriches our viewing experience immensely.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Watch-Movie-David-Thomson/dp/1101910844/?tag=2022091-20
2015
(Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respec...)
Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respected and insightful writers on movies and theater, answers this question with intelligence and wit. In this fresh and thought-provoking essay, Thomson tackles this most elusive of subjects, examining the allure of the performing arts for both the artist and the audience member while addressing the paradoxes inherent in acting itself. He reflects on the casting process, on stage versus film acting, and on the cult of celebrity. The art and considerable craft of such gifted artists as Meryl Streep, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis, and others are scrupulously appraised here, as are notions of “good” and “bad” acting. Thomson’s exploration is at once a meditation on and a celebration of a unique and much beloved, often misunderstood, and occasionally derided art form. He argues that acting not only “matters” but is essential and inescapable, as well as dangerous, chronic, transformative, and exhilarating, be it on the theatrical stage, on the movie screen, or as part of our everyday lives.
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Acting-Matters-ebook/dp/B00SVDZCYC/?tag=2022091-20
2015
(One of the most critically acclaimed series ever produced...)
One of the most critically acclaimed series ever produced, Breaking Bad (Sony Pictures Television/AMC, 2008–2013) won legions of avid viewers who debated its every nuance as they followed the evolution of terminally ill high-school teacher Walter White as he became the drug kingpin Heisenberg. This one-of-a-kind book - the ultimate official guide to the show - covers the evolution of Breaking Bad from the pilot to the final episode and beyond.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bad-Official-David-Thomson/dp/1454916737/?tag=2022091-20
2015
(Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson ...)
Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson brings his provocatively insightful and unique voice to the life of what was television. David Thomson surveying a Boschian landscape, illuminated by that singular glow - always "on" - and peopled by everyone from Donna Reed to Dennis Potter, will be the first complete history of the defining medium of our time.
https://www.amazon.com/Television-Biography-David-Thomson/dp/0500519161/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpret...)
David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio’s larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers’ cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became "one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there."
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072186ZW6/?tag=2022091-20
2017
(From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biograp...)
From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, an original, seductive account of sexuality in the movies and of how actors and actresses on screen have fed our desire. Film can make us want things we can not have. But, while sometimes rapturous, the interaction of onscreen beauty and private desire speaks to a crisis in American culture, one that pits delusions of male supremacy against feminist awakening and the spirit of gay resistance. Combining criticism, his encyclopedic knowledge of film history, and memoir, David Thomson examines how film has found the fault lines in traditional masculinity and helped to point the way past it toward a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a person desiring others. Ranging from advertising to pornography, Rudolph Valentino to Moonlight, Rock Hudson to Call Me By Your Name, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant to Phantom Thread, Thomson shows us the art and the artists we love under a new light. He illuminates the way in which film as art, entertainment, and business has been a polite cover for a kind of erotic séance. And he makes us see how the way we watch our movies is a kind of training for how we try to live.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D6C5X3G/?tag=2022091-20
2019
critic educator historian author
David Thomson was born on February 18, 1941 in London, England, United Kingdom.
David Thomson attended Dulwich College, London, and London School of Film Technique (now London Film School).
David Thomson is a former teacher of film studies at Dartmouth College. He has served on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival and scripted the documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind. He is a regular contributor to S&S, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, Film Comment, Movieline, the New Republic and Salon.
Some of his film books include Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles, Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, "Have You Seen…?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films and The Big Screen. His fiction writing includes the novels Suspects and Silver Light.
(David Thomson writes about James Stewart in Vertigo, Jack...)
1997(One of the most critically acclaimed series ever produced...)
2015(David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpret...)
2017(With the same style and insight he brought to his previou...)
2004(This text shows how The Big Sleep signalled a change in t...)
1997(The Big Screen tells the enthralling story of the movies:...)
2012(A noted film critic and author of Rosebud: The Story of O...)
2003(Try to Tell the Story is a haunting and unsentimental loo...)
2009(Drawing on Selznick's personal papers, this biography of ...)
1992(Adored by millions for her luminous beauty and elegance, ...)
2009(From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biograp...)
2019(From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomso...)
2006(In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situat...)
2009(On screen Gary Cooper was the ultimate all-American hero:...)
2009(In his most inventive exploration of the medium yet, Davi...)
2015(Thomson turns Hollywood inside out as he examines directo...)
1981(Does acting matter? David Thomson, one of our most respec...)
2015(This book recounts Beatty's life and career, compares it ...)
1987(At once examining and experiencing Nevada, Thomson finds ...)
1999(Moments takes readers on an unprecedented visual tour, wh...)
2013(Over twenty-two thematically organized chapters, Thomson ...)
2016(Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood as a boy genius, became...)
1996(Bette Davis was the commanding figure of the great era of...)
2009(This book is a generous history of film and an enticing c...)
2008(From the golden age of silent films to the 2000s, this vi...)
2001(He became a legend as "Bogie," the world-weary, wisecrack...)
2009(This is a dictionary of film biographies, which includes ...)
1975David Thomson is married. His wife’s name is Lucy. They have two children.