Castaways of the Image Planet

by Geoffrey O'Brien

Castaways of the Image Planet collects sixteen years' worth of Geoffrey O'Brien's essays on film and popular culture, most originally published in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Film Comment, Filmmaker, and the New York Times. The topics range from the invention of cinema to contemporary F-X aesthetics; from Shakespeare films to Seinfeld; from '30's screwball comedies to Hong Kong martial-arts movies; from the roots of sexploitation pictures to the televising of Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony. There is an emphasis on the unpredictable interactions between film as a medium apt for expressing the most private dreams and film as the mass literature of the modern world, subject to all the pressures of financing and marketing. Many of the pieces are profiles of individual directors or actors--Orson Welles, Michael Powell, Ed Wood, Marlon Brando, Alfred Hitchcock, Dana Andrews, The Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby--whose careers are probed to look for the point where private obsession meets public myth-making.

Genres: Film

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't think of anything more enjoyable than reading a collection of essays by Geoffrey O'Brien. As a writer, I look up to him, because it seems he has it all. Good taste, good job (he's the editor-in-chief of the Library of America) and a lover or observer of pop culture. "Castaways of the Image Planet is mostly about film, but I feel he goes beyond that medium to write about culture that has spawn from the film aesthetic.

His commentary on Bing Crosby, The Marx Brothers, Mike Leigh, and Japanese Manga comics are my favorite in this collection. And again he's a guy who knows a lot, and can articulate the essence of his subject matters. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read film criticism, but also how a writer approaches his subject matter. So in one word, great.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

He doesn't write often enough.