John Boorman - Böcker

Projections 2 highlights Robert Altman, whose film The Player restored him to his proper place in cinema's pantheon. Actor Tim Robbins, who memorably incarnated Griffin Mill in The Player, has written, directed and acted in Bob Roberts, the script of which is printed here in full. And another actor, Willem Dafoe, describes how he approaches his craft.There are also pieces by Belgian director Jaco van Dormael, New Zealand director Alison Maclean and Australian director George Miller, who charts the journey he has made from Mad Max to the (then) eagerly awaited Lorenzo's Oil. Finally, Bertrand Tavernier's diary records the evolution of his controversial film L627 against the shifting European cultural landscape.

Projections is a forum for film-makers in which the practitioners of cinema write about their craft. In this edition we celebrate the centenary of film with articles ranging from an interview with Louis Lumière - the inventor of the cinema - to James Toback's tales of contemporary Hollywood. Included in Projections 4:Louis Lumière - Founding FatherMartin Scorsese - AnamorphobiaJames Toback - A Journal for 1994Penn on PennKen Burns - Raising the DeadSidney Howard - The Gone with the Wind Letters and The Story Gets a TreatmentLouis Malle, Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Fred Berner, Larry Pine - Chekhov's ChildrenWalter Murch - Sound Design: The Dancing ShadowEddie Fowlie - Playing Cowboys and IndiansJohn Seale - Lunch and a BookGene Kelly - An American in ParadiseSally Potter - The Tango LessonFederico Fellini - Creation and the ArtistViggo Mortensen - Missing Sandy DennisLindsay Anderson - On John FordThis edition also includes contributions by Percy Adlon, Kevin Brownlow, Roger Corman, Alex Cox, Andre de Toth, Nora Ephron, Monte Hellman, Huang Mingchuan, Richard Lowenstein, Dusan Makavejev, Arthur Penn, Vincent Sherman, Istvan Szabo, Michael Tolkin, Vincent Ward and Fred Zinneman.

When the door of the Lumière factory opened to release the workers, it was more than just the end of the day - it was the beginning of a brand new art form that has shaped the consciousness of the twentieth century. This very first moment of the very first film gave birth to other moments that are cherished in the recollections of people all over the world. In this issue we collaborated with the French film magazine Positif.The centrepiece of this issue came to us from Positif. For their 400th issue Positif asked the film-makers with whom they had forged a special relationship over the past forty years to write about the films, directors and actors who have had a special significance for them. An array of seventy international film-makers - including Altman and Angelopoulos, Chabrol and the Coens, Eastwood and Frears, Kazan and Kieslowski, Leigh and Loach, Makavejev and Marker, Ophuls and Penn, Resnais and Rohmer, Rosi and Rudolph, Tavernier and the Tavianis, Varda and Zulawski, among others - responded, and we present this treasure trove of film-making comment as a way of celebrating the 100 years of cinema.1995 was also the centenary of Buster Keaton. In honour of this, Kevin Brownlow - noted film-maker, historian and restorer of the silent cinema - recounts the making of Keaton's masterpiece, The General.

PROJECTIONS is a forum for film-makers where - like dispatches from the front - practitioners of cinema write about their craft. In this year's issue there is a special focus on the art of animation, with interviews with the father-figure of stop-motion animation, Ray Harryhausen, and its leading exponents in Britain, Nick Park, and in the US, Henry Selick. Jamie Lee Curtis & Tony Curtis - Some Like It DarkQuentin Tarantino & Brian de Palma - Emotion PicturesRay Harryhausen - Animation and DynamationNick Park - A Lot Can Happen in a SecondHenry Selick - Bringing Things to Life by HandSimon Pummell - Cutting Off Their Tails with a Carving KnifeAnnaud On AnnaudFred Zinnemann - A Little Tea, A Little ChatJames Stewart - Learning Your CraftTodd Haynes, Julianne Moore, Christine Vachon - Making SafeChris Buck - PortfolioWilliam Wellman - A TributeWalter Donohue - Adventures in a Light IndustryLouis Malle - In Memoriam

The centrepiece of this issue comes from the celebrated French film magazine, Cahiers du Cinema. For their 500th issue Martin Scorsese contributed material not only about his own work - including his relationship with Robert de Niro - but also about film-makers he admires: those of his generation (Coppola, De Palma, Lucas and Spielberg), as well as those film-makers whose legacy enriches cinema today (Ford, Raoul Walsh, Ida Lupino, Hitchcock, John Cassavetes). He celebrates the glories of the British cinema, and concludes by posing five essential questions about film. Other contributors include: Jamie Lee Curtis - In Conversation with Janet Leigh and Lillian BurnsHippolyte Girardot - Never Forget MastroianniFrances Mcdormand & Willem Dafoe - Acting is BelievingRobert Mitchum - Looking Like Nothing MattersBrian Cox - ManhunterLeslie Caron - The L-Shaped RoomSylvia Syms - VictimTeresa Wright - Shadow of a DoubtJaco van Dormael - Life LessonsBebe Barron - Making Music for Forbidden PlanetChristopher Porter - Photographing Dead ManFrank Capra/Douglas Sirk - A Centenary TributeWilliam K. Everson/Marcello Mastroianni - In Memoriam

Why live and work as a film-maker in New York rather than Hollywood? The birthplace of US cinema, New York has played a hugely influential role in its evolution - particularly in the realm of more personal, 'independent' film-making of figures from Sam Fuller to John Cassavetes. Now Projections 11 seeks to answer Mike Figgis' Los Angeles issue Projections 10 by interviewing film-makers who base themselves in New York, creating an East coast alternative to Hollywood. Tod Lippy speaks to Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Sidney Lumet, Christine Vachon, David O. Russell, Nora Ephron, Tim Robbins, Frances McDormand, and many others.

Martin Scorsese writes about Robert de Niro, Nick Park gives a rare interview about his work, there's a new piece on the making of low budget indie hit Tarnation and features by and on Clint Eastwood, Wong Kar-Wei, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Ray Harryhausen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jodie Foster and James Stewart.Packed with big names revealing private and fascinating insights into their work, this is the perfect introduction for anyone new to the series and a must-have for cinephiles everywhere.

Chosen as one of Sight & Sound's 'Best Film Books of the Year'John Boorman is one of the cinema's authentic visionaries, drawn to myths and dreams. The undisputed heir to David Lean, his films, such as Point Blank, Deliverance and Excalibur, exhibit a continual search for the truth that only art can convey. In Conclusions Boorman summarises what he has learned about the craft of film-making, and wishes to pass on to the next generation of film-makers. Into this tapestry of cinematic memories, he also weaves the story of his kith and kin, including the death of his cherished elder daughter, and an evocation of the forest of trees that he has planted as his final legacy.

‘As I step out of the conservatory facing North, supported by my pusher, the first that catches my eye is the dying Sycamore which escapes death every year by producing a healthy crop of leaves, but it looks so decrepit that surely it can’t pull that trick yet again.’— John Boorman, 1 April, 2020In his eighty-eighth year, John Boorman uses his time in lockdown to reflect on the splendour of the surrounding nature of County Wicklow. Coccooning with his daughter and son among the hills of Annamoe, Boorman chronicles his daily walks and observations of the trees on his estate, writing with heightened appreciation of the beauties of his eyrie using only one eye and one finger.Poetry flows from his pen as he sits chairbound among his trees and flora. Sycamores, limes, beech, oak, redwood, shrubs and flowers, birdsong and shifting skies are luminously recorded as the world falls silent. With illustrations by Susan Morley, this slim but meditative volume is a remarkable narrative by the creator of The Emerald Forest, Excalibur and Deliverance – a swansong like no other.

In a post-apocalyptic 2393, society is split between an elite group of immortal Eternals and a brutal underclass that live in the outlands and are controlled by the Exterminators. Zed, an Exterminator who has come to question his role and the exact nature of the world he inhabits, stows away in the flying head that descends to issue guns and sermons to the Exterminators and enters the world of the Eternals: the Vortex. An ostensible paradise of rationality and order, the Vortex is revealed as a place which is itself full of division and intrigue. Has he come here of his own free will? Or is he part of some larger competition among the Eternals? How has the Vortex come about and what might come after? What is it in Zed that the Eternals lack and is he there to bring them “the gift of death"?Expanding on and fleshing out the characters' history and the themes of his riotous, psychedelic cult classic film Zardoz, Boorman’s novelization has become something of a cult itself, a fully realised visionary sci-fi novel by one of the most important directors of the twentieth century.