Peter Cowie – författare

By 1982 Francis Ford Coppola had won five Academy Awards at the same time he was over 20 million in debt following the disastrous failure of One from the Heart. This astute biography critically examines Coppola's singular vision and why it makes such paradoxes not only possible but prevalent in his long turbulent career. At the age of 32 Coppola became a superstar in Hollywood with The Godfather, which rapidly climbed to the top of the all-time box-office hits. Two years later he won the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival for The Conversation. His savage epic of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, established him as the most daring, brilliant filmmaker of his generation. This book not only goes behind the cameras to track the creative and financial turmoil involved in his productions, but offers perceptive analyses of his films, including all three parts of The Godfather and the visually stunning remake of Dracula. Based on three years of research and exclusive interviews with the subject, Coppola illuminates the director's rise to prominence, his personal tragedies, intermittent failures, and resurgent successes with telling insights into the shaping of his artistic sensibility. This is a spirited, penetrating study of a man whose films have a strange way of mirroring his own sometimes tempestuous life.

All of the drama, excitement and flavour of 60s cinema, a revolution that led to the Cannes Film Festival riots of 1968.The period 1958-69 saw a brilliant explosion of film-making talent not just in Europe but throughout the world. From France and Italy to India and Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia to North and South America, young film-makers sprang from nowhere to challenge the drear conformity of the 1950s and flout the abiding taboos, both sexual and political, of their age. The vanguard of this revolution included Godard and Truffaut, Pasolini and Bertolucci, Oshima and Rocha, Polanski and Cassavetes. Critic Peter Cowie was in the thick of this cultural tumult, not least when some of these firebrand talents shut down the Cannes Festival in the heady May of 1968. Revolution! recaptures afresh the cultural spirit of the 1960s - its struggles, innovations, and achievements - through a wide range of new interviews with those maverick film-making talents of the time.

Peter Cowie's book chronicles the life and the 60-year film and stage career of Bergman as he wrestles of themes of love, sex and betrayal with the figure of Death hovering overhead.Blending biographical information with critical comment, Cowie presents a man whose life and work were intimately fused.'Bergman's films stand alone as beacons in film history.' Wim Wenders

'A commanding portrait.' Total Film'Indispensable . . . rich, engaging, thorough.' Sight & Sound'Bergman's films stand alone as beacons in film history.' Wim WendersA chronicle of the life and career of one of film's defining figures, God and the Devil draws on exclusive extracts from Bergman's diaries, letters and production workbooks. Peter Cowie brings us close to the man and the artist, as he wrestled with themes of love, sex and betrayal - with the figure of Death always hovering overhead.'Cowie's meticulously researched book maps the details of Bergman's eventful personal life onto his characters and themes.' Barney Horner, New Statesman'Scrupulous, accurate and trustworthy.' Tom Shone, Sunday Times'Brings us as close to the man - and the artist - as we're likely to get . . . Sure to become the definitive Bergman biography.' Paula Hammond, Film Juice' The mark of a good critical biography is that it sends you back to the work with fresh perspectives and renewed curiosity . . . This reader . . . came out wanting to watch or rewatch everything Bergman ever did.' Wall Street Journal'Having met Bergman in 1969 and corresponded with him until 1995, veteran film author Peter Cowie is able to channel first-hand knowledge of Bergman into a book that's respectful without being overly reverential.' Matt Looker, Total Film

An informal yet informed journey through the classic works of Japanese cinema and their directors.This is a passionate, personal journey through one of the world’s greatest national cinemas, beginning with the classic directors who came to the fore in the postwar period and became legendary names on the art house circuit: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kobayashi, Naruse, and Oshima, among others. Japanese Cinema traces the common themes explored by these directors as well as the impact of important historical and cultural issues, including World War 2, the representation of women, and the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. Finally, Peter Cowie surveys the state of contemporary Japanese film and its greatest living practitioners, Hirokazu Kore-eda among them, as well as the international face of Japanese animation, Hayao Miyazaki. Cowie brings a lifetime’s commitment to film to bear on the human relationships so well explored by these Japanese auteurs.