Screen and Cinema – serie

The quirky, strange and utterly sagacious meditations of David Caradine written during the making of Quentin Tarantino's contemporary classic in which Carradine played the lead role. When Carradine landed the lead role in Quentin Tarantino's new film, Kill Bill, it catapulted him into the Hollywood limelight. This journal captures his experience of being courted by Tarantino for the role of Bill and the subsequent two years spent making the two-part feature film with co-star Uma Thurman, nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe. In its mixture of autobiography and behind-the-scenes diary, The Kill Bill Diary takes the reader on a fascinating and witty journey into the world of film-making and the art of an acclaimed director. Along the way Carradine describes the martial arts training required for the role, the experience of filming in China, working with Tarantino and falling in love with Uma Thurman while 'swinging a steel-tempered Samurai sword at her head'. In describing the pre-production, production and promoting of the film, Carradine gives readers a rare and wholly authentic insight into the creation of a Hollywood blockbuster and the experience of a screen legend.

Premiered at the Bush theatre in 1993 Beautiful Thing was released as a feature film by Channel Four films in 1996 directed by Hettie Macdonald and featuring Meera Syal Beautiful Thing explores pre-teenage homo-erotic sensuality and the frictions and intimacies of living cheek by jowl on a Thamesmead housing estate.

Now a major film from 20th Century Fox This is the first-ever adaptation of Arthur Miller's twentieth century classic for the big screen. Set in the 17th century, it famously mirrors the communist "witch-hunts" of McCarthyism in 50s America. A fascinating and disturbing dramatisation of the collective psychology of persecution it shows all too painfully how even a close-knit rural community can be desolated once doubt and suspicion take hold.

Winner of the 1990 Evening Standard Film Award for Best Film Post-war East End London. Ronnie and Reggie Kray are school ground bullies brought up by a domineering mother and two devoted aunts. National Service and spells in prison expose the brutality that helps establish the twin brothers as the kings of 1960s gangland London. Philip Ridley's original, uncut screenplay, almost as notorious as its subject matter is a stylised meditation on maternal love, childhood, violence and homoeroticism and takes its place as one of the masterpieces of contemporary cinema."Ridley...reveals himself most welcomely as a genuinely innovative film maker, untrammelled by conventions and with an individualistic imagination firing on all cylinders." (The Evening Standard)

Winner of the 1996 BAFTA for Best Single Drama Jane Austen's classic novel is the story of Anne Elliot. Engaged eight years previously to a young navel officer, Frederick Wentworth, she allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, and that she had better prospects. The scene opens some seven years after Anne has refused the love of her life when Frederick Wentworth returns from the sea, in search of a wife. Nick Dear's critically acclaimed screen play was first screened on BBC2 in April 1995 and was subsequently released worldwide as a feature film.

Shakespeare's comic, romantic tale of loss and love, disguise and gender takes on haunting, autumnal tones Trevor Nunn's screenplay together with an extensive introduction and production stills was published to coincide with the film's release in 1996. Filmed on the coast of Cornwall it stars Helen Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley, Stephen Mackintosh, Mel Smith, Imelda Staunton, Toby Stephens and Imogen Stubbs.

From the novel by Michael Ondaatje Anthony Minghella's screenplay is a gripping adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning story of love, betrayal and loss set against a background of war, spies and intrigue."Here is a work of art to break your heart" (Time); "The current movie versions of books are well-meaning, but none comes close to The English Patient in their ability to turn literary prose into cinematic gems" (New York Times)

A major release from Initial films for Channel Four starring Stephen Rea and Richard Harris. Award-winning writer Billy Roche and director Gillies Mackinnon create a strange compelling world on the edge of society Eddie is a small-town hawker who dreams of a business of his own. Treated as little more than an errand boy by his employer John Power, the godfather of the local traveller community, his modest ambitions seem far beyond his grasp until Power becomes obsessed with a young traveller girl, Kathleen. On the night of their wedding Kathleen elopes with Power's nephew, Dermot, and GBP11,000 in dowry money. Eddy aids their escape and finds himself inextricably embroiled in the violent consequences..."A feisty flavourful script from Billy Roche...Trojan Eddie will please audiences still in search of old-fashioned storytelling values" Screen International

Barrie Keeffe's acclaimed screenplay for the classic film Harold Shand has made it from Whitechapel to running his own 'corporation' and owning his own yacht and classy mistress. He has the police and the local authorities in his pocket, is planning a major London property development and forging links with the international Mafia. Everything indeed is coming up roses for Harold until the Easter weekend when enemies unknown embark on a series of lethal outrages against his organisation. As the story accelerates to a crazy vortex of violence, Harold discovers he has unwittingly crossed enemies whose connections, expertise and dedication to violence outclass his own."The first British thriller to even approach the cracking vitality of the classic Hollywood gangster movies ...dazzlingly slick" (Daily Mail); "The best British gangster flick of all time" (Empire)

Sling Blade won the 1997 Academy Award for best original screenplay Karl has just been released from an asylum some twenty-five years after he committed a gruesome murder, returns to the town of his youth. His gentle manner and simple charm land him a job, and lead him into an unlikely friendship with a young boy and his widowed mother. But when the mother's abusive boyfriend appears, this simple man is thrust into a combustible situation that could have powerful, moving consequences for all.Billy Bob Thornton is one of Hollywood's most promising writer/directors, and Sling Blade was shown at the 1998 London Film Festival to great acclaim

Nominated for a BAFTA award. From the author of Trainspotting, an adaptation of another of his best-selling works - a collection of short stories - The Acid House Trilogy The Acid House Trilogy is made up of three of Welsh's most powerful stories; The Granton Star Cause (starring Stephen McCole and Maurice Roeves), The Acid House (starring Ewen Bremner, Martin Clunes and Jemma Redgrave) and A Soft Touch (starring Kevin McKidd and Michelle Gomez). All three stories come from the rough, tough badlands of the schemes of North Edinburgh and take us into a dark but hilarious world of drugs, deviant sex and football hooliganism fired by Welsh's passion and fierce steaming rock and roll.

The film script for a major film from Channel Four Films and Canal+ Image International, from director Karoly Makk and producer Marc Vlessing. Starring Michael Gambon, Jodhi May, Polly Walker, Dominic West and Luise Rainer. Dostoevsky, impoverished by gambling debts and desperate, makes a Faustian contract with his publisher: In return for an advance he agrees to deliver a novel within a year or lose all rights to his existing and future works. Twenty-seven days before the manuscript is due, he has still not begun work. Despairing, he hires a stenographer, Ann Snitkina, whose passionate determination urges him on to finish the book, saving his career. This true story of Dostoevsky's love affair with Anna Snitkina, the woman he later married is interwoven with scenes from his novella, The Gambler, as he dictates it.

A series of three-hour-long linked plays for BBC2 plus two shorter plays Oswald and Marilyn, played by Timothy Spall and Lindsay Duncan, are the custodians of the collection of 10 million black and white photographs housed in a beautiful period building on the edge of London. Their peaceful old fashioned existence is threatened when some Americans buy the property to turn it into a business school. They have to use their resources and ingenuity to fight the forces of the modern world and as they do so their battle uncovers a mystery from the past, hidden away amongst the photos which has a dramatic effect on the lives of all those involved. "A meditation on the nature of photographic images, a celebration of old-world English eccentricity at threat in a world of high-technology glossiness, and a reminder that nothing in our heritage is sacred" (Sunday Times)

The first stage adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's famous crime novelTom Ripley is a criminal with an ambiguous past. He is sent to Italy by a wealthy financier to try and coax home the rich man's son. In the process Ripley becomes both attracted and seduced, finding the murder the only way to deal with the situation. From that point Ripley tries to cover up his crime. Patricia Highsmith's beguiling tale of morality and amorality is given a dramatic rendering by contemporary dramatist Phyllis Nagy, who knew Highsmith in her later years in Paris."Each play I see by Phyllis Nagy confirms me in the belief that she is the finest playwright to have emerged in the 1990s" (Financial Times)

The screenplay of Anthony Minghella's new film based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith The complete screenplay of Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett. Tom Ripley, a small-time con man, arrives in Italy from New York in search of a wealthy young man named Dickie Greenleaf. He has been sent by the young man's wealthy father to bring Dickie back to America. But once in Italy, Ripley becomes so attracted to Greenleaf and his exotic lifestyle in the seaport village of Mongibello that Tom yearns to inhabit Dickie's life and falls tragically in love with him. Dickie's wealth, style and good looks are qualities that Tom begins to covet. The frightening consequences of this attraction and the moral choices raised by the crime of murder lie at the heart of Minghella's absorbing film. Set throughout Italy (Ischia, Palermo, Rome, Tuscany and Venice), Minghella's adaptation brings to life Highsmith's amoral tale of a criminal who gets away with murder."The craft with which [Minghella] has expanded Patricia Highsmith's 1955 classic crime novel has made the film an even richer experience than the gleefully amoral original" (Scotsman)

By the former Head of Script at the National Film & Television School, this is a key text for anyone interested in film.In this invaluable and fascinating insight into the way the elements of a film - image, sound and story - are put together, Cherry Potter has used her extensive experience as a writer and film-school teacher to provide a combination of analysis and inspiration which will engage the thinking cinema-goer as well as aspiring screenwriters and film-makers.Using sequences from films as diverse as Wild Strawberries, The Lacemaker, For a Few Dollars More, Midnight Cowboy, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and American Beauty, Potter examines the nature of film language, structure and storytelling, as well as departures from the classic form. A final section, which will be of particular interest to anyone who wishes to write, produce or direct films, looks at the imaginative process of generating film ideas and invites readers to explore their creativity by providing essential guidance and practical exercises."An excellently researched and perceptive book.I have not read a more intelligent and detailed appreciation of one of my own films" - John Schlesinger (director)

The script of BBC's major 3-part drama for Spring 2001, starring Michael Gambon, Timothy Spall, Lyndsey Duncan and Toby Stephens If you take any family and get them together, and get them to stay up long enough, the stories will come tumbling out ...there are at least three great stories in any family...At an elaborately organised reunion, held in a grand London hotel, Raymond, his wife Esther and their son Daniel are slowly drawn into their ancestors' family tree. Meeting distant - and not so distant - relatives for the first time they begin to establish their positions within this eccentric and eclectic family. Helping them on their way, Stephen, the appointed 'pedigree-hunter' and archivist, unravels their entwined stories with the aid of his extraordinary collection of family photographs. In an attempt to pieces together and make sense of their forgotten or obscured personal histories, the past impacts on the present and they come face to face with the darkest of family secrets.

An insightful, anecdote-filled history of the film industry, and an examination of the role of the men or women whose job it is to deliver a dramatic and commercial success. Tim Adler introduces us to the mavericks and adventurers of modern-day cinema, in candid interviews with Michael Douglas (a producer who became an actor by mistake), Dino De Laurentiis (last of the great moguls), Duncan Kenworthy and Andrew McDonald (Notting Hill, 28 Days Later), Jeremy Thomas, Marin Karmitz and Christine Vachon. Through them Adler explains the history of some of the most successful films of the last three decades, and looks at the skill and experience, the showmanship and the money necessary to survive in the world's toughest business.

The complete screenplay of one of the world's most famous and controversial films "A definitive chronicle of the making of the film" Sheridan Morley, Films & Filming This is the complete companion to Citizen Kane - the film that was "designed to shock" (Kenneth Tynan) - one of the best-loved and best-known movies in the history of Hollywood and still the most staggering film debut ever. Not only was this Orson Welles's first film as actor and director but most of the cast were also new to the cinema. Yet so controversial was the subject matter that an $842,000 bribe and the concentrated wrath of the Hearst newspaper empire combined in an attempt to strangle its distribution. And the authorship of the film is still a subject of conflict. Pauline Kael's long essay, "Raising Kane", dissects a maze of Hollywood lore to re-evaluate these and many other fascinating stories about the making of this remarkable film. Her account is followed by the original screenplay, illustrated with stills and frame enlargements. "Citizen Kane revolutionised film-making, and the question of its authorship is as important to the cinema as that of Hamlet to the theatre ...Pauline Kael explains how the picture came to be made and concludes that the man most responsible for its creation was not Welles but Herman J.Mankiewicz" Kenneth Tynan, Observer

The screenplay of Poliakoff's award-winning BBC drama about the forgotten son of King George V and Queen Mary The Lost Prince follows the life and times of Prince John, the forgotten youngest son of King George V and Queen Mary, who was born in 1905. Although remembered as a charming boy, he was diagnosed as epileptic and suffering from learning difficulties similar to autism and shut away at the age of twelve at the in Wood Farm near Sandringham to prevent the family from public embarrassment. He died there when he was just thirteen. Dramatising the historical facts, Poliakoff portrays with extraordinary sensitivity, a child's experience of the Royal Family in the late Edwardian period and during the First World War. Set against a backdrop of unprecedented upheaval in Britain, The Lost Prince tells the very human story of a unique family and an extraordinary boy. Published to tie in with the BBC's production, broadcast in two feature-length instalments in January 2003, The Lost Prince stars Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Gina McKee, Tom Hollander, John Sessions, Billy Nighy and Bibi Andersson.

Two major new screenplays by the award-winning Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC and HBO Films and due to be broadcast in November 2007. A stellar cast led by Michael Gambon and Dame Maggie Smith feature in these exquisite, major new films that are linked by a grand house and memories of the past. In Joe's Palace, the first of two screenplays, Stephen Poliakoff explores the relationship between a reclusive billionaire (played by Michael Gambon), and the teenage boy he employs to take care of a grand house. This is a lavishly shot contemporary film about loneliness and loss. In Capturing Mary, the companion film for BBC2 set in the same exquisite empty house, Poliakoff takes his characters into a dark and terrifying exploration of the past and its power to capture and destroy a person's life. Dame Maggie Smith plays the lead role. Included also is A Real Summer, a glorious companion drama to Capturing Mary charting the development of an unexpected friendship between a young aristocratic woman and Mary before she enters the dangerous world of Mr Graham's house.

Glorious 39 is the screenplay of the new blockbuster film by award-winning writer/director Stephen Poliakoff released in cinemas in November 2009. In this tense psychological thriller set on the eve of WWII, a young woman stumbles across evidence of a sinister Nazi appeasement plot that will stop at nothing to achieve its aims. As close friends die in suspicious circumstances, she finds herself in extreme danger from an increasingly menacing and powerful enemy. Besides the screenplay the book features an exclusive Q&A with writer/director Stephen Polikoff, a colour photo section and full cast and production credits. The film features a stellar cast of leading British actors: award-winning British actress Romola Garai (Atonement), alongside BAFTA-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually). They are joined by Oscar-winning actress Julie Christie (Finding Neverland), Eddie Redmayne (The Other Boleyn Girl), David Tennant, Charlie Cox (Stardust), Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park) and the legendary Christopher Lee (Lord of The Rings) as Walter.Glorious 39 is writer/director Stephen Poliakoff's return to the cinema after an absence of a decade since his previous feature films which include the multi-award winning Close My Eyes.

"You think I come from another world, don't you? Filled with all these strange things you've never seen...Well I do, I guess." Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006. Released shortly after his No Country for Old Men was turned into an Oscar-winning film, The Road's cinema version of the novel is directed by John Hillcoat, stars Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron and is an official selection for the 66th Venice Film Festival 2009. Joe Penhall's adaptation is a faithful, careful crafting of the book for the screen, fully evoking the atmosphere of menace and desperation. The Road is set a few years after an unexplained cataclysmic world disaster has left the earth poisoned, barren and hostile. While ash blocks out the sun and the earth no longer fosters plant or animal life, men either starve or join the maruading gangs of cannibals. The plot follows an unnamed father and son on a bleak epic across the wasteland and features a series of horrifc encounters in a merciless world starved of life and hope. This edition includes a full list of cast and crew credits.