- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (18 Sep 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747577102
- ISBN-13: 978-0747577102
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 924,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'This is the most illuminating book about a film star that I've read' Independent on Sunday 'Writing with his customary passion and insight, Thomson explores Kidman's talent, beauty and glamour as well as her ability to remain an enigma' Sunday Express 'Thomson has written some of the best books about film' Observer 'The laureate of living critics' Chris Roberts, Guardian
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Like Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman is a very serious actress. Like Grace Kelly, she is a classy dame, a princess from the Pacific. And like Marilyn or Rita Hayworth, she makes a saucy pin-up, who just loves being photographed. The combination is sensational, and no one can argue about her being the great star actress of the moment. She is mistress to an astonishing range of parts, but she is also the Chanel woman, a face and a body made iconic on billboards, in TV commercials, on magazine covers, on the Internet and in our dreams. But there is something mysterious and not quite settled about Nicole Kidman, which is why David Thomson, one of the world's most imaginative writers on film, wanted to write about her. He realized that there wasn't another career so single-minded about being a star, a figure on all our horizons. So he tracks her from Australia to the larger world and back again from Dead Calm, Days of Thunder and To Die For to Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge, The Others, Birthday Girl, The Hours, Dogville, Birth and Fur. In this arc a curly-haired girl from Hawaii and Sydney has become whatever she wants to be. Has it been easy? Pain-free? Without problems? Look at those blue eyes - so carefree once and already now those of a woman about to be forty, the next great challenge in her determined evolution. What happens when a woman discovers the power to move millions of strangers? And what happens to those who watch - the strangers?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really disagree with the criticism from the other reader. The point is that Thomson is not attempting to provide some kind of Vanity-Fair style revelations about Kidman's personal habits. Rather, he uses her career as a starting point for his always fascinating meditations on the nature of stardom and cinema in general. It was a deliberate decision for him to have remained in the position of the star-struck fan, sitting in the dark, gazing adoringly at Kidman. He is not afraid to make himself appear ridiculous in his admiration of her, ahem, body of work. And are the rest of us film fans any less ridiculous? With his typically witty prose Thomson brings home what a strange and unhealthy addiction cinema really is - as well as being the most compelling of all gthe arts.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am a Nicole fanatic and for the price this is good, it comes with some nice pictures but i find it is very opinionated and dosent really do justice for Nicole it is more about his views and what he thinks.
Hopefully she will write a biography soon
Wouldn't recommend at all, im a bit annoyed at my waste of money. :(
Hopefully she will write a biography soon
Wouldn't recommend at all, im a bit annoyed at my waste of money. :(
10 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Most people buy biographies because they have an existing interest in that star and want to get more of an insight into that particular personality. This book provides absolutely no new revelations into this huge actress, that most people do not already know. Instead we are forced to be the audience to David's views on each and every film and how he feels she could have done better/worse etc. There are very few interviews with people that have worked with her, few details about why she made her films choices, how the films were put together, and how she has become such a bankable star. He quotes from other magazine and interviews she has done, which we all have access to, and talks like he knows her intimately even though it is revealed they only spoke for a few minutes on the phone. I understand this was an unauthorised biog, but surely there could have been some proper investagative journalism and research done to provide the reader with new information on Nicole, instead of boring us with his own theories. Shame on you David! We bought this book to learn more about Nicole not about you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Absolute waste of time
This isn't a Nicole Kidman biography, it's a run through of her films (and not even all of them) and ways in which the author feels they would have been improved. Read more
Published 14 months ago by R. Walsh
What a disappointment
What a disappointment. I bought this book to find out about Nicole Kidman, and all I got were the views of what I consider to be a very opinionated David Thomson. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2009 by Bernard Godfrey
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