John Baxter (author)

Last updated

John Baxter
Born (1939-12-14) 14 December 1939 (age 84)
Randwick, New South Wales, Australia
OccupationNovelist
NationalityAustralian
GenreNon-fiction

John Baxter (born 14 December 1939 in Randwick, New South Wales) is an Australian writer, journalist, and film-maker.

Contents

Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney. He has lived in Paris since 1989, where he is married to film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter.

He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds , Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as The God Killers, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about science fiction in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction. [1]

Baxter has written other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.

In 1973 Baxter published the first critical account of the work of British film maker Ken Russell, An Appalling Talent. The book was based on an extended interview with the director and covers his work from Amelia and the Angel (1958) to The Boy Friend (1971), while observing the shooting of the film Savage Messiah (1973) and the state of the British film industry.

In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, [2] John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.

For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. [3] Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.

Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.[ citation needed ]

Since 2007, he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.[ citation needed ]

Publications

Novels

Edited collections

Nonfiction

Film books

  • John Baxter (1999). Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas . New York City: Spike Books. ISBN   0-380-97833-4.
  • George Lucas: A Biography , 1999
  • Woody Allen: A Biography, 1998
  • Buñuel, 1998
  • Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, 1997
  • De Niro: A Biography, 2003
  • Filmstruck: Australia at the Movies. , 1986
  • The Hollywood Exiles, 1976
  • King Vidor, 1976
  • Stunt; the Story of the Great Movie Stunt Men , 1974
  • Sixty Years of Hollywood, 1973
  • An Appalling Talent: Ken Russell, 1973
  • The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg , 1971
  • The Australian Cinema, 1970
  • Science Fiction in the Cinema, 1970
  • Hollywood in the Thirties, 1968
  • Hollywood in the Sixties, 1972

Filmography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Lang</span> Austrian filmmaker (1890–1976)

Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, better known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States. One of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. He has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Kubrick</span> American filmmaker (1928–1999)

Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or short stories, spanning a number of genres and gaining recognition for their intense attention to detail, innovative cinematography, extensive set design, and dark humor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special effect</span> Illusions or tricks to change appearance

Special effects are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world. It used to be called SFX but this short form has also expanded to include “sound effects” as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvey Keitel</span> American actor (born 1939)

Harvey Keitel is an American actor known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with director Martin Scorsese, starring in six of his films: Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and The Irishman (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luis Buñuel</span> Spanish-Mexican filmmaker (1900–1983)

Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Buñuel's works were known for their avant-garde surrealism which were also infused with political commentary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science fiction film</span> Film genre

Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.

The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant developments in world cinema.

<i>Conquest of Space</i> 1955 American sci-fi film

Conquest of Space is a 1955 American Technicolor science fiction film from Paramount Pictures, produced by George Pal, directed by Byron Haskin, that stars Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, and Mickey Shaughnessy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Claude Carrière</span> French writer (1931–2021)

Jean-Claude Carrière was a French novelist, screenwriter and actor. He received an Academy Award for best short film for co-writing Heureux Anniversaire (1963), and was later conferred an Honorary Oscar in 2014. He was nominated for the Academy Award three other times for his work in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). He also won a César Award for Best Original Screenplay in The Return of Martin Guerre (1983).

Geoffrey Gilyard Unsworth, OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer who worked on nearly ninety feature films during a career that wound up spanning over more than forty years. He is best known for his work on critically acclaimed releases such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bob Fosse's Cabaret and Richard Donner's Superman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of science fiction films</span>

The history of science fiction films parallels that of the motion picture industry as a whole, although it took several decades before the genre was taken seriously. Since the 1960s, major science fiction films have succeeded in pulling in large audience shares, and films of this genre have become a regular staple of the film industry. Science fiction films have led the way in special effects technology, and have also been used as a vehicle for social commentary.

<i>Warning from Space</i> 1956 Japanese science fiction tokusatsu film

Warning from Space is a Japanese tokusatsu science fiction film directed by Koji Shima. Produced and distributed by Daiei Film, it was the first Japanese science fiction film to be produced in color and predates Daiei's most iconic tokusatsu characters, Gamera and Daimajin. In the film's plot, starfish-like aliens disguised as humans travel to Earth to warn of the imminent collision of a rogue planet and Earth. As the planet rapidly accelerates toward Earth, a nuclear device is created at the last minute and destroys the approaching world.

John Raymond Brosnan was an Australian writer of both fiction and non-fiction works in the fantasy and science fiction genres. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, and died in South Harrow, London, from acute pancreatitis. He sometimes published under the pseudonyms Harry Adam Knight, Simon Ian Childer, James Blackstone, and John Raymond. Three movies were based on his novels–Beyond Bedlam, Proteus, and Carnosaur. In addition to science fiction, he also wrote a number of books about cinema and was a regular columnist with the popular UK magazine Starburst and comic 2000 AD. Liverpool University holds a collection of his work consisting of both published material and drafts.

Calder Baynard Willingham Jr. was an American novelist and screenwriter.

<i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, and it was inspired by Clarke's 1951 short story "The Sentinel" and other of his short stories. Clarke also published a novelisation of the film, in part written concurrently with the screenplay, after the film's release. The film stars Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain and follows a voyage by astronauts, scientists, and the sentient supercomputer HAL to Jupiter to investigate an alien monolith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Sinclair</span> British novelist, historian, biographer, critic, and filmmaker (1935–2019)

Andrew Annandale Sinclair FRSL FRSA was a British novelist, historian, biographer, critic, filmmaker, and a publisher of classic and modern film scripts. He has been described as a "writer of extraordinary fluency and copiousness, whether in fiction or in American social history".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Kubrick's unrealized projects</span> Films that were not made

The following is a list of unproduced Stanley Kubrick projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, American film director Stanley Kubrick had worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell into development hell or are officially cancelled.

Anthony Edward Frewin is a British writer and erstwhile personal assistant to film director Stanley Kubrick. Frewin now represents the Stanley Kubrick Estate. His novel London Blues has been described as "masterful".

Arthouse science fiction is a combination of art and science fiction cinema.

Robert Phillip Kolker is an American film historian, theorist, and critic. He has authored and edited a number of influential books on cinema and media studies. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park.

References

  1. Clute, John and Nicholls, Peter (1995). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St. Martin's Press. p. 98. ISBN   0-312-13486-X . Retrieved 30 April 2012.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. David Stratton The last new wave : the Australian film revival Sydney: Angus & Robertson 1980
  3. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 August 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. John Baxter (2017). Eating Eternity: Food, Art, and Literature in France. New York City: Museyon. ISBN   978-1-940842-16-5.