Joseph McBride: Film Historian

HomeJoseph McBride Film HistorianQuote of the DayWelcome to the personal website of film historian Joseph McBride, author of many books, veteran journalist, and an associate professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University."Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid."-- Abraham Lincoln, 1855See Previous QuotesPrevious QuotesPrevious Quotes of the Day"When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends." -- Mark Twain"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."-- Upton Sinclair"You say someone's called me the greatest poet of the Western saga. I am not a poet, and I don't know what a Western saga is. I would say that is horseshit."-- John Ford"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."-- Oscar Wilde"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain"I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down in a bed or stretched out on a couch ... "-- Truman Capote"But Hodge shan't be shot. No, No, Hodge shall not be shot."-- Dr. Samuel Johnson "No man but a blockheadever wrote, except for money."-- Dr. Samuel JohnsonGo BackBiographyBiography McBride before introducing his favorite film, Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California. Click here to see photos of Joe, hisfamily, friends, and colleaguesCurriculum VitaeBooksBooksJoseph McBride's biography of Steven Spielberg was published in a newly updated edition in February 2011 by the University Press of Mississippi.At the same time, the Press reprinted his acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra and John Ford. He is currently working on a book on screenwriting, to be published in 2012. Ghostwriter Joe Gillis doing an uncredited rewrite on Joe's upcoming book on screenwriting,Writing in Pictures: Screenwriting Made (Mostly)Painless.Click on each image above for more information about the book.Click here for information onMcBride's previous books.Click here for an article on Joe'swork as a biographerFordGo BackCapraGo BackScreenwritingEvery screenwriter identifies with Joe Gillis (William Holden) the tragic antihero of Billy Wilder's great Sunset Boulevard (1950). Gillis, a screenwriter struggling to make a living in the studio system, offers a cautionary tale about the harsher realities of the business. McBride's book suggests ways of avoiding Gillis's fate. Go BackFilms and TVFilms and TVFilm Creditshttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0564323/See more information about McBride's screenwriting credits:Rock 'n' Roll High SchoolBlood and GutsTV Credits http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0564323/TV SpecialsClick here for information on the documentaryBehind the Curtain: Joseph McBride on Writing Film History, which had its world premiere on April 10, 2011 at the Tiburon International Film Festival in Marin County, CA.Click here for information on the upcoming documentaryDreaming The Quiet Man with Maureen O'Hara, Gabriel Byrne (narrator), Martin Scorsese, Jim Sheridan, and Joseph McBride.Hundreds of screaming maniacs cheered the May 13, 2011 screening of Rock 'n' Roll High School at the Castro Theater in San Francisco as part of the series Midnites for Maniacs, with Joseph McBride introducting the film. TV SpecialsTV Specials100 Years . . . 100 Movies: War and Peace (AFI/TNT), 1998; I wrote the segment on war movies for the AFI's ten-part series on film historyThe American Film Institute Salute to Lillian Gish (CBS), with George Stevens, Jr., 1984 (Writers Guild of America Award nomination; Emmy Award nomination)The American Film Institute Salute to John Huston (CBS), with Stevens, 1983 (Writers Guild of America Award)The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra (CBS), with Stevens, 1982 (Writers Guild of America Award nomination)Let Poland Be Poland (United States Information Agency), with Eric Lieber, 1982; I was the principal writer for this 1982 worldwide live television special, a tribute to the Polish labor movement Solidarnosz (Solidarity) including the leaders of twenty-two countries and many others from the political and cultural worldsThe American Film Institute Salute to Fred Astaire (CBS), with Stevens, 1981 (Writers Guild of America Award nomination; Emmy Award nomination)The American Film Institute Salute to James Stewart (CBS), with Stevens, 1980 (Writers Guild of America Award nomination)Behind the Curtain The Film had its World Premiere April 10, 2011 at the Tiburon International Film Festival, Tiburon, Marin County, CA Upcoming Screening at SFSU at the August Coppola Theater at 7:30 P.M., May 10, 2011 (see the flyer here) BEHIND THE CURTAIN: JOSEPH McBRIDE ON WRITING FILM HISTORYA film by Hart PerezScreen capture from Behind the CurtainFor the first review of the film, seepetertonguette.comHere is another reviewby Jeff Swindoll Click here for images from the filmClick here for information on the film found at the Festival's websiteGo BackBehind the Curtain FlyerFree Campus Screening Behind the Curtain: Joseph McBride on Writing Film HistoryMay 10, 7:30 PM, August Coppola TheaterFollowed by Q&A with Associate Professor Joseph McBride and Writer-Director Hart PerezA new documentary feature about McBride's career as a film historian and biographer of Spielberg, Ford, Capra, Hawks, Welles, and others."Behind the Curtain is a testament to McBride's approach to his work, one any film student interested in exploring the Golden Age of Hollywood should see."-- Peter Tonguette, petertonguette.comGo BackArticles and InterviewsArticlesMy ArticlesHail to the DukeThank You, Mr. Wilder An Old Master's Unheard Cri de Coeur"A Very Good American!"Capra Before He Became "Capraesque"Who Is John Huston?Articles About Me Click here to see the new featureabout me in SF State MagazineSFSU interview about the film world(YOUTUBE videos of the interview)"The Searcher" by Paul BrunickSFSU Campus Insider"Never the Twain Shall Meet: Why Can't Cinephiles and Academics Just Get Along?" by David BordwellTeachingTeachingSan FranciscoState Universityhttp://cinema.sfsu.edu/node/67Syllabi for Spring 2011:Syllabi from Fall 2010:355: Screenwriting I373: Film and Society508: Alfred Hitchcock342: Documentary Film701.01: Creative Process 1508: John Ford (latest)BlogMcBlogWelcome to the personal blog of film historian Joseph McBride, in which I discuss film and politics. I welcome any comments on current and historical issues pertaining to either films or politics.SpielbergGo BackLinksLinksDebra Conway's thoughtful JFK assassination discussion group:jfklancer.comThe website of one of the world's foremost film critics:jonathanrosenbaum.comThe blog of a leading young film critic:petertonguette.comThe dean of American film reviewers, Roger Ebert:rogerebert.suntimes.com/The Tiburon International Film Festival:tiburonfilmfestival.comThe Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California:bampfa.berkeley.eduThe blog of the distinguished film director and historian Peter Bogdanovich:blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/Bright Lights, Gary Morris's fine online film magazine:brightlightsfilm.comCineaste, a leading film magazine with a strongly political orientation:cineaste.comThe San Francisco State University Cinema Department:cinema.sfsu.eduNew York Times film critic Dave Kehr's lively blog:davekehr.comThe blog on cinema by the foremost film scholar, David Bordwell:davidbordwell.netJohn Simkin's insightful JFK assassination discussion group:educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=126Jeffrey Wells's provocative and irreverent film blog: hollywood-elsewhere.comThe website of the internationally renowned Focusing teacher and writer Ann Weiser Cornell:focusingresources.comArianna Huffington's muckraking liberal website:huffingtonpost.comDreaming The Quiet ManDreaming The Quiet Man (Ireland, 2011)

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Images above from the premiere of the film in Corona Cork Film Festival in Cork, Ireland, November 2010. The cast and crew of Dreaming The Quiet Man shooting the film in Ireland with star Maureen O'Hara (the leading lady of John Ford's 1952 classic The Quiet Man) are director Sé Merry Doyle (far right) and Vanessa Gildea (immediate left of Ms. O'Hara).AboutAboutThis website was created by John McBride in 2011 using Wix.If you have any questions or comments, please contactJoseph McBride mac809_earthlink.net2336 Bonar StreetBerkeley, CA 94702John McBride mcbride.jwo_gmail.comAgentsU.S.Richard ParksThe Richard Parks AgencyPO Box 693Salem, NY 12865phone and fax: 518-854-9466email: rp_richardparksagency.comForeignThe Marsh Agency50 Albemarle StreetLondon W1S 4BDU.K.011-44-20-7495-8961www.marsh-agency.co.ukFather and son working on this website.Photos of JoePhotos of Joe, his Family, Friends, and Colleagues

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Earlier TitlesEarlier TitlesWhat Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career(2006)The Book of Movie Lists: An Offbeat, Provocative Collection of the Best and Worstof Everything in Movies(1999)High and Inside: An A-to-Z Guide to the Language of Baseball(1980, 1997)Orson Welles(1972, 1996)Filmmakers on Filmmaking, Vol. I(editor)(1983)Filmmakers on Filmmaking, Vol. II(editor)(1983)Hawks on Hawks(1982)Orson Welles: Actor and Director(1977)Kirk Douglas(1976)John Ford(with Michael Wilmington) (1972)Focus on Howard Hawks(editor) (1972)Persistence of Vision: A Collection of Film Criticism(editor) (1968) Orson Welles A and D

Orson Welles: Actor and Director
(1977)
Persistance of Vision

Focus on Howard Hawks

Hawks on Hawks
Hawks on Hawks (1982)When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences belatedly recognized Hawks's six decades in films with an Oscar for career achievement in 1975, it cited him as "a giant of the American cinema whose pictures, taken as a whole, represent one of the most consistent, vivid, and varied bodies of work in world cinema."For most of his career, Hawks was considered a workmanlike director-producer, consistently successful at the box office. It was not until near the end of his life that serious critics began to realize that he was also one of the most important artists Hollywood has produced. Versatile, he worked with equal ease in screwball comedies, Westerns, gangster movies, musicals, private-eye melodramas, and adventure films. He had an uncanny ability to make people come alive on the screen, and to draw stunning performances from his actors.As the interviews presented in this book attest, Hawks was a thoughtful, if sometimes laconic, artist. His great astuteness in story construction and his mastery of film technique are manifest in his production anecdotes, and his analyses of actors' personalities are brilliantly insightful. This book sheds new light on the personal concerns which Hawks brought to his films, bringing into clear focus the deeply ingrained ethical sense which enabled him to stamp his distinctive signature on what once appeared to casual moviegoers to be a random assortment of genre pieces. Hawks's relaxed comic perspective keeps his films as fresh today as when they were made, and it also enlivens this candid and frequently irreverent book. Listening to him discuss his working methods in Hawks on Hawks is the equivalent of attending a master class in the practical art of film direction.
Kirk Douglas

Orson Welles

Filmmakers on Filmmaking

Whatever Happened
What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career(2006)At the age of twenty-five, Orson Welles (1915-1985) directed, co-wrote, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely regarded as the greatest film ever made. But Welles was such a revolutionary filmmaker that he found himself at odds with the Hollywood studio system. His work was so far ahead of its time that he never regained the wide popular following he had once enjoyed as a young actor-director on the radio. What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career challenges the conventional wisdom that Welles's career after Kane was a long decline and that he spent his final years doing little but eating and making commercials while squandering his initial promise. In this intimate and often surprising personal portrait, Joseph McBride shows instead how Welles never stopped directing radical, adventurous films and was always breaking new artistic ground as a filmmaker.McBride is the first author to provide a comprehensive examination of the films of Welles's artistically rich yet little-known later period in the United States (1970-1985), when McBride knew and worked with him. McBride reports on Welles's daringly experimental film projects, including the legendary 1970-1976 unfinished film The Other Side of the Wind, Welles's satire of Hollywood during the Easy Rider era. McBride gives a unique, insider perspective on Welles from the viewpoint of a young film critic playing a spoof of himself in a cast headed by John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich. To put Welles's widely misunderstood later years into context, What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? reexamines the filmmaker's entire life and career. McBride offers many fresh insights into the collapse of Welles's Hollywood career in the 1940s, his subsequent political blacklisting, and his long period of European exile. An enlightening and entertaining look at Welles's brilliant and enigmatic career as a filmmaker, What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? serves as a major reinterpretation of Welles's life and work. McBride clears away the myths that have long obscured Welles's later years and have caused him to be falsely regarded as a tragic failure. McBride's revealing portrait of this great artist will change how Orson Welles is understood as a man, an actor, a political figure, and filmmaker.
High and Inside

John Ford

Rock n Roll High School

Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) Screenplay by Richard Whitley & Russ Dvonch and Joseph McBride Story by Allan Arkush & Joe Dante Directed by Allan Arkush
Blood and Guts

Blood and Guts (1978) Written by Joseph McBride, William Gray, and John Hunter (Canadian Film Awards nomination) Story by Joseph McBride Directed by Paul Lynch
The Book of Movie Lists

Behind Curtain Images

Filmmakers on Filmmaking One

Behind Curtain Images 2

Tiburon Page

BEHIND THE CURTAIN: JOSEPH McBRIDE ON WRITING FILM HISTORYYear: 2010Running Time: 51 minutesCountry: USA Genre: Documentary Venue: Playhouse TheaterShowtime: Sunday, April 10, 2011 _ 01:20 PMDirector: Hart Perez Description: This new documentary film presents Joseph McBride's thoughts and memories as a biographer of celebrated film directors. For decades, McBride has been considered one of the foremost biographers of filmmakers. His biographies of Frank Capra, John Ford, and Steven Spielberg (which were all published in February 2011 by the University Press of Mississippi) are among the landmarks in the field. McBride is renowned for his prodigious research, his keen film analysis, and his rare ability to connect the personalities of filmmakers with their work and with their times. McBride's latest biographical work is updating his 1997 book Steven Spielberg: A Biography with four new chapters bringing Spielberg's remarkable story into the present day.Behind the Curtain: Joseph McBride on Writing Film History is a wide-ranging fifty-minute film in which McBride engages in lively discussions of how he came to write his major biographies as well as his three books on Orson Welles and how he conducted his celebrated Howard Hawks interview book Hawks on Hawks. McBride discusses in detail his working methods on each book, the challenges he had to overcome on each, and his subjects respective places in film history. With an entertainingly witty style, McBride regales the audience with amusing anecdotes about each of these colorful figures. He also discusses how he became a film critic and reporter for Variety and other publications and how he interviewed many other celebrated filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Roman Polanski, and Fritz Lang.Writer and director Hart Perez skillfully and knowledgeably interweaves a wide range of visual materials with the interviews, including many fascinating stills from McBride's collection. ***World PremiereAttending: Joseph McBride & Hart Perez / Screening with: Notes on the OtherBehind the Curtain is a testament to McBride's approach to his work, one any film student interested in exploring the golden age of Hollywood should see. -- Peter Tonguette, petertonguette.comFascinating stuff for film buffs . . . this grand documentary.-- Jeff Swindoll, monstersandcritics.com

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