A book of interviews with legendary directors by Michel Ciment.
Revised and expanded edition
Passport to Hollywood
A book by Michel Ciment
13.5cm x 19cm | 400 pages
ISBN: 979–10–93798–14-1
Interviews with
Billy Wilder – John Huston – Joseph Mankiewicz
Roman Polanski – Milos Forman – Wim Wenders
Cult book between legendary directors and Michel Ciment, Passport to Hollywood is offered in a revised version including new exclusive interviews.
How to film America? How to film in America? Never perhaps has a country identified itself so much with an art as the United States has with its cinema. This book was born out of a desire to better understand this unique phenomenon by interviewing three of the greatest former New World directors (Billy Wilder, John Huston, Joseph Mankiewicz) and three new Old World directors (Roman Polanski, Milos Forman, Wim Wenders) who breathed new life into the seventh art, while confronting America.
How did the big production companies work? How does a filmmaker acquire his independence? What are the conditions of creation in Hollywood today? So many first-hand answers in these interviews filled with anecdotes, portraits, reflections on art and technique, which allow us to better understand films as important as The Bloodhound , Amadeus , Fat City , The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes , Paris Texas or Rosemary's Baby , and to get to know their authors more intimately.
This book was first published by Editions du Seuil in 1987, then in paperback by Ramsay in 1992. These two editions were quickly sold out and became impossible to find. 35 years later, it reappears enriched by three interviews with Milos Forman on his last three films: Larry Flynt , Man on the Moon , Les Fantômes de Goya (in the presence for the latter of Jean-Claude Carrière) and a meeting with Wim Wenders on Don't Come Knocking .
About the Author
Michel Ciment, lecturer in American civilization at the University of Paris-VII, member of the editorial board of the review Positif, regular contributor to Masque et la Plume and Panorama de France-Culture, is the author of: Kazan by Kazan , the Rosi Dossier , The Book of Losey , Kubrick , The Conquerors of a New World , Schatzberg: From Photography to Cinema and Boorman: A Visionary in His Time .
Release May 5, 2022
