Overview

In 1971, Newsweek heralded The Last Picture Show as ""the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane."" Indeed, few filmmakers rivaled Peter Bogdanovich's popularity over the next decade. Riding the success of What's Up, Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973), Bogdanovich became a bona fide celebrity, making regular appearances in his own movie trailers, occasionally hosting late-night television shows, and publicly advocating for mentors John Ford and Howard Hawks. No director of his era surpassed his ability to capture an audience's imagination. In Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director, journalist and critic Peter Tonguette offers a film-by-film journey through the director's life and work. Beginning with a string of 1970s classics, Tonguette explores well-known films such as Saint Jack (1979), They All Laughed (1981), and Noises Off (1992), as well as the director's work on stage and television. Drawing on interviews conducted over sixteen years, Tonguette pairs his analysis with an extensive, previously unpublished series of Q&As with Bogdanovich. These exclusive interviews reveal behind-the-scenes details about the director's life, work, and future plans. Part memoir, part biography, this book offers a uniquely intimate portrait of one of Hollywood's most underappreciated directors.

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9780813147314

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Reviews

I always viewed Peter Bogdanovich's long career with a degree of envy. I was familiar with his classic film writing beginning with his groundbreaking MOMA monograph on Orson Welles. Then like so many of us he joined the Corman caravan, working his way up from low budget exploitation films, and along the road to success he seemed to have personally known just about all the classic Hollywood icons. But it took Peter Tonguette's carefully researched and incisive book to show me that Bogdanovich's life and work were anything but charmed. His topsy turvy career is laid out with sympathy and frankness, and is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the way Hollywood works, then and now. Plus, it's a great read! -- Joe Dante, director of Gremlins and The 'Burbs Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director is the book Bogdanovich fans have wanted for so long. Peter Tonguette looks at Bogdanovich's career from his early days to his most recent release, 'The Great Buster.' -- Wellesnet.com Peter Tonguette's Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director, part of the Screen Classics series at the University Press of Kentucky, is a most welcome release.... From start to finish, he approaches the whole of Bogdanovich's life and work with an obvious adoration and, what is more, a demonstrable knowledge repeatedly seen in the depth and detail of his questions. Picturing Peter Bogdanovich is a passionate, engaging and thoroughly insightful volume of film history. -- Vague Visages [T]he book is splendid for what it offers: a cozy chat between artiste and sycophant. The best bits are the parts that add drama to the director's '70s reign and his benighted '80s: the moments when he fights to make a name for himself under Corman's mentoring; the moments when Bogdanovich realizes his ego and shortsightedness prevented otherwise intriguing films from having impact; and the occasion when he comes face to face with a brutal and sickening tragedy and must go on living and creating. These moments make the book, and his career, interesting. Bogdanovich was lucky, but he was also terribly unlucky. -- Cinema Sentries

I always viewed Peter Bogdanovich's long career with a degree of envy. I was familiar with his classic film writing beginning with his groundbreaking MOMA monograph on Orson Welles. Then like so many of us he joined the Corman caravan, working his way up from low budget exploitation films, and along the road to success he seemed to have personally known just about all the classic Hollywood icons. But it took Peter Tonguette's carefully researched and incisive book to show me that Bogdanovich's life and work were anything but charmed. His topsy turvy career is laid out with sympathy and frankness, and is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the way Hollywood works, then and now. Plus, it's a great read! -- Joe Dante, director of Gremlins and The 'Burbs Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director is the book Bogdanovich fans have wanted for so long. Peter Tonguette looks at Bogdanovich's career from his early days to his most recent release, 'The Great Buster.' -- Wellesnet.com Peter Tonguette's Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director, part of the Screen Classics series at the University Press of Kentucky, is a most welcome release.... From start to finish, he approaches the whole of Bogdanovich's life and work with an obvious adoration and, what is more, a demonstrable knowledge repeatedly seen in the depth and detail of his questions. Picturing Peter Bogdanovich is a passionate, engaging and thoroughly insightful volume of film history. -- Vague Visages [T]he book is splendid for what it offers: a cozy chat between artiste and sycophant. The best bits are the parts that add drama to the director's '70s reign and his benighted '80s: the moments when he fights to make a name for himself under Corman's mentoring; the moments when Bogdanovich realizes his ego and shortsightedness prevented otherwise intriguing films from having impact; and the occasion when he comes face to face with a brutal and sickening tragedy and must go on living and creating. These moments make the book, and his career, interesting. Bogdanovich was lucky, but he was also terribly unlucky. -- Cinema Sentries In Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director, author Peter Tonguette documents the complete career of the director of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon via lengthy interviews. This is Bogdanovich in peak form, full of hubris but also honesty. Even his television work is included in this comprehensive book. -- The Film Stage

Author Information

Peter Tonguette is a journalist and critic whose work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, the Christian Science Monitor, Sight & Sound, and the National Review. He is also the editor of Peter Bogdanovich: Interviews.

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