Ben Hecht Fighting Words, Moving Pictures |
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Author:
| Hoffman, Adina |
Read by:
| Hoffman, Adina |
Series title: | The Jewish Lives Ser. |
ISBN: | 978-1-6652-0586-3 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2021 |
Publisher: | Tantor Media, Incorporated
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Imprint: | Tantor Audio |
Book Format: | CD-Audio |
List Price: | USD $19.99 |
Book Description:
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A vibrant portrait of one of the most accomplished and prolific American screenwriters, by an award-winning biographer and essayist. He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter." Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented eighty percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts--including
Scarface,
Twentieth Century, and
Notorious--Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace...
More Description A vibrant portrait of one of the most accomplished and prolific American screenwriters, by an award-winning biographer and essayist. He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter." Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented eighty percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts--including Scarface, Twentieth Century, and Notorious--Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe, and later he became a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine's Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this self-declared "child of the century" came to embody much that defined America--especially Jewish America--in his time. Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman's vivid portrait brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page. Hecht was a renaissance man of dazzling sorts, and Hoffman--critically acclaimed biographer, former film critic, and eloquent commentator on Middle Eastern culture and politics--is uniquely suited to capture him in all his modes.