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The Big Sleep
Paperback / softback
Main Details
Title |
The Big Sleep
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Authors and Contributors |
By (author) David Thomson
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Series | BFI Film Classics |
Physical Properties |
Format:Paperback / softback | Pages:80 | Dimensions(mm): Height 190,Width 135 |
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Category/Genre | Films and cinema Film theory and criticism |
ISBN/Barcode |
9781839021596
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Classifications | Dewey:791.4372 |
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Audience | Professional & Vocational | |
Edition |
2nd edition
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Illustrations |
50 bw illus
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Publishing Details |
Publisher |
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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Imprint |
BFI Publishing
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Publication Date |
12 November 2020 |
Publication Country |
United Kingdom
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Description
The Big Sleep: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Released in 1946, Howard Hawks' adaptation of Raymond Chandler reunited Bogart and Bacall and gave them two of their most famous roles. The mercurial but ever-manipulative Hawks dredged humour and happiness out of film noir. 'Give him a story about more murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain,' David Thomson writes in his compelling study of the film, 'and somehow he made a paradise.' When it was first shown to a military audience The Big Sleep was coldly received. So, as Thomson reveals, Hawks shot extra scenes, 'fun' scenes, to replace one in which the film's murders had been explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved. Thomson argues that, if this was accidental, it also signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema: 'The Big Sleep inaugurates a post-modern, camp, satirical view of movies being about other movies that extends to the New Wave and Pulp Fiction.'
Author Biography
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States. He is the author of books including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (6th edition, 2014), and a regular contributor to The New York Times, The New Republic, Movieline, Film Comment and Salon.
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