{"product_id":"nicole-kidman-isbn-9781400077816","title":"Nicole Kidman","description":"From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman—and what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is—in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTall, Australian, one of the striking beauties of the world, Nicole Kidman is that rare modern phenomenon—an authentic movie star who is as happy and as creative throwing a seductive gaze from some magazine cover as she is being Virginia Woolf in \u003ci\u003eThe Hours. \u003c\/i\u003eHere is the story of how this actress began her career, has grown through her roles, taken risks, made good choices and bad, and worried about money, aging, and image.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere are the details of an actress’s life: her performances in \u003ci\u003eTo Die For, The Portrait of a Lady, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBirth, \u003c\/i\u003eamong other films; her high-visibility marriage to Tom Cruise; her intense working relationship with Stanley Kubrick and her collaborations with Anthony Minghella and Baz Luhrmann; her work with Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Renée Zellweger, and John Malkovich; her decisions concerning nudity, endorsements, and publicity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd here are Thomson’s scintillating considerations of what celebrity means in the life of an actress like Kidman; of how the screen becomes both barrier and open sesame for her and for her audience; of what is required today of an actress of Kidman’s stature if she is to remain vital to the industry and to the audiences who made her a prime celebrity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImpassioned, opinionated, dazzlingly original in its approach and ideas, \u003ci\u003eNicole Kidman \u003c\/i\u003eis as alluring and as much fun as Nicole Kidman herself, and David Thomson’s most remarkable book yet.“Compulsively readable . . . an entertaining romp through [Nicole Kidman’s] life and career that’s also a smart commentary on celeb culture.”\u003cbr\u003e--Christopher Kelly, \u003ci\u003eThe Star-Telegram\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Illuminating . . . part astute analysis of our relationship to the film image and our cultural fixation on celebrity and part insightful film criticism . . . [a] starry-eyed love letter.”\u003cbr\u003e--Tara Ison, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thomson is probably the single most gifted film writer alive . . . an extraordinarily knowing meditation on movies as purveyors of dreams and desires”\u003cbr\u003e--Jeff Simon, \u003ci\u003eThe Buffalo News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rewrites the celebrity biography into a savvy exploration of myth-making . . . Dangerously smart, Thomson never lectures. He throws little gems and thought-provoking insights in the midst of the liveliest conversation. A passionate storyteller, he peppers his analyses with sassy anecdotes . . . and biting remarks on politics, celebrity culture and their commodification of human dramas. Bold, provocative, irrepressibly funny . . . will delight those who enjoy a book that has guts and brains.”\u003cbr\u003e--Cécile Alduy, \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Film critic David Thomson has a crush on Kidman and he doesn’t care who knows . . . a shrewd book about the nature of screen acting, fantasy and stardom.”\u003cbr\u003e--\u003ci\u003eNewsday \u003c\/i\u003eJohn Heilpern is the author of the classic book about theater \u003ci\u003eConference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa \u003c\/i\u003eand of \u003ci\u003eHow Good is David Mamet, Anyway?\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of his theater essays and reviews. Born in England and educated at Oxford, his interviews for \u003ci\u003eThe Observer \u003c\/i\u003e(London) received a British Press Award. In 1980 he moved to New York, where he became a weekly columnist for \u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003eof London. An adjunct professor of drama at Columbia University, he is drama critic for the \u003ci\u003eNew York Observer.\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 1StrangersI am talking to an Australian, a woman, about Nicole Kidman, and the    crucial mystery is there at the start: “I’ve known her twenty years,    and I’ve spent a staggering amount of time with her, but I feel I    don’t know her. Because what she gives you is what you want. A lot of    actors are like that. They don’t exist when they aren’t playing a part.”This book is about acting and about an actress, but it must also    study what happens to anyone beholding an actress—the spectator, the    audience, or ourselves in any of our voyeur roles. And the most    important thing in that vexed transaction is the way the actress and    the spectator must remain strangers. That’s how the magic works.    Without that guarantee, the dangers of “relationship” are grisly and    absurd—they range from illicit touching to murder. For there cannot    be this pitch of irrational desire without that rigorous apartness,    provided by a hundred feet of warm space in a theater, and by that    astonishing human invention, the screen, at the movies. And just as    the movies were never simply an art or a show, a drama or narrative,    but the manifestation of desire, so the screen is both barrier and    open sesame.The thing that permits witness—seeing her, being so intimate—is also    the outline of a prison.This predicament reminds me of a moment in \u003ci\u003eCitizen Kane\u003c\/i\u003e. The    reporter, Thompson, goes to visit Bernstein, an old man who was    Charlie Kane’s right-hand man and who is now chairman of the board of    the Kane companies. Thompson asks him if he knows what “Rosebud,”    Kane’s last word, might have referred to. Some girl? wonders    Bernstein. “There were a lot of them back in the early days . . .”    Thompson thinks it unlikely that a chance meeting fifty years ago    could have prompted a solemn last word. But Bernstein disputes this:    “A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d    remember.“You take me,” he says. “One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over    to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry    pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white    dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her    for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t    gone by since, that I haven’t thought of that girl.”Bernstein seems to be single—to all intents and purposes he was    married to Charlie Kane. I daresay some beaverish subtextual critic    could argue that the girl in the parasol stands for the sheet of    paper on which the young Kane sets out his “Declaration of    Principles.” Yet the reason why the anecdote (and the actor Everett    Sloane’s ecstatic yet heartbroken delivery of it) has stayed with me    is that it embodies the principle of hopeless desire, and endless    hope, on which the movies are founded. Of course, most little boys    (even those of an advanced age) feel pressing hormonal urges to    satisfy desire. And I would not exile myself from that gang. Still,    there is another calling—and film is often its banner—that consists    of those who would always protect and preserve desire by ensuring    that it is never satisfied. For those of that persuasion—and it is    more than merely sexual—there is no art more piquant than the films    of Luis Buñuel, one of which is actually entitled \u003ci\u003eThat Obscure Object    of Desire\u003c\/i\u003e. (In that light, let me alert you not to miss this book’s    vision of \u003ci\u003eBelle de Jour\u003c\/i\u003e as if Nicole Kidman had played in it. In    fact, I have dreamed this film with such intensity that it matters to    me more than many films I actually have to see.)Anyway, the subject of this book is Nicole Kidman. And I should own    up straightaway that, yes, I like Nicole Kidman very much. When I    tell people that, sometimes they leer and ask, “Do you love her?” And    my answer is clear: Yes, of course, I love her—so long as I do not    have to meet her.Now, that proviso could be thought hostile; it might even conjure up    possibilities of an aggressive streak, a harsh laugh, or even a    regrettable body odor in Ms. Kidman that one would sooner avoid.    That’s not what I am talking about, and it’s nothing I have ever    heard suggested. I suspect she is as fragrant as spring, as ripe as    summer, as sad as autumn, and as coldly possessed as winter. Much    more to the point, you see, I am suggesting that getting to know    actresses is a depressing sport. The history of Hollywood could be    composed as a volume of melancholy memoirs all made ruinous when    Alfred Hitchcock, say, actually met Tippi Hedren, or whomever. Actors    and actresses are seldom marriageable and too little thanks has been    offered to the profession for the steadfast way in which its members    sacrifice themselves to each other. It is as if they understood the    spell put upon them and knew that anyone raised in any other craft or    system would collapse with incredulity if confronted by the endless    fascination performers only find in themselves. They go to the altar—   they do not alter.Laboring with movies for six decades now, I am coming to the    conclusion that this medium has been steadily misunderstood. Yes, it    has some semblance of being an entertainment, a business, an art, a    storytelling machine—and so on. But all of those semirespectable    identities help obscure what is most precious and unique, and what is    absolutely formulated by the simultaneous presence and denial on the    screen: that a movie is a dream, a sleepwalking, a séance, in which    we seem to mingle with ghosts. And here is the vital spark: whenever    we seem within reach of these intensely desirable creatures, their    states and moods, we ourselves resemble actors as they come close to    redeeming their terrible vacancy by assuming parts, or roles.In other words, acting and being at the movies are mirror images, and    they are the persistent, infectious forms of nonbeing that have    steadily undermined the thing once known as real life in the last    hundred years. So the study of acting is less a record of creative    process or artistic eloquence; it is a kind of drug-taking, very bad    for us—yet absolutely incurable. I daresay this sounds a touch odd or    obscure at first—or maybe it is just alarming—but it will creep up on    you as this book proceeds. It is an insidious process, such as ought    to be banned everywhere by churches, schools, parents, and the law    (all those institutions that claim to be looking after us). On the    other hand, it has entered the bloodstream; it goes on and on—and    some would say we are hopelessly lost to fantasy already, and so    thoroughly immersed in desire that something like real, practical    improvement (surely a good thing?) has been befuddled.And yet there is something enormously positive and creative that can    come from it, a mixture of calm and insight. It is to see that we can    entertain the idea of strangers in our minds—if only by wanting to be    them, or be like them. The movies are about beholding strangers and    in the process losing touch with those real people one happens to    meet and has the chance of knowing. I believe now that I learned to    fall in love by watching actors and actresses, and that is not a    wholesome training. It is one that prompts a rapid dissatisfaction    with the thing or the person present, or possessed. Their charm can    never compete with the allure of the unattainable. Thus, to follow    desire is to give up the ghost on relationship. Just as you reflect    on that, and consider how far it is a restlessness that has you in    its grip, you will remember from so many life lessons that it is also    a very bad thing. This is very dangerous territory, even if most of    us are already there—in other words, there is still a weird kind of    polite respectability that is possible in life from denying it.Let me tell you a story that helps explain this. In my last book    about the movies, \u003ci\u003eThe Whole Equation\u003c\/i\u003e, I was feeling my way toward    this point of view, and I included a chapter, “By a Nose,” which    concerned Nicole Kidman in \u003ci\u003eThe Hours\u003c\/i\u003e. I offered it as a testament    from a fan, a love letter, from someone in the dark to one of those    beauties in the light. As a matter of fact, she was not my true    favorite. Indeed, I feared in advance—and I still think it likely—   that if I were to write about my real favorites, my movie    sweethearts, I would be rendered speechless and helpless, because the    fantastic intimacy is too great. So, yes, I do like Nicole Kidman,    but not quite as much as Catherine Deneuve, Julia Roberts, Grace    Kelly, and Donna Reed (I am tracing sweetheartism back to when I was    about eleven).Nevertheless, when Michiko Kakutani reviewed \u003ci\u003eThe Whole Equation\u003c\/i\u003e in    the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, she saw fit to call my “crush” on Kidman    ridiculous. (You see how brave authors must be.) Well, maybe, but I    am owning up to it, because I think it is the only way to get at    things that need to be said (somehow in all the turmoil of desire, I    have retained the semblance of some educational purpose). Going to    the movies and believing may be foolish, or worse. It may be crazy.    But I think even book reviewers have been formed by its risk.At the moment, as I try to write this, just behind one layer of my    computer screen there is an AOL home page in which I have the chance    to catch up with the diet secrets of Jessica Simpson and Denise    Richards. There are their pictures—lean yet carnal—Jessica and    Denise, would-bes who maintain a presence not always in movies, per    se, or shows, but in celebrity newsbreaks, in fashion follies,    dietary secrets, and scandal scoops. That supporting atmosphere is as    old as movies, but it is more intense now just because of the    Internet. Moreover, one of the most intriguing things about Nicole    Kidman is that at least one of her ample size ten feet is firmly    planted in that electronic wasteland. Nicole can be great and    serious. She is an Oscar winner. Sometimes you can believe she might    play any part. But she is also heart-and-soul a sexual celebrity,    someone who, close to forty, is not just ready or eager but proud to    give her sexy come-hither look to some magazine. Her appetite for    life is not snobbish, or elitist, not ready to act her age. I mean,    we do not see Vanessa Redgrave or Meryl Streep or Miranda Richardson    (her colleagues as actors) in glamour pictures, not these days. Yet    on the Internet you can get a lubricious roundup of every nude or    seminude scene Nicole has ever done. You may know the curve of her    bottom as well as you know your child’s brow. Nicole does expensive    perfume ads; she does eye-candy covers; she will drop her clothes if    only to air out that elegant Australian body (she does wish she were    a few inches shorter, with those inches added on her breasts—but    there you are, she is very human). That’s another reason why the    world, for just a few years, has been crazy about her. How can I put    it? Let’s just say she has not flinched from the duty of a great    celebrity to be on public display. There are thousands of hits on her    every day, not real hits, blows to the body, but the hits of our day,    the fantasy contacts, the “I want to know more about Nicole”    pressures on the mouse.I daresay that as she grows older she will become weathered, a great    lined old lady like Katharine Hepburn, a mistress of the art of    acting and of the cult of her own high-mindedness. But this book was    conceived and composed while she was still \u003ci\u003ehot\u003c\/i\u003e and hittable, and    likely to be in every tabloid and on every magazine cover because the    rumor industry—our essential river of story—could not leave her    alone. Even if she becomes that great old lady, Dame Nicole Kidman,    in those greedy eyes of hers the hunger will persist for the good old    days when she was in everyone’s virtual bed. Millions more have had    that palpable illusion help them make it through the night.But note this, please. She is, as I write, in addition to everything    else, a fun-loving thirty-nine-year-old with a cheerful eighteen-year-   old’s attitude. I mean, she has not grown up or old—she has been kept    young by attention. She would like to go skiing; and for a moment at    least she might like to go with you! One of the more hideous things    about what happens to actresses and celebrities is that, somewhere    around forty, the tissue-paper safety net dissolves and the star    suddenly has to go from being a nymph to being an adult. Nicole’s own    name is already part of that terrible future, and I daresay she wakes    up some nights screaming because she felt it was about to happen.    (Not that I can be there to witness it—or stop imagining it.)But just because of that vulnerability, it would be improper or cruel    for a biography to grind too remorselessly close or fine. Let her    live while she can. Why pretend to be censorious over every fleeting    love affair, or any toke she might take? Let time take its course.    Let her awkward teenage years off lightly, and know that, as with all    actors and actresses, the idea of the real life is, anyway, the    ultimate tragedy, the terminal desolation. They are too busy being    the center of attention to have a life. So, I will be gentle and    tender on passing over some things. If I elect to say little about    the movie \u003ci\u003eFar and Away\u003c\/i\u003e, for instance, then understand that there are    films made for no other reason than that the people involved were in    love. It is their business. Sometimes it ends up looking like \u003ci\u003ePierrot    le Fou\u003c\/i\u003e or an Ingmar Bergman picture. Sometimes it’s \u003ci\u003eFar and Away\u003c\/i\u003e—   enough said. It is so very much more interesting to explore films not    actually made, such as Nicole Kidman as Belle de Jour or Nicole    Kidman in \u003ci\u003eRebecca\u003c\/i\u003e. In a way, the best admiration we can give her is    to imagine other parts she might play. That is adding to her creative    soul.    One final word. You will want to know, “Did I talk to her?,” no    matter how ardently I have stressed the point about staying    strangers. Well, at the very outset, I approached her through her    representatives, asking for an interview. There was silence, and then    there was a Well, yes, she is interested. But she was so busy . . .    and time passed. So I began to write the book, and I had an entire    draft done before hearing a word from her. What happened? Well, what    do you think happened? One day in February 2006, my phone rang and I    heard, “It’s Nicole,” as if she were a languid, superior, but amused    prefect who had called a naughty boy to her study to see what he had    been up to.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305508196581,"sku":"NP9781400077816","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400077816.jpg?v=1767733705","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/nicole-kidman-isbn-9781400077816","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}