David Puttnam

From David Puttnam - producer of such modern film classics as Chariots of Fire, The Killing Fields, Midnight Express, and The Mission, and the only European to have run a major Hollywood studio - an insightful and provocative history that explains the personalities and events which shaped film's transformation from a technological curiosity into one of the world's most powerful cultural and economic forces. Puttnam's history is also an impassioned polemic: From the moment Thomas Edison stole the first crude attempt at a movie camera from the French scientist Etienne Jules Marey, Hollywood and Europe have existed, the author claims, in a state of undeclared hostility - hostility that has occasionally erupted into open battle for control of the century's most powerful artistic medium. And this battle, he contends, will ultimately determine the nature of Europe's cultural identity. He also argues forcefully for the intelligent application of the language and techniques of cinema to education, urging filmmakers to make films that challenge and inspire as well as entertain.

In this documentary, the tragic screen-icon James Dean is remembered. Footage from early television appearances, stills from his life, and clips from his three Warner Brothers films are interwoven with interviews with his co-workers.

This unique book presents 100 years of British life recorded through 100 photographs, chosen by then contemporary figureheads from the worlds of music, science, politics, business, high fashion and the arts. The images are accompanied by the contributors' explanations of their choices, setting forth why, for them, their selections signify important aspects of twentieth-century Britain. Their choices range from the emancipation of women to the struggle for racial equality, from revolutions in dustry and communications to the establishment of the welfare state. Faces of the Century represents ten very personal responses to the extraordinary diversity of events and individuals that have shaped and in some cases transformed the Britain of 1900 into the Britain of today.