The First Hundred Years

Publisher Description

On August 5, 1958, Jack Warner spent six hours playing baccarat, taking $4,000 from the tables at Cannes before stepping out into the night. He drove home along a winding road in a sporty little Alfa-Romeo, and was negotiating a tricky turn when a truck leapt in front of him. The Alfa was destroyed, but Warner was saved—thrown out the door to land forty feet from the burning car. Around the world, the newspapers told of the death of the king of Hollywood. But Warner wasn’t finished yet. One of the true legends of the movie business, Warner had wielded absolute power over his studio since the silent era. He produced Casablanca and The Jazz Singer; he feuded with Errol Flynn, and gave the green light to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. As the studio system crumbled, Warner’s control remained unquestioned, and in this engaging autobiography, he shows the man behind the crown. Jack L. Warner is portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the Ryan Murphy TV series Feud.

Among Western critics, Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) needs no introduction. His name has been invoked in literary and cultural studies across the ideological spectrum, from old-fashioned humanist to structuralist to postmodernist. In this candid assessment of his place in Russian and Western thought, Caryl Emerson brings to light what might be unfamiliar to the non-Russian reader: Bakhtin's foundational ideas, forged in the early revolutionary years, yet hardly altered in his lifetime. With the collapse of the Soviet system, a truer sense of Bakhtin's contribution may now be judged in the context of its origins and its contemporary Russian "reclamation." A foremost Bakhtin authority, Caryl Emerson mines extensive Russian sources to explore Bakhtin's reception in Russia, from his earliest publication in 1929 until his death, and his posthumous rediscovery. After a reception-history of Bakhtin's published work, she examines the role of his ideas in the post-Stalinist revival of the Russian literary profession, concentrating on the most provocative rethinkings of three major concepts in his world: dialogue and polyphony; carnival; and "outsideness," a position Bakhtin considered essential to both ethics and aesthetics. Finally, she speculates on the future of Bakhtin's method, which was much more than a tool of criticism: it will "tell you how to teach, write, live, talk, think."

Offers a year-by-year survey of major films made in the United States, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan

The first fully illustrated history of Carnegie Hall, published to coincide with its 100th anniversary, documents the central role of Carnegie Hall in the cultural life of America. 350 illustrations, more than 50 in full color.

Life and adventures of a wooden 19th century American doll.