Archive

Archive for February 24, 2012

My Forthcoming Book, ‘Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective, 1998-2012,’ Due for a Fall 2012 Release

February 24, 2012 9 comments

My Forthcoming Book, ‘Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective, 1998-2012′ Due for a Fall 2012 Release

As of February 23, 2012, I have entered into a contract with Concierge Marketing of Omaha to help me realize my book, Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective, 1998-2012.  The book is a compilation of stories I have written about the celebrated winning writer-director of Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, and The Descendants.  It hopefully bodes well for the book now that he is a two-time Oscar winner after sharing the 2012 Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for The Descendants with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.  Payne previously won in the same category for Sideways, sharing that award with Jim Taylor, one of his producing partners on The Descendants.

I have covered Payne for 15 years, doing dozens of interviews with him and his collaborators in that time, even watching him direct on set for a week’s time, thus making me something of an authority on his work.

Payne is the subject of much media coverage but a collection of stories about him has never been published.  That will change with my book.  This compilation of my articles about Payne charts the arc of the writer-director’s feature career.  For the first time, film fans and scholars can follow his cinematic journey from promising upstart to celebrated international artist and along the way learn in-depth his creative process.

The Oscar-winner long ago became the object of intense interest.  My rare access to Payne has put me in the unique position of sharing an entire body of work about the filmmaker in a single volume.  In story after story, I lay out the progression of the filmmaker’s journey, liberally quoting Payne talking about his own work and methodologies.  There are also ample insights by some of Payne’s closest collaborators.  Introducing each set of stories is my own cogent analysis and behind-the-scenes context.  I bring to the project not only a personal archive of Payne interviews, observations, and stories but a lifelong cinema passion. As a film buff I have not only seen lots of movies and read scores of film books, but for several years I served as a film programmer for various art cinema series.

Bringing this deep knowledge and long insider access to bear, I provide the most comprehensive look to date at Payne.  Readers will come away from the book with a fuller understanding of Payne and his movies.  Because I write for general audiences, my articles and analyses are eminently readable and free of any academic jargon that could otherwise stand in the way of appreciating the filmmaker and his films.  I explore Payne’s journey from cheeky provocateur to master cinema satirist, noting all the pertinent way-stops and detours along the way and speculating on where he might be headed next.

My blog will feature excerpts from my book in the coming months.  Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film, A Reporter’s Perspective will be available for purchase here, on Amazon, and in select bookstores in the fall of 2012.
Related articles
Categories: Alexander Payne, Authors/Literature, Books, Cinema, Film, Leo Adam Biga, Movies, Nebraskans in Film, Writing Tags: , ,
%d bloggers like this: