The movie that inspired filmmakers to direct is like the atomic bomb that went off before their eyes. The Film That Changed My Life captures that epiphany. It explores 30 directors’ love of a film they saw at a particularly formative moment, how it influenced their own works, and how it made them think differently.Apocalypse Now inspired Danny Boyle to make larger-than-life films. A single line from The Wizard of Oz–“Who could ever have thought a good little girl like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness?”–had a direct impact on John Waters. “That line inspired my life,” Waters says. “I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer.”In this volume, directors as diverse as John Woo, Peter Bogdanovich, Michel Gondry, and Kevin Smith examine classic movies that inspired them to tell stories. Here are 30 inspired and inspiring discussions of classic films that shaped the careers of today’s directors and, in turn, cinema history.Pulitzer-winner Roger Ebert said “The Best Film You’ve Never Seen. How necessary this book is! And how well judged and written! Some of the best films ever made, as Elder proves, are lamentably all but unknown.” Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips called Elder’s 2011 book “The Film That Changed My Life”: “A great and provocative read…it’s addictive.” Film critic Leonard Maltin also said, “You’ll have a hard time putting this book down.”
About the Author: Robert K. Elder’s work has appeared in The New York Times, MSNBC.com, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Salon.com, The Oregonian and many other publications. For more than a decade, he served as a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune and from 2010 to 2012, he worked as a regional editor for the AOL Huffington Post Media Group’s hyperlocal news initiative, Patch.com. In 2012, Elder served as the founding managing editor of DNAinfo Chicago before joining the Chicago Sun-Times in 2013.
Author: Robert K. Elder
