March 25th: David Thomson in Conversation with Michael Barker
Presented by 192 Books and Paula Cooper Gallery, David Thomson will discuss his new book, A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors, with Michael Barker.
The live event will stream directly on this page on Thursday, March 25th at 6pm EST. There is no login or rsvp required. A recording will be posted shortly afterwards. During the broadcast, please email your questions to evan@192books.com.
David Thomson — A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors (Knopf, 2021)
Directors operate behind the scenes, managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions onscreen that it is easy to forget the individual who is offscreen orchestrating the entire production—to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people’s money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction. With his customary candor about his own delights and disappointments, Thomson analyzes both landmark works and forgotten films from classic directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, and Jean-Luc Godard, as well as contemporary powerhouses such as Jane Campion, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino. He shrewdly interrogates their professional legacies and influence in the industry, while simultaneously assessing the critical impact of an artist’s personal life on his or her work. He explores the male directors’ dominance of the past, and describes how diversity can change the landscape. Judicious, vivid, and witty, A Light in the Dark is yet another required Thomson text for every movie lover’s shelf.
David Thomson is the author of more than twenty-five books, including The Biographical Dictionary of Film, biographies of Orson Welles and David O. Selznick, and the pioneering novel Suspects, which was peopled with characters from film.
Michael Barker is the Co-President and Co-Founder, along with Tom Bernard, of Sony Pictures Classics, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016. Michael Barker has distributed (and quite often produced) some of the finest independent movies over the past thirty years. Previously he was an executive at United Artists (1980–1983) and went on to cofound Orion Classics (1983–1991) and Sony Pictures Classics.