From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, an original, seductive account of sexuality in the movies, and of how actors and actresses on screen feed our desire.
David Thomson was born in India in 1914 to Scottish parents, but grew up in Scotland and Derbyshire. After the period described in Woodbrook he developed a career in writing and at the BBC. He died in 1988.
“David Thomson is the finest film critic at work today.” —John
Banville, The Wall Street Journal
“[Sleeping with Strangers] contain[s] more original insights,
provocative asides and thought-inducing speculations than several
volumes of a less talented writer’s efforts . . . Thomson, a
stylist extraordinaire, has written an unaccountable and
irresistible book.” —The New York Times Book Review
“[An] ambitious and feverish exploration of sex and sexuality on
celluloid, and of the way that Hollywood’s vision of desire has
seeped into the spaces behind and beyond the camera.” —The New
Yorker
“A typically concentrated paragraph of David Thomson offers more
fervent ideas and intellectual sustenance than many—most?—books.
Sleeping with Strangers is a pinwheel of delight revolving around
the variegated signals of sexuality and gender identification
communicated by the movies and the figures inhabiting them. Thomson
makes the two dimensions of the movies three-dimensional, and you
don’t have to wear those ridiculous glasses.” —Scott Eyman, author
of John Wayne: The Life and Legend
“This, I think, is Thomson’s most powerful book and one of the
smartest ever written about sex and the movies. . . . A fearless,
personal, revealing and wildly original account of how men and
women in American movies have affected the sexual desires all the
rest of us have. This is a brand new way of looking at movie
history—and a brutally frank one, too.” —Jeff Simon, The Buffalo
News
“Another essential volume from an essential writer. . . . Thomson
pulls no punches and takes no shortcuts.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred
review)
“Did Hollywood turn all of us into voyeurs? Thomson, one of film
writing’s smartest and most iconoclastic thinkers, says ‘Oh yeah,’
in this thought-provoking history/critique/memoir.” —Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
“Move over, darling film books, and make room for another
irresistible beauty from David Thomson. No writer makes better love
to his subject.” —Patrick McGilligan, author of Young Orson: The
Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane
“Thomson is at his best when he’s mining . . . hidden veins of
meaning, noticing a detail in a familiar film that helps you see
the movie in a new way.” —The Atlantic
“Part personal moviegoing memoir, part deeply informed film
history. . . . Thomson deploys his encyclopedic knowledge of film
so genially and dexterously that readers who are movie aficionados
will want to rewatch their favorites through his eyes.” —Publishers
Weekly
“Discerning and provoking.” —Esquire (UK)
“Unfailingly provocative. . . . Thomson is pretty much a walking
encyclopedia of film history, and this is the kind of subject he
can really sink his teeth into. Fascinating and illuminating.”
—Booklist
“David Thomson never fails to dazzle me with his striking,
original, and evocative prose. . . . Sleeping with
Strangers is a beautiful, mysterious book, both learned and
wickedly entertaining. It is an intimate, passionate
interrogation (and celebration) of how cinema has shaped our erotic
imaginations and, ultimately, both our secret and public
expressions of desire.” —Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the
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