Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Based on 15 hours of interviews conducted by film scholar Alain Silver, this new book on legendary director of photography James Wong Howe (1899-1976) is a must-read for anyone interested in what happens behind the scenes on a Hollywood set from film aficionados to industry professionals. A two-time Academy-Award® winner and still considered one of the greatest cinematographers in the history of American motion pictures, James Wong Howe began his career in 1917 at Famous Players-Lasky as a camera assistant working on silent features directed by such pioneers of narrative cinema as Cecil B. DeMille. Promoted to Director of Photography in 1922, Howe spent almost three decades shooting A-projects while under contract at Paramount, MGM, 20th Century-Fox, Selznick International, and Warner Bros. then another twenty-plus years as a freelance cameraman. At those studios, he shot projects as diverse as the silent Peter Pan, Viva Villa!, The Prisoner of Zenda, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, King’s Row, Body and Soul, The Rose Tattoo, Picnic, Hud, Seconds, and almost 60 sixty years after his first job Funny Lady in 1975. "It was the people who were interested in movies as a living art form, people that loved to experiment and found the results gratifying, who made the technical progress in motion pictures." Such comments by Howe about his career, his style, actors, producers, and directors with whom he worked, and his beliefs about what constitutes good camerawork are extensively annotated and profusely illustrated with over 500 images, many of which are keyed to Howe’s remarks about specific scenes and shots reflect his direct, professional approach: "There must be a reason for all lighting: what it's for and where it's coming from." Howe provides considerable detail about his work with such producers and directors as DeMille, David O. Selznick, Hall Wallis, William Cameron Menzies, Victor Fleming, John Cromwell, Martin Ritt, Herbert Brenon, John Frankenheimer, and Sidney Lumet. Among the star performers discussed are Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Sean Connery, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, John Garfield, Cary Grant, Rita Hayworth, William Holden, Hedy Lamarr, Burt Lancaster, Vivien Leigh, Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman, Kim Novak, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sheridan, Barbara Stanwyck, Barbra Streisand, Spencer Tracy, and Natalie Wood. Also included are the most complete filmography ever compiled of all of Howe’s work (with some newly discovered credits), two essays about lighting and preparation written by Howe himself, a biographical summary, select bibliography, and a complete index.
MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The store's inventory of nearly 1000 volumes is currently in the process of being reconstructed after its relocation from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz, Carter, and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
"I feel comfortable using legal jargon in everyday life... I object!" Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in Legally Blonde, 2001
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, and The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. He has launched a Dallas extension of his MZS Film Series at the historic Texas Theater. On October 3-6, 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre!
Judith is quoted as saying "his hobbies include exotic dancing, moonwalking, and affixing masking tape labels to every food item in the refrigerator, including eggs. Oh and he has the attention span of a gnat." MZS agreed to it all except the moonwalking.