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From a little before ten years of age Brian McFarlane became addicted to stories told on the screen, and the mere fact that he had difficulty in getting to see the films he wanted - or any for that matter - only made them seem more alluring. But it wasn't just seeing the films that mattered: he also wanted, and quite soon needed, to be writing about them and these obsessions have been part of his life for the next sixty-odd years.
Real and reel is a light-hearted and but deeply felt account of a lifetime's addiction. It is one particular writer and critic's story, but it will strike sparks among many others. Though many other interests have kept Brian McFarlane's life lively, nothing else has exerted such a long-standing grip on the author's imagination as film.
Editor of the Encyclopaedia of British Cinema, co-editor of Manchester University Press's British Film Makers series, and author of over a dozen critical works on film and adaptation, Brian McFarlane's autobiographical Real and reel can also be read as a biography of the subject of Film Studies itself.
Knowledgeable and such fun. This man really knows and loves movies
...highly entertaining picaresque confession of a film fanatic's journey from the Wimmera to the World ... Brian's own story and his arcane knowledge of cinema are equally delicious and infectious, both told with impeccable drollery
It is easy to tell that this book has been a labour of love. Brian McFarlane is a true movie 'buff', but one who knows what he is talking about. It is a joy to share his knowledge and enthusiasm.
"Film Studies scholars don’t generally write their memoirs, so Brian McFarlane’s Real and Reel is an unusual book. McFarlane, modest and self-effacing though he might be, has done more for British cinema history than anyone beyond Rachael Low"
(Robert Murphy, The Journal of British Film and Television, Vol 11, No 1, 2014)
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
1. A very young film critic
2. What deprivation can do for you
3. City lights
4. Back to the bush
5. The Great World, sort of…
6. The importance of being earnest
7. Fun in Acapulco (nothing to do with Elvis) … or A man’s gotta dream…
8. Combining business and pleasure
9. Getting to know them
10. Putting it down and getting it altogether