Nora Ephron famously claimed that she wrote about every thought that ever crossed her mind, from her divorce from Carl Bernstein (Heartburn) to the size of her breasts ("A Few Words About Breasts"). She also wrote screenplays for three of the most successful contemporary romantic comedies--When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998). Often considered mere light-hearted romantic comedies, her screenwriting has not been the subject of serious study. This book offers a sustained critical analysis of her work and life and demonstrates that Ephron is no lightweight. The complexity of her work is explored through the context of her childhood in a deeply dysfunctional family of writers.

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film. Nora Ephron: A Biography is the first comprehensive portrait of the Manhattan-born girl who forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration from critics and fans alike. Author Kristin Marguerite Doidge explores the tremendous successes and disappointing failures Ephron sustained in her career as a popular essayist turned screenwriter turned film director. She redefined the modern rom-com genre with bestselling books such as Heartburn and hit movies including When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Julie & Julia. Doidge also examines the private life Ephron tried to keep in balance with her insatiable ambition. Based on rare archival research and numerous interviews with some of Ephron's closest friends, collaborators, and award-winning colleagues including actors Tom Hanks and Caroline Aaron, comedian Martin Short, composer George Fenton, and lifelong friends from Wellesley to New York to Hollywood—as well as interviews Ephron herself gave throughout her career—award-winning journalist and cultural critic Doidge has written a captivating story of the life of a creative writer whose passion for the perfect one-liner and ferocious drive to succeed revolutionized journalism, comedy, and film. The first in-depth biography to explore the complex themes that ran through Ephron's work and to examine why so many of them still grab our attention today.

The first illustrated monograph on writer, journalist, and director Nora Ephron, the visionary behind When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail Nora Ephron at the Movies offers an unfiltered look at Ephron as a champion of the rom-com and as a feminist Hollywood trailblazer. It explores her life and work by pairing detailed criticism with exclusive interviews with Ephron’s key collaborators, including Andie MacDowell and Jenn Kaytin Robinson, to add color and nuance to her life and legacy. With her singular voice, Nora Ephron flourished as a dominant force in the entertainment industry, focusing on the idiosyncrasies of romance that were universally relatable. The women in her stories paralleled reality—the veil was lifted, the glossy sheen removed. Her protagonists share an unwavering sense of humor about life’s mishaps, and they never take themselves too seriously—like Julie trying to master the art of cooking lobsters in Julie & Julia, Sally’s theatrical fake orgasm in Katz’s deli in When Harry Met Sally, or Rachel perfecting a key lime pie only to throw it in her cheating husband’s face in Heartburn. Through her keenly self-aware humor and semi-autobiographical stories, Ephron left behind a groundbreaking legacy as a beloved journalist, essayist, screenwriter, author, producer, director, and feminist who delivered stories of resilience embedded in sharp wit and upper-crust landscapes. Through that lens, she became emblematic of rom-coms, shifting and redefining conversations around the complexities of relationships and the women who have them.

For fans of When Harry Met Sally and readers of I Feel Bad About My Neck comes an indispensable collection of wit and wisdom from the late, great writer-filmmaker A hilarious and revealing look at one of America’s most beloved screenwriters. From the beginning of her career as a young journalist to her final interview—a warm, wise, heartbreaking reflection originally published in the Believer—this is a sparkling look at the life and work of a great talent.

A whopping big celebration of the work of the late, great Nora Ephron, America’s funniest—and most acute—writer, famous for her brilliant takes on life as we’ve been living it these last forty years. Everything you could possibly want from Nora Ephron is here—from her writings on journalism, feminism, and being a woman (the notorious piece on being flat-chested, the clarion call of her commencement address at Wellesley) to her best-selling novel, Heartburn, written in the wake of her devastating divorce from Carl Bernstein; from her hilarious and touching screenplay for the movie When Harry Met Sally . . . (“I’ll have what she’s having”) to her recent play Lucky Guy (published here for the first time); from her ongoing love affair with food, recipes and all, to her extended takes on such controversial women as Lillian Hellman and Helen Gurley Brown; from her pithy blogs on politics to her moving meditations on aging (“I Feel Bad About My Neck”) and dying. Her superb writing, her unforgettable movies, her honesty and fearlessness, her nonpareil humor have made Nora Ephron an icon for America’s women—and not a few of its men.

An in-depth celebration of the romantic comedy’s modern golden era and its role in our culture, tracking the genre from its heyday in the ’80s and the ’90s, its unfortunate decline in the 2000s, and its explosive reemergence in the age of streaming, featuring exclusive interviews with the directors, writers, and stars of the iconic films that defined the genre. No Hollywood genre has been more misunderstood—or more unfairly under-appreciated—than the romantic comedy. Funny, charming, and reliably crowd-pleasing, rom-coms were the essential backbone of the Hollywood landscape, launching the careers of many of Hollywood’s most talented actors and filmmakers, such as Julia Roberts and Matthew McConaughey, and providing many of the yet limited creative opportunities women had in Hollywood. But despite—or perhaps because of—all that, the rom-com has routinely been overlooked by the Academy Awards or snobbishly dismissed by critics. In From Hollywood with Love, culture writer and GQ contributor Scott Meslow seeks to right this wrong, celebrating and analyzing rom-coms with the appreciative, insightful critical lens they’ve always deserved. Beginning with the golden era of the romantic comedy—spanning from the late ’80s to the mid-’00s with the breakthrough of films such as When Harry Met Sally—to the rise of streaming and the long-overdue push for diversity setting the course for films such as the groundbreaking, franchise-spawning Crazy Rich Asians, Meslow examines the evolution of the genre through its many iterations, from its establishment of new tropes, the Austen and Shakespeare rewrites, the many love triangles, and even the occasional brave decision to do away with the happily ever after. Featuring original black-and-white sketches of iconic movie scenes and exclusive interviews with the actors and filmmakers behind our most beloved rom-coms, From Hollywood with Love constructs oral histories of our most celebrated romantic comedies, for an informed and entertaining look at Hollywood’s beloved yet most under-appreciated genre.

Ten years ago, Rachel Abramowitz began interviewing the most powerful women in the movie-making business in an effort to discover how they had infiltrated this male-dominated world. From superstar actors to independent directors, women in all arenas opened up to her, and the result is extraordinary—together, these stories comprise the most comprehensive history to date of women in Hollywood. Here, in their own candid and provocative words, are Jodie Foster, Penny Marshall, Dawn Steel, Sherry Lansing, Barbra Streisand, Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, Jane Campion, and many others—in short, one of the most talented casts ever assembled. Poignant, inspiring, scandalous, and hilarious, this is at once a landmark look at the evolution of women’s place in filmmaking and a glimpse inside one of the most powerful industries in American culture.

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"Lauren Bacall, Martin Scorsese, Frank Rich, Richard Price, James Harvey, Isabella Rossellini and other leading actors, critics, filmmakers and scholars engage in discussions on a variety of topics that demonstrate the range and vitality of artistic dialogue that takes place at the Tribeca Film Festival. This volume provides a view into their explorations of romance in film, the crafts of acting and directing, the impact of science and war on cinema, the challenge of representing truth in non-narrative features and the role of New York as cinematic character as well as muse."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved