Are You Talking to Me? : A Life Through the Movies

by John Walsh

Wit and heartbreak collide in a memoir of a life intertwined with an obsession with film. A Fever Pitch for cinema lovers.This book will consider the influence of movies on one life, the interaction of celluloid fantasy and the growth of a personality. Its not just a film buffs record of his enthusiasms. Its about how some films do, weirdly, change your life.Beginning with his first cinema outing, The Mutiny on the Bounty, and tracing his passion through his growing-up years to adulthood, John Walsh weaves together his own life experiences with his rapturous dependence on key moments in film.The result is a funny, personal, loving account of the magic and drama of the silver screen and its ultimate, all-encompassing power to become larger than (real) life.

Genres: Biography

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

John Walsh is a writer and commentator who contributes columns, features, interviews and restaurant reviews. He has been editor of The Independent Magazine, literary editor of the Sunday Times and features editor of the London Evening Standard.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Ned Thacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curious attempt at combining autobiography and film appreciation. Fell flat for me, mainly because the author’s account of his life is a little on the mundane side until we reach the hilarity of his first job as a trainee librarian. No great insights into movies, either, though his enthusiasm for The Innocents and Don’t Look Now comes across well.
Don’t want to be nit-picking, but if an author is setting himself up as an authority on films, then he should do a little fact-checking. Paul Henreid in Casablanca does not have a baton for the Marseillaise scene - where would he have got it from? - the band in Rick’s café is not the type that has a conductor.
And the line “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?” is not James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties, but Edward G Robinson in Little Caesar.
And since literature, rather than film, is the main string to Mr Walsh’s bow, he should certainly know that “On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble” is not from Housman’s The Welsh Marches, but, as he might of guessed, from “On Wenlock Edge”

[Ian Warr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept, which he just about pulls off. The problem being there doesnt seem to be anything particularly interesting about his life.