CONVERSATIONS WITH DEAN TAVOULARIS

Conversations with Dean Tavoularis Hardcover – October 17, 2022
French Edition by Jordan Mintzer (Author), Wes Anderson (Foreword)

Bilingual Edition : English and French

 

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“Everything the viewer sees in a film is the result of work with the production designer. – FF Coppola.

Four years after the release of the highly acclaimed Conversations with Darius Khondji, the third book in the Conversations collection is the first monograph devoted to one of the greatest production designers in the history of cinema, Dean Tavoularis.

Intended for moviegoers, students and professionals of the 7th art, but also for lovers of design and architecture, this book offers a unique journey through the cinema of the last sixty years. An exciting behind-the-scenes dive into cult 20th century films: Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Bonnie and Clyde, Zabriskie Point, Secret Conversation and many more.

Dean Tavoularis has a most illustrious filmography, his name being associated with many masterpieces of American cinema from the 1960s and 1970s. His collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola, Michelangelo Antonioni, Arthur Penn, Warren Beatty, William Friedkin and Roman Polanski are among the richest and most inventive of modern cinema.

Conversations with Dean Tavoularis retraces the incredible odyssey of the man who began his career as an animator under the direction of Walt Disney. After having cut his teeth in the biggest Hollywood studios, on films such as 20,000 leagues under the sea or Guess who’s coming to dinner…, he became production designer on one of the films that would contribute to the advent of New Hollywood, Bonnie and Clyde. But it is alongside Francis Ford Coppola that Dean Tavoularis devotes most of his career. Hired to work on The Godfather, they formed a unique creative couple for more than three decades.

Entire chapters are devoted to the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, the making of which is explored in detail. Dean Tavoularis also reveals some of Coppola’s projects, such as Pinocchio, thanks to concept drawings never before unveiled and a breathtaking visual script scheme.

These conversations are also accompanied by exclusive interviews with actor-director Warren Beatty, directors Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Coppola, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (The Conformist, The Last Emperor), costume designer Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange , Barry Lyndon) with whom Dean Tavoularis collaborated, as well as with the French production designer Katia Wyszkop (Under the Sun of Satan).

Accessible to all and teeming with anecdotes where we will come across Jean-Luc Godard, Marlon Brando, Gene Kelly and Tom Waits, among others, the book is illustrated with hundreds of visuals, most of them unpublished: set photos, set plans , architectural plans, archives, conceptual drawings, storyboards…

A beautiful book prefaced by Wes Anderson and written by Jordan Mintzer, author of the already cult Conversations with James Gray and Conversations with Darius Khondji.

 

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About the Author
Jordan Mintzer is a writer, producer and film critic from Queens, New York. Paris correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter, he also writes for Variety, So Film, Le Monde, Cahiers du Cinéma and Liberation. He is the author of the books Conversations with James Gray and Conversations with Darius Khondji published by Synecdoche.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BDXJ2WCJ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ SYNECDOCHE (October 17, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ Bilingual Edition : English and French
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-1090172029
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.09 pounds
Dimensions: ‎ 8.58 x 1.18 x 11.22 inches