Ben Hecht : fighting words, moving pictures / Adina Hoffman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoffman, Adina, author.

Series:

Jewish lives (New Haven, Conn.)

Jewish lives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hecht, Ben, 1894-1964.

Hecht, Ben.

Screenwriters--United States--Biography.

Screenwriters.

Jewish authors.

United States.

Jewish authors--United States--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 245 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2019]

Summary:

He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter." Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts-including Scarface,Twentieth Century, and Notorious-Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe, and later he became a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine's Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this self-declared "child of the century" came to embody much that defined America-especially Jewish America-in his time. Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman's vivid portrait brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page. Hecht was a renaissance man of dazzling sorts, and Hoffman-critically acclaimed biographer, former film critic, and eloquent commentator on Middle Eastern culture and politics-is uniquely suited to capture him in all his modes.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-229) and index.

ISBN:

9780300180428

030018042X

OCLC:

1083340454