Five best books about making movies

David Thomson is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of books about making movies. One title on the list:

Jaws
by Antonia Quirke (2002)

This short book is one in a series of British Film Institute publications on particular films written by Antonia Quirke, one of the sharpest young film writers in Britain. Her "Jaws" essay omits some valuable detail (like the way Lew Wasserman changed the business in his marketing of the movie). But Quirke loves the dottiness of the film and, as she describes the strenuous ordeal of its making, she comes to the luminous conclusion that "Jaws" has "sheer exhilaration at lacking an agenda or a subject in any classical dramatic sense. The film is sometimes nothing more than a dance to music. Steven Spielberg never meant anything really. But neither did Fred Astaire."

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue