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Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked the Big Screen - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked the Big Screen

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For rock music and film buffs alike, this is the ultimate guide exploring the electrifying, entertaining, and often daring marriage of rock & roll and cinema.

When the use of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” turned 1955’s Blackboard Jungle into a teen sensation and a box-office smash, it proved the opening shot in a cinematic and cultural revolution. Starting with Elvis Presley and the teensploitation films of the ’50s and ’60s, in Rock on Film award-winning author and former Rolling Stone editor Fred Goodman takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through film and pop history. Along the way, he measures the transformative impact of the mid-’60s landmarks A Hard Day’s Night and Dont Look Back and how they seeded an almost unbelievably broad genre of films made by increasingly ambitious musicians and filmmakers across the past seven decades.

From the carefree to the complex, the mindless to the mind-bending, rock films have staked out their own turf by simultaneously celebrating innocence and challenging artistic and social conventions. With an insightful round-up of fifty must-see rock films spanning crowd-pleasers, art-house favorites, underground gems, and undisputed classics, Rock on Film surveys the nearly seventy-year canon of a genre like no other.

A series of original interviews with Cameron Crowe, Jim Jarmusch, Penelope Spheeris, Taylor Hackford, and John Waters illuminates how rock has influenced the work of some of the most divergent and thoughtful directors in movie history. Illustrated throughout by more than 150 full-color and black-and-white images, Rock on Film brings the history of music in the movies to vivid life.

ISBN-13: 9780762478439

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers

Publication Date: 07-26-2022

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 7.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

Series: Turner Classic Movies

Fred Goodman is a former editor at Rolling Stone, whose work has appeared in the New York Times and many other publications. His previous books include the award-winning The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce and Why Lhasa de Sela Matters. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg vi

Between the Sprockets: A History of Rock on Film 1

A Hard Day's Night 34

Dont Look Back 40

Jailhouse Rock 44

The Tami Show 48

Woodstock 52

Gimme Shelter 56

The Last Waltz 60

Stop Making Sense 64

Almost Famous 68

A Conversation with Cameron Crowe "The better the song is, the tougher it is to marry to cinema" 73

I'm Not There 77

This Is Spinal Tap 80

Monterey Pop 84

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster 88

The Buddy Holly Story/La Bamba 92

Viva Las Vegas 98

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 102

The Girl Can't Help It 106

Mystery Train 110

Inside Llewyn Davis 114

20 Feet from Stardom 118

A Conversation with Jim Jarmusch "The music tends to guide me first" 122

Straight Outta Compton 126

Ladies & Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains 130

Quadrophenia 134

The Decline of Western Civilization: Part 1 138

High Fidelity 142

Rock'n Roll High School 146

Pink Floyd: The Wall 150

Laurel Canyon 154

The Harder They Come 158

Singles 162

A Conversation with Penelope Spheeris "People that make movies generally do not understand music" 166

Ray 172

Hairspray 176

Smithereens 180

A Star Is Born/Gaga: Five Foot Two 184

Get On Up 190

The Runaways 194

Oil City Confidential 198

Beware of Mr. Baker 201

Purple Rain 204

Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roil 208

A Conversation with Taylor Hackford "I wanted to make a portrait film of the most difficult man in rock and roll" 212

The Blues Brothers 218

Frank 222

8 Mile 226

American Graffiti 230

Alice's Restaurant 236

Privilege 240

The Black Godfather 244

Standing in the Shadows of Motown 248

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll 252

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story 256

A Conversation with John Waters "The Beatles were too cheery for me" 260

Bibliography 265

Acknowledgments 272

Index 273