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| The Film Club: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: David Gilmour
Publisher: Twelve
Category: Book
List Price: $21.99
Buy New: $10.99
You Save: $11.00 (50%)
New (42) Used (12) from $10.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 13651
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 044619929X
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780446199292
ASIN: 044619929X
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new Book. Orders are usually processed and shipped within 24 hrs. (Seller Reference: B#15N)
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Product Description
"I loved David Gilmour's sleek, potent little memoir, The Film Club. It's so, so wise in the ways of fathers and sons, of movies and movie-goers, of love and loss."
--- Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls
"If all sons had dads like David Gilmour, then Oedipus would be a forgotten legend and Father's Day would be a worldwide film festival."
--Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All
"David Gilmour is a very unlikely moral guidance counselor: he's broke, more or less unemployed and has two children by two different women. Yet when it looks as though his teenage son is about to go off the rails, he reaches out to him through the only subject he knows anything about: the movies. The result is an object lesson in how fathers should talk to their sons." --Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing.
Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.
Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Not a how to parent book... September 3, 2008
...Not meant to be. But it is an honest diary like look into the mind of a parent with a troubled son during a troubled time in said parent's career.
There are tender moments and it's a good thing it was a quick read or I wouldn't have finished. The writer's own life and voice and complaints and self-pity about career bothered me more than a relatively common adolescent's life.
I'm shocked he was a known film critic in Canada because his film insights and antedotes (about 70s hollywood) were basic if not lifted from Easy Riders and Raging Bulls.
Not sure if I would recommend but there were some very moving moments between father and son and dialogue caught that made it almost hard to be the voyuer allowed into this world.
 teenaged angst August 31, 2008
I liked the premise of this book so I recommended it to my book club. Now I am not sure it was the best decision. The idea of allowing one's teenage son to drop out of high school and watch movies together sounded so far fetched I wanted to read the book to see how it happened. Though the plot moves along and the reader learns how the father and son get along and communicate, I always felt like there were unanswered questions.
For example, we know the mother agreed to the idea, but we don't ever get a sense of how she feels about the decision. Nor does the father's wife weigh in on the plan. The father freely allows his son to smoke cigarettes as well as encourage him to drink wine with him at restaurants. Perhaps rules are more lenient in Canada than the United States. The end of the book is somewhat rushed as well.
Good points - learned many new elements about movies and their background stories. Saw how a father can influence a child in good and not so good ways. The writing style is easy to read and offers some good prose as well. It is not a bad read at all; just not completely what I expected.
 The cheapest film studies class you will ever find August 27, 2008
This is a really lovely little memoir that can be read in a day, but will linger on in the back of your mind. When his son dropped out of high school, Gilmour didn't make him get a job or pay rent, but made one rule - his son had to watch three movies a week with him. Gilmour's love of cinema is wrapped together with his deep love for his son, and what results is a fascinating insight into the relationship between parent and child.
 A Great Weekend Read August 23, 2008
I was drawn to this title based on a New York Times Book Review of this deeply satisfying book about a bold father whose ballsy choice to step out the way of a his resistant teen son's relationship to high school gave me hope that things tend to turn out the way they are meant to turn out. This story is affirmation of our kid's ability to work things out for themselves as long as we remain present and loving for the drama known as adolescence.
If you have a Jesse at home, or any troubled teenager, pick up this book and give it a chance to enlighten what you think you know about film, parenting and your kids.
Thank you David Gilmour and Jesse, for sharing your time with me!
A Lucky Kid August 22, 2008
This is a little gem of a book. Yes, it is beautifully written: imagine capturing Robert Mitchum's fascinating "way of drifting through a movie with the effortlessness of a cat wandering into a dinner party." But more significantly, it evokes the searing love of parent for child, and describes an unusually humane and personal form of fatherhood. This is "attachment parenting" beyond the baby years, and shown here to be absolutely appropriate for any age. The respect, sensitivity and time Gilmour bestows on his troubled son is a gift too few children receive in this era of working parents, onerous homework, and soccer schedules. With creativity, intelligence and devotion, Gilmour manages to coax a floundering teen towards the beginnings of independent, successful manhood. And his refreshingly realistic approach admits wine, women and song into the mix. Made me cry at the lovely ending.
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