Ty Burr. (2012). Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Ty Burr. 2012. Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Ty Burr, Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012.

Ty Burr. Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012.

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1. • role: Author
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   • bioText:

     Ty Burr has been a film critic at The Boston Globe since 2002. Prior to that he wrote about movies for Entertainment Weekly, and he began his career as an in-house movie analyst for HBO. His previous books include The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together. He lives, writes, and teaches in the greater Boston area.

   • name: Ty Burr

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2012-09-18T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Gods Like Us

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WITH 8 PAGES OF BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS

How—and why—do we obsess over movie stars? How does fame both reflect and mask the person behind it? How have the image of stardom and our stars’ images altered over a century of cultural and technological change? Do we create celebrities, or do they create us?
 
Ty Burr, film critic for The Boston Globe, answers these questions in this lively and fascinating anecdotal history of stardom, with all its blessings and curses for star and stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant) and Marion Morrison (a.k.a. John Wayne), Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts, and such no-cal stars of today as the Kardashians and the new online celebrity (i.e., you and me), Burr takes us on an insightful and entertaining journey through the modern fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, occasionally most tragic, and ultimately, its most revealing.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times Book Review
   • content: "A penetrating, lively cultural history of movie stardom. . . . [The author] has a witty, readable style, but don't let that pop façade fool you. There is substance here, as he dissects how each period in American history finds or create stars to serve its needs."
2. • premium: False
   • source: The Boston Globe
   • content: "Wide-ranging. . . . Superb. . . . Capacious and thought-provoking. . . . In Gods Like Us, Boston Globe film critic Burr presents a fresh take on the medium's history, eschewing the standard roll call of moguls and filmmakers, preferring to understand the triumph of Hollywood as a carefully orchestrated harnessing of the ferocious power of celebrity."
3. • premium: False
   • source: IndieWire
   • content: "David Thomson, watch out! In the pithy new book Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr delivers thoughtfully epigrammatic descriptions of movie stars, actors, and celebrities. He wittily traces the progression of these characters from the early days of film to their current incarnations on the internet, from the young Frank Sinatra, who 'looked like a freshly hatched ostrich but his singing voice promised a slowly crested big-band orgasm,' to Harrison Ford, who is able to 'make grumpiness seem sexy.' . . . Gods Like Us soars when it meditates on individual stars and their personae. . . . The whole book is worth guzzling for the golden nuggets on movie stars and celebrity sprinkled throughout."
4. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times
   • content: "Any Hollywood history can describe a star's X factor. But not many film historians can see the whole equation as Ty Burr does in Gods Like Us, his lively and provocative chronicle of the genesis of movie stars and the metamorphosis of movie stardom. He offers original thinking about the audience factor."
5. • premium: False
   • source: The Buffalo News
   • content: "A brilliant and even profound history of stardom for an era that doesn't begin to know how very badly it both wants and needs it."
6. • premium: False
   • source: The Wall Street Journal
   • content: "Gods Like Us is a standout, as enjoyable as it is informative, when it comes to the astrology of public entertainment."
7. • premium: False
   • source: The Huffington Post
   • content: "A lively anecdotal history of stardom, with all its blessings and curses for star and stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant) and Marion Morrison (a.k.a. John Wayne), from Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts to today's instant celebs famous for being famous, Burr takes us on an insightful and entertaining journey through the modern fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, most revealing and, occasionally, most tragic."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Austin Chronicle
   • content: "Burr is an ever-witty presence on the page (see: Clara Bow, with her 'blat of raw sexual energy,' or Arnold Schwarzenegger, 'this slab of Black Forest ham'). A terrific writer, then, yes, but also an astute reader of history, as in his near-breathless analysis of three midcentury seismic shifts--the emergence of Marlon Brando, television, and rock & roll. Burr gives each subject a good chew."
9. • premium: False
   • source: The Daily Beast
   • content: "Burr's Gods Like Us is a constantly interpretive history of and idiosyncratic meditation on stardom. . . . It is an important work, precisely because it is such a difficult task that is all too rarely undertaken."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Kirkus Reviews
    • content: "Burr has both a fan's and scholar's grasp of the history of film, and he travels along a celluloid highway that extends from the early days of Thomas Edison to Zac Efron. Of greatest interest to the author is our evolving notion of celebrity--of what celebrities mean. . . . A focused history of films."
11. • premium: False
    • source: Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and The Leftovers
    • content: "Gods Like Us is an entertaining, wide-ranging account of the way movies created a new kind of fame, and changed the world in the process. Ty Burr's encyclopedic history of movie stardom is gossipy (in the best of sense of the word) and insightful, and his cultural analysis is as provocative as it persuasive."
12. • premium: False
    • source: Dennis Lehane, author of Live by Night and Mystic River
    • content: "The sharp, illuminating Gods Like Us is as enjoyable and addictive as the greatest bucket of movie popcorn you've ever had. For anyone who loves cinema, this is a 'must own' book."
13. • premium: False
    • source: Publishers Weekly
    • content: "[A] solid analysis of celebrity. . . . In this fascinating cultural study, film critic Burr explores t
14. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      July 9, 2012
      In this fascinating cultural study, film critic Burr explores the rise of stars in the early film industry. Burr argues “that every successful star creates a persona and within that persona is an idea the films are merely variations on the idea.” Early stars were Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, and Clark Gable, but Brando broke the mold, and now, Burr argues, “his DNA... courses through our young actors and movie stars.” Burr chronicles the star system—silents, talkies, movie factories, postwar studios—while citing factors such as television (“evoked not glamour, but ordinariness”), music (Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna), MTV, HBO, and YouTube (“teenagers have at their disposal the fundamental moviemaking facilities of a Hollywood studio in the 1930s”). In this solid analysis of celebrity, he offers insight on the career arcs of Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise (“not an actor but a huge global superstar”), Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, and Jodie Foster. Agent: Sarah Burnes, The Gernert Company.

15. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      July 15, 2012
      The film critic of the Boston Globe explores film celebrity and waxes philosophical about what it means to and for the rest of us. Burr (The Best Old Movies for Families, 2007, etc.) has both a fan's and scholar's grasp of the history of film, and he travels along a celluloid highway that extends from the early days of Thomas Edison to Zac Efron. Of greatest interest to the author is our evolving notion of celebrity--of what celebrities mean. He cites few authorities to support his view of our psychology, however, and he freely employs locutions like we want and we expect throughout. Burr notes that the earliest performers were anonymous, until actress Florence Lawrence (1886-1938). After that, the author ably shows, the names became virtually all. At near fast-forward speed, he takes us through the careers and contributions of the pioneer generation (Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix et al.), with some stops for closer looks at the rise and precipitous fall of Fatty Arbuckle, the arrival of the talkies and the emergence of the great screen presences of the 1930s and '40s--Gable, Harlow, Cagney, Bogart and others. Burr examines how studios sought to homogenize and manage their performers' images (we knew what we were getting in a John Wayne film), and he offers a lengthy analysis of, and tribute to, Brando. He then deviates a bit from his subtitle by looking at the varying natures of celebrity in TV and popular music. He also mentions the meltdowns of Cruise and Gibson and the difficulties for female actors (they must not age). A focused history of films that occasionally flirts with--but does not wed--portentousness.

      COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

16. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 1, 2012
      

      More than a century of detail is incorporated into this fine history of stardom from the early days of silent film through the contemporary world of YouTube. Burr (film critic, Boston Globe; The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together) traces the rise of Hollywood legends, television stars, and musicians ranging from Mary Pickford, Lucille Ball, and Marlon Brando to Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson. He analyzes their roles both onscreen and off, their symbolic significance, and how they have inspired both the adoration and the envy of their audiences. Burr offers incisive commentary on the changing face of stardom as a reflection of and an influence on society-at-large, its defining parameters expanding over time beyond the film world with the advent of increasingly sophisticated technological advances in television, video, and the Internet. Although more recent innovations like YouTube have made it easier to become famous, they have diminished some of stardom's former glamour. VERDICT This is a well-written and well-researched work about the multiple complexities of stardom that will appeal to a wide general readership.--Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

      Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

17. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 1, 2012
      Burr, a prominent film critic for the Boston Globe since 2002, tackles our enduring fascination with celebrities in this comprehensive examination of stardom throughout the past century. Burr's insights are focused primarily on movie stars (as opposed to television, sports, or music stars) and the question we all want the answer to: What are they really like? This exhaustive, and occasionally exhausting, book connects the dots between the original constellation of classic Hollywood icons (Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino) through the so-called golden age (Clark Gable, Bette Davis, John Wayne) and the biggest stars of the modern era (Johnny Depp, Will Smith, Julia Roberts). With more than 25 years of film watching and analysis under his belt, Burr clearly knows this subject matter well and has a valuable point of view. Certain claims, however, such as A film without a star remains a nearly impossible sell, ring somewhat untrue in the age of The Hunger Games and Twilight, two blockbuster film franchises that have created a new batch of young stars for us to obsess over.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

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WITH 8 PAGES OF BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS

How—and why—do we obsess over movie stars? How does fame both reflect and mask the person behind it? How have the image of stardom and our stars’ images altered over a century of cultural and technological change? Do we create celebrities, or do they create us?
 
Ty Burr, film critic for The Boston Globe, answers these questions in this lively and fascinating anecdotal history of stardom, with all its blessings and curses for star and stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant) and Marion Morrison (a.k.a. John Wayne), Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts, and such no-cal stars of today as the Kardashians and the new online celebrity (i.e., you and me), Burr takes us on an insightful and entertaining journey through the modern fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, occasionally most tragic, and ultimately, its most revealing.

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