Conversations with Steve Martin
by Edited by Robert E. Kapsis
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Pub Date Sep 02 2014 | Archive Date Jan 06 2015
University Press of Mississippi | Literary Conversations Series
Description
“Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”
Conversations with Steve Martin presents a collection of interviews and profiles that focus on Martin as a writer, artist, and original thinker over the course of more than four decades in show business. While those less familiar with his full body of work may think of Martin as primarily the “wild and crazy guy” with an arrow through his head, this book makes the case that he is in fact one of our nation’s most accomplished and varied artists. It shows the full range of Martin’s creative work, tracing the source of his comic imagination from his early standup days, starting in the mid to late 1960s through the films he has written and starred in, and emphasizing his more recent creative outpourings as playwright, essayist, novelist, memoirist, songwriter, composer, musician, and art critic.
“Standup is the hardest material in the world to write for someone else; it’s like trying to condense 10 years of experience into 20 minutes of new material.,” Martin says. But commenting on his fiction writing, he says. “I think you have to be able to find as a writer that state where you don’t know what you’re going to say or what the character is going to say or who the characters are. That’s the biggest thrill of all. When you start to trust that subconscious thing and you don’t censor yourself—just remember you can always throw it away—that’s when the good stuff comes out.”
The selected materials consist not only of pieces
focused primarily on Martin’s writings, but also broader profiles and conversations
that help explain Martin’s development as a writer within the larger context of
his many other accomplishments, talents, and performance skills.
Robert E. Kapsis, Great Neck, New York, is professor of sociology and film studies at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is author of Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation and editor of several volumes in the Conversations with Filmmakers Series, including a soon to be published new edition of Woody Allen: Interviews.
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Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781628461251 |
| PRICE | $25.00 (USD) |
Average rating from 38 members
Featured Reviews
Donna P, Reviewer
My brain is often at war with my body.
I want to do more. More! More! Yes, on days like this my brain sounds like a strange combination of yearning romance novel heroine and petulant child.
Such is the hidden world of Fibromyalgia.
My body dragged itself out of bed to start another day. Not really sure why I have a bed sometimes, but at least it’s there for rest and decoration. I also once again failed to get the license number of the Mack Truck that hit me while I was sleeping.
With FMS another day means more pain, fatigue, frustration, disappointment, doubters and just more of less.
I don’t expect anyone who doesn’t live with Fibromyalgia to understand it. I don’t have cancer, that doesn’t mean I can’t have empathy and understanding for those that do. Or ALS, MS, CP, Diabetes, Autism, depression, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s, etc.
Doesn’t mean I can’t understand a man because I’m not a man.
Or the rich because I’m not rich.
As human beings we have a wealth of empathy, understanding, and compassion available to us at any time.
I get some people think Fibromyalgia is made up by lazy or unmotivated people. Ok, why do doctors and other professionals go along with it, what’s in it for them? They have more than enough patients, unfortunately cancer alone keeps them pretty busy.
So it hasn’t been my day, my week, my month, or even my year, but I do know that laughter is truly the best medicine so I thought today was a good day to review Conversations with Steve Martin edited by Robert E. Kapsis (University Press of Mississippi). Thank you Netgalley.com for letting me borrow this ARC copy, available in stores early September 2014.
I’ve already had many conversations with Mr. Martin in the last 35 years – usually he’s wearing an arrow through his head or bunny ears, or a balloon hat, playing his banjo, getting Happy Feet, dressed in a King Tut outfit, and/or eating tiny chocolate cookies while juggling small cats. No cats were harmed in my fantasy conversations with Steve Martin.
Conversations with Steve Martin highlights Martin’s contributions not only as a comedian, but as a writer, musician, artist, and free-thinker through a series of interviews and profiles. It’s sort of a living eulogy of Martin’s rollercoaster career over the past 4 decades.
Steve Martin has thrilled and disappointed audiences for decades with his ever-changing style, from eccentric, incongruous, and wacky to mature to sinister to bizarre to mellow.
As much as I’ve enjoyed some of his later work, I sometimes miss the wild and crazy guy, the Cruel Shoes, King Tut, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Jerk, The Man With Two Brains http://yadadarcyyada.com/2013/11/27/the-man-with-two-brains/ and more.
That being said, I’m so glad he moved on and didn’t get stuck.
If you’re a Steve Martin fan this latest book is ubercool, if you’re not, well, excuuuuuuuse me!
You can read, watch or have pretend conversations with Steve Martin or maybe really pretend 140 characters or less magical moments on Twitter @SteveMartinToGo
Carl Reiner may have said it best, “His strength, as an actor, I’ve found, is his beautiful body,” Carl Reiner said jokingly. “His weakness is too much hair on his body.”
Laughter may not fix all the world’s problems, but it sure does know how to make them seem less dire.
I think tonight will be a Steve Martin movie night.
Thank you Mr. Martin for another lovely conversation, next time, you bring the cookies.
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