Nicole Kidman

by David Thomson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.38

  Nicole Kidman, Oscar winner, is more than a movie star. She is the leading female celebrity icon of our age, her face and body appear in the media the world over, and she often commands a salary of over 10 million dollars a picture. However, there is something mysterious and not quite settled about her, which is why David Thomson, one of the world's greatest film critics, knew he had to write about her. Whilst there may (just) be more attractive women on the screen, none has such a talent for transforming herself. This is a biography of a curly-red-haired girl from Australia who has become a world-famous actress. It is a searching treatment of the acting and business career, and a tribute by an admirer to a woman who has it in her to move millions of strangers.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $4.36

  Could one see a magazine deciding that Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez or Angelina Jolie were 'intriguing'? There is something mysterious and not quite settled with Nicole Kidman. That's why David Thomson, one of the world's greatest writers on film, knew he wanted to write about her, because while there may (just) be more attractive women on the screen, and even more consistent actresses, there isn't any modern career that has so transformed itself. It's as if Nicole Kidman suddenly decided no, I'm not just Mrs Tom, I'm not just a nice red-headed Sheila, I'm an actress, a businesswoman, I'm something - and I'm going to show you all. How else does one reconcile the Kidman of the early and middle 1990s, the woman who was so often pretty but not much else in Days of Thunder, Billy Bathgate, Far and Away, Malice, Batman Forever, The Portrait of a Lady and even Eyes Wide Shut, with the steady progression of Moulin Rouge, The Others and Birthday Girl, and then The Hours, Cold Mountain and others? Not all her recent films are good and she's not a triumph in all of them - but she is a dangerous actress, a risk-taker, someone pushing at her own talent. This is a biography of an Australian girl who has become world famous. It's also the record of an actress as she grew. The book is a vivid portrait, a searching treatment of acting and of a business career, but also a tribute to someone who has it in her to move millions of strangers.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.38

  Like Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman is a very serious actress. Like Grace Kelly, she is a classy dame, a princess from the Pacific. And like Marilyn or Rita Hayworth, she makes a saucy pin-up, who just loves being photographed. The combination is sensational, and no one can argue about her being the great star actress of the moment. She is mistress to an astonishing range of parts, but she is also the Chanel woman, a face and a body made iconic on billboards, in TV commercials, on magazine covers, on the Internet and in our dreams. But there is something mysterious and not quite settled about Nicole Kidman, which is why David Thomson, one of the world's most imaginative writers on film, wanted to write about her. He realized that there wasn't another career so single-minded about being a star, a figure on all our horizons. So he tracks her from Australia to the larger world and back again from Dead Calm, Days of Thunder and To Die For to Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge, The Others, Birthday Girl, The Hours, Dogville, Birth and Fur. In this arc a curly-haired girl from Hawaii and Sydney has become whatever she wants to be. Has it been easy? Pain-free? Without problems? Look at those blue eyes - so carefree once and already now those of a woman about to be forty, the next great challenge in her determined evolution. What happens when a woman discovers the power to move millions of strangers? And what happens to those who watch - the strangers?