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Shooting Stars: Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies

Shooting Stars: Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies

by Harry Shapiro (Author), Howard Marks (Introduction)

  • Used

    Paperback 2003

    $4.26
Synopsis

The most detailed analysis of the colliding worlds of drugs and film ever written. From Reefer Madness to The Man With The Golden Arm, Easy Rider to Drugstore Cowboy, Traffic to Trainspotting, Shapiro charts the ways in which cinema has both tried to shape the public mood and has been forced to respond to the realities of widespread drug use. From 1920s marijuana mayhem through the cocaine storm that hit Hollywood in the ?70s, and the heroin chic films of the ?90s, Shooting Stars investigates the drug myths propagated in movies and maps the clear but complex links between censorship, public morals and the Hollywood dream machine. This is the inside story of an industry that not only wanted to have its coke and snort it but reserved the right to moralise about it afterwards. Shooting Stars tells the unexpurgated story of cinematic drug use ? both in front of and behind the camera. Beginning with the opium movies of the silent days and covering major drugs film to the present, Shapiro provides comprehensive detail about each film and what it portrays. An invaluable and unique work of reference, Shooting Stars also offers a persuasive account of the ways in which the silver screen is both mirror and guide to our ever more drugged up age.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 320
 Edition: Main
 Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 23 Oct 2003
ISBN 10: 1852426519
ISBN 13: 9781852426514

Media Reviews
?The subtitle says it all ? Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies ? if you?re interested in any one of them you will be well rewarded here? Guardian Guide ?Shooting Stars offers well-chosen and often jaw-dropping examples of the double-think surrounding the politics of escapism. It?s an eminently sensible read that should remain a benchmark volume until the next designer drug threatens the morals of the nation?s youth? Independent on Sunday ?The prose is sprightly, the gossip is hair-raising, and the rhythm of his argument hypnotic? The Times ?An extremely entertaining and informative history of the relationship between cinema and drugs?a thoroughly readable and entertaining snapshot? Popmatters.com ?A rather handy reference book for anyone with a nose for the seedier side of cinema? Hot Press ?A book you?ll snort up and want more? Jack ?The author expounds some surprisingly interesting ideas on early Hollywood?s opium fixation and the truly suicidal nature of the 80s coke epidemic. Fascinating stuff? The List ?A well researched and entertaining look at the relationship between two very different factories? Flux ?This fantastic book covers every major and most minor drugs films since the opium movies of the silent days? London Student
Author Bio
Harry Shapiro has worked in the drugs field for over twenty years and is the author of a number of acclaimed rock biographies and music books. The BBC named Waiting for the Man, his history of drugs and music, 'one of the twenty best music books of all time' while MOJO dubbed his best-selling biography of Jimi Hendrix as the one against which 'all other rock biographies will be judged'.