A Life in 16 Films

How Cinema Made a Playwright

Mr Steve Waters

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Hardback

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English

Methuen Drama
01 July 2021

Theatre: individual actors & directors; Films, movies & cinema; Memoirs

Steve Waters examines how the very idea of film has defined him as a playwright and a person in this book. Through the the lens of cinema, it provides a cultural and political snapshot of life in Britain from the 2nd part of the 20th century up to the present day.

The films spanning almost a century, starting with The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929) and moving most recently to Dark Waters (2019), each chapter examines aspects of Waters's journey from his working-class Midlands upbringing to working in professional theatre to living through the Covid epidemic, through the prism of a particular film.

From The Wizard of Oz to Code Unknown, from sci-fi to documentary, from queer cinema to world cinema, this honest, comic book offers a view of film as a way of thinking about how we live. In doing so, it illuminates culture and politics in the UK over half a century and provides an intimate insight into drama and writing.

By: Mr Steve Waters
Imprint: Methuen Drama
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 381g
ISBN: 9781350205222
ISBN 10: 1350205222
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 01 July 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Steve Waters's stage plays include The Contingency Plan (2009), Temple (2015), Limehouse (2017) and his radio plays include Miriam and Youssef (2020) for BBC World Service. He has taught at the University of Cambridge and University of Birmingham, where he ran the Playwriting MPhil and currently is Professor of Scriptwriting at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of The Secret Life of Plays (2010), has edited the Contemporary Theatre Review (2013) and written a blog for the Guardian.

Reviews for A Life in 16 Films: How Cinema Made a Playwright

Playwright Steve Waters has come up with a brilliantly simple and original idea: a memoir built round the movies that have shaped his life. The result is partly autobiography, partly social history and partly a hymn of praise to the medium that made him. A jewel of a book: informative, moving, witty and compelling. -- David Edgar