Admit One

Book 22 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read from February 22 - 28

Admit One: My Life in Film

by Emmett James

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2010

If I could tell you just one things about my life it would be this: My alter ego was once a very famous man.

While reflecting fondly on the films that are most memorable to me, I am struck by one pertinent truth (thanks to the 20/20 hindsight of adulthood). That fact is this: A film itself, though unalterable once the physical reel is printed and unleashed, changes continually in the reel of our memory.

One of the earliest critics of drama, the ancient philosopher Aristotle, postulates in Poetics that there are really only six basic points to every story; everything else is merely a variation on a theme. Whether you agree or disagree with his theory, picking up any present-day film guide serves at least to prove that we have accumulated a voluminous set of variations to date.

I wrote this book under the guise that the key to experiencing film, without losing relevance and meaning, is context. The environment, mood, personal history and circumstances in which a person sees a film changes that film in a necessary, unique, and exciting way. It creates a whole new story - a living, breathing film. The film of one's life.

That being said, I present to you my story. I hope you will in turn recount your own with similar reverence.

My Opinion

2 stars

I went into this book completely blind because my husband was getting books that I requested at the library and impulsively grabbed this one too because he thought I'd like it.  Being the random reader I am I think that's great but I also know from random reading that taking a gamble doesn't always pay off.  Unfortunately, this book wasn't one I enjoyed; for me a 2 star rating means I didn't like it but it wasn't so bad that it made me angry - 1 star is reserved for rant reviews.

It started off with a weird rant about Steven Seagal and then there were a few other "what did I just read?" moments as well, such as a strong opinion about people with a unibrow being untrustworthy or when he described someone as "one of my Indian (dots, not feathers) friends".  It also veered from weird to uncomfortable at times, such as when he decided to impersonate an Oscar nominee (apparently easy to do because "who the hell knew what the writer [I'm choosing not to repeat his name in my review but the author named him] looked like anyway? Apart from his mother, I'm sure..." to get into an Oscar party in the hopes of picking up a beautiful woman (or to quote him directly, "finish the evening off by taking home a little golden, tanned, trophy of my own. Placing her on my mantle...or better yet, bent over the footboard of my bed.") or when he made money by editing paparazzi photos (and I use "editing" loosely, as the story of pretty much manufacturing the wedding photo of Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley was beyond crazy).

I did find his "behind the scenes" story of how they got a certain shot of him as an actor getting hit by a car very interesting.  They did it backward, starting with his head on the truck and then him and the vehicle both reversing away from each other - it would be hard to sprint backward, especially while looking like you're running forward.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"So the local cinema soon became a frequent weekend event for our family, something we could all share and have an opinion on. I always loved to feel like grown-ups were truly interested in what I had to say, and with film we all saw different things and shared in each other's knowledge, likes and dislikes. This event was something where there truly was no right or wrong, just personal opinion, and age was suddenly and unequivocally irrelevant. It was a unique family occurrence that soon became greatly cherished and frequently attended by us all."

"Career plans and life-altering directions throughout my childhood years were consistently dictated by the cinema and my favorite film at the time. I went from praying that I grew up to be a mouse after the highly emotional and utterly disturbing animated Disney film The Rescuers, to being sure my destiny was now in the field of archaeology after seeing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."