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  • Published: 15 April 2010
  • ISBN: 9780091937997
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $45.00

The Film Club

No School. No Work ... Just Three Films a Week




The touching, true story of what happens when a father tries to educate his chaotic teenage son through film

Jesse didn't want to go to school anymore. After much deliberation, his father offers him an unconventional deal: he can drop out, sleep all day, not work, not pay rent, but on one condition - that he watches three films a week, of his father's choosing.

What follows is an unusual journey as week by week, side by side, they watch the world's best (and occasionally worst) films - from True Romance to Chunking Express, A Hard Day's Night to Rosemary's Baby, and La Dolce Vita to Giant. The films get them talking: about girls, music, heartbreak, work, drugs, money, friendship - but they also open doors to a young man's interior life at a time when a parent is normally shut out. Gradually the father's initial worries are set aside as he watches his son morph from chaotic teenager to self-assured adult - who even starts to get up before noon. As the film club moves towards its poignant and inevitable conclusion, the young man makes a decision which surprises even his father...

The Film Club is a book that goes straight to the heart. Honest, unsparing, and emotive, it follows one man's attempt to chart a course for his beloved son's rocky passage into adulthood.

  • Published: 15 April 2010
  • ISBN: 9780091937997
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

David Gilmour

David Gilmour's books include the prize-winning biographies, Curzon and The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa. He is also the author of Cities of Spain, The Hungry Generations and several works on the politics of Spain and the Middle East. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, he is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

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