David Gilmour

From the 2005 winner of the Governor-General’s Award for Fiction and the former national film critic for CBC television comes a delightful and absorbing book about the agonies and joys of home-schooling a beloved son. Written in the spare elegant style he is known for, The Film Club is the true story about David Gilmour’s decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both their lives. From French New Wave, Kurosawa, and New German cinema, to De Palma, film noir, Cronenberg and Billy Wilder, among many others from world cinema, we read about key moments in each film, as the author teaches his son about life and the vagaries of growing up through the power of the movies. Replete with page-turning descriptions of scenes and actors and directors, the narrative is framed with the tender story of his son’s first bittersweet first loves. This is a charming and poignant story about a very special time in a father and son’s relationship. David Gilmour is a novelist who has earned critical praise from literary figures as diverse as William Burroughs and Northrop Frye, and from publications as different as the New York Times to People magazine. The author of six novels, he also hosted the award-winning Gilmour on the Arts. He lives in Toronto with his wife Tina Gladstone.

A True Story of a Father and a Son

The Film Club

Visiting a villa built by Lorenzo dé Medici outside Pisa, David Gilmour fell into conversation about the unification of Italy with a distinguished former minister: '"You know, Davide," he said in a low conspiratorial voice, as if uttering a heresy, "Garibaldi did Italy a great disservice. If he had not invaded Sicily and Naples, we in the north would have the richest and most civilized state in Europe." After looking cautiously round the room he added in an even lower voice, "Of course to the south we would have a neighbour like Egypt."' Was the elderly Italian right? Was the unification of Italy a mistake? The Pursuit of Italy traces the whole history of the Italian peninsula in a wonderfully readable style, full of well-chosen stories and observations from personal experience, and peopled by many of the great figures of the Italian past, from Cicero and Virgil to Dante and the Medici, from Cavour and Verdi to the controversial political figures of the twentieth century. The book gives a clear-eyed view of the Risorgimento, the pivotal event in modern Italian history, debunking the influential myths which have grown up around it. Gilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always lain in its regions, with their distinctive art, civic cultures, identities and cuisine. The regions produced the medieval communes and the Renaissance, the Venetian Republic and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, two of the most civilized states of European history. Their inhabitants identified themselves not as Italians, but as Tuscans and Venetians, Sicilians and Lombards, Neapolitans and Genoese. This is where the strength and culture of Italy still comes from, rather than from misconceived and mishandled concepts of nationalism and unity. This wise and enormously engaging book explains the course of Italian history in a manner and with a coherence which no one with an interest in the country could fail to enjoy.

A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples

The Pursuit of Italy

"I loved David Gilmour's sleek, potent little memoir, The Film Club. It's so, so wise in the ways of fathers and sons, of movies and movie-goers, of love and loss." --- Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls "If all sons had dads like David Gilmour, then Oedipus would be a forgotten legend and Father's Day would be a worldwide film festival." --Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All "David Gilmour is a very unlikely moral guidance counselor: he's broke, more or less unemployed and has two children by two different women. Yet when it looks as though his teenage son is about to go off the rails, he reaches out to him through the only subject he knows anything about: the movies. The result is an object lesson in how fathers should talk to their sons." --Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing. Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies. Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.

A Memoir

Eram tempos difíceis para David Gilmour: sem trabalho fixo, com o dinheiro curto e o filho de 15 anos colecionando reprovações em todas as matérias do ensino médio. Diante da desorientação e da infelicidade desse filho-problema, o pai faz uma oferta fora dos padrões: o garoto poderia sair da escola — e ficar sem trabalhar e sem pagar aluguel — desde que assistisse semanalmente a três filmes escolhidos pelo pai. Com essa aposta diferente na recuperação e na formação de um rapaz que está “perdido”, formaram o clube do filme. Semana a semana, lado a lado, pai e filho viam e discutiam o melhor (e, ocasionalmente, o pior) do cinema: de A Doce Vida (o clássico de Federico Fellini) a Instinto Selvagem (o thriller sensual estrelado por Sharon Stone); de Os Reis do Iê, Iê, Iê (hit cinematográfico da Beatlemania) a O Iluminado (interpretação primorosa de Jack Nicholson, dirigido por Stanley Kubrick); de O Poderoso Chefão (um dos integrantes das listas de “melhores filmes de todos os tempos”) a Amores Expressos (cult romântico e contemporâneo do chinês Wong Kar-Way). Essas sessões os mantinham em constante diálogo — sobre mulheres, música, dor de cotovelo, trabalho, drogas, amor, amizade —, e abriam as portas para o universo interior do adolescente, num momento em que os pais geralmente as encontram fechadas. David Gilmour, crítico de cinema e escritor premiado, oferece uma percepção singular sobre filmes, roteiros, diretores e atores inesquecíveis ao relatar essa vivência com olho clínico e muita sinceridade. O autor emociona ao colocar os leitores diante da descoberta da vida adulta pelos olhos de um jovem e dos dilemas da adolescência administrados por um pai muito presente. Nas palavras de Gilmour: “É um exemplo do que o cinema é capaz, de como os filmes podem vencer suas defesas e realmente atingir seu coração.”

O clube do filme

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all? Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company’s first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

A Social History of the Raj

The British in India

Cineclub

a dad, his teenage son and the education he couldn't refuse

The film club

O Clube de Cinema

a novel

A perfect night to go to China

Un padre, su hijo y una educación nada convencional: ni escuela, ni trabajo, ni drogas; solo tres películas a la semana. Fue un trato muy poco convencional: Jesse podía dejar de ir al instituto, dormir todo el día, no trabajar, no pagar alquiler pero a cambio tenía que mantenerse alejado de las drogas y ver tres películas a la semana con su padre, el crítico de cine canadiense David Gilmour. Jesse aceptó de inmediato y al día siguiente padre e hijo comenzaron con la primera película de la lista: Los cuatrocientos golpes de François Truffaut. A lo largo de tres años padre e hijo vieron todo tipo de películas, desde las consideradas joyas del cine hasta los grandes bodrios de todos los tiempos. Con el trasfondo de El padrino, Instinto básico, Showgirls, Ciudadano Kane o La ley del silencio, David y Jesse hablan de los principales directores de cine, de las escenas célebres y de los actores que las protagonizaron, y poco a poco sobre todo tipo de temas: chicas, música, mal de amores, trabajo, drogas, talento, dinero, amor, amistad... Cineclub es un repaso personal de la historia del cine, un desafío a nuestras nociones de la educación y, sobre todo, la historia real y conmovedora acerca de cómo un padre y un hijo sortearon una época muy especial en su relación; en la que los hijos se encierran en sí mismos y los padres pierden la oportunidad de llegar a ellos. Esta es la historia de una decisión que lo cambió todo. Reseña: «Al mismo tiempo que recorrían la senda cinematográfica se detenían, casi sin pretenderlo, en la existencia misma.» ABC

Un padre, su hijo y una educación nada convencional

Dost Körpe

bir baba, oğlu ve oğlunun reddedemeyeceği bir eğitim

Film kulübü

"The Film Club" is the true story about David Gilmour's decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both t

Film Club

David Gilmour és un crític de cinema sense feina que intenta convèncer el seu fill Jesse, de quinze anys, que faci els deures. Quan s'adona que en Jesse està començant a veure el tema de l'escola com una cosa pesada i carregosa, ofereix al seu fill un tracte ben poc convencional: pot deixar d'anar a l'escola i no treballar ni pagar lloguer, però haurà de veure tres pel·lícules setmanals amb el seu pare. Setmana rere setmana, asseguts al sofà, pare i fill miren pel·lícules de tota mena, des d'Amor a boca de canó fins a La llavor del diable passant per Showgirls i pel·lícules d'Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, entre d'altres. Les pel·lícules els ajuden a parlar sobre la vida d'en Jesse i els seus petits drames sentimentals amb jovenetes volubles que li trenquen el cor a cada separació.

David Gilmour's biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of The Leopard, one of the great novels of the twentieth century. A book whose imagery, once tasted, haunts the reader forever, The Leopard describes the golden era of nineteenth-century Sicily: its sensual, fading, aristocratic glory and its corruption, brutality, and inequality lurking beneath the surface. Who wrote this masterpiece, this work of art? The answer is as unlikely as one might hope. A fascinating meditation on what it is that makes a writer.

A Life of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

The Last Leopard

From a Governor General’s Award–winning author comes a heart-rending novel about family, children and the end of life. Over the course of one Saturday night, a man and his half-sister meet at her request to spend the evening preparing for her assisted death. They drink and reminisce fondly, sadly, amusingly about their lives and especially her children, both of whom have led dramatic and profoundly different lives. Extraordinary is a powerful consideration of assisted suicide, but it is also a story about family—about how brothers and sisters turn out so differently; about how little, in fact, turns out the way we expect. In the end, this is a novel about the extraordinary business of being alive, and it may well be David Gilmour’s very best work of fiction to date.

Extraordinary

A man's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic after the son he was watching disappears.

A Perfect Night to Go to China

Selvbiografisk roman om en far og hans søn. Journalisten og filmkritikeren David Gilmours 16-årige søn Jesse er skoletræt og får et uventet tilbud af sin far. Jesse behøver ikke at gå i skole, behøver ikke at arbejde eller betale husleje, hvis han går med til at se tre film om ugen. Men det er far David, der må vælge filmene. De ser mange forskellige film sammen og diskuterer derved de vigtige ting i livet og kommer hinanden nærmere, end de ellers ville have gjort. En varm historie om, hvordan både en far og en søn modnes og ændres

Filmski klub

In 1900 just over a thousand British civil servants ruled a population of nearly 300 million people spread over a territory now covered by India, Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh. In its time, the Indian Civil Service was regarded as efficient, benevolent and incorruptible, but revisionist historians have recently questioned its competence and derided its altruism. In this absorbing, extensively researched new book, David Gilmour traces the lives of its officials, from recruitment to retirement, from jungle to Government House, from a bungalow in Burma to a residency in Rajputana. He describes their work and their leisure, their intellectual and their private lives. The result is a portrait more varied and complicated than that painted by their old admirers, and yet fairer and subtler than those routinely produced by their post-colonial detractors.

Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj

The Ruling Caste

El último Gatopardo es la primera biografía sobre Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) que aporta la extensa documentación personal que fue celosamente custodiada por su viuda durante más de un cuarto de siglo. Con estos y otros papeles hallados casi al azar en las ruinas del Palazzo Lampedusa y el testimonio directo de sus allegados, David Gilmour ha elaborado una obra documentada y amena en la que describe la vida de Lampedusa desde su niñez en el Palermo de la Belle Époque hasta su muerte a los sesenta años en una clínica romana, y rastrea en los lugares en que vivió, aquellos que le inspiraron los escenarios que utilizaría en su obra. Su novela El Gatopardo no fue publicada hasta un año después de su muerte, y desde entonces se suceden las reediciones y traducciones de la que ha sido considerada una de las mejores obras narrativas del siglo XX.

David Gilmour

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