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The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
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About This Book
From the award-winning screenwriter and director of cult classic Bull Durham, the extremely entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film, and an insightful primer on the art and business of moviemaking. Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball--especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner's leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why. From organizing a baseball camp for the actors and rewriting key scenes while on set, to dealing with a short production schedule and overcoming the challenge of filming the sport, Shelton brings to life the making of this beloved American movie. Shelton explains the rarely revealed ins and outs of moviemaking, from a film's inception and financing, screenwriting, casting, the nuts and bolts of directing, the postproduction process, and even through its release. But this is also a book about baseball and its singular romance in the world of sports. Shelton spent six years in the minor leagues before making this film, and his experiences resonate throughout this book. Full of wry humor and insight, The Church of Baseball tells the remarkable story behind an iconic film.
Reviews
"The tale of how Bull Durham became a classic American sports movie is engaging, informative, and, in its own way, an inspirational story."
"Shelton produces a work that's humanizing and intimate ..."
"Shelton has been in the movie business for a long time, and he has the exasperation with studio decisions to show for it."
"Unlike most making-of books, many pages are devoted to how Shelton conceived the characters, developed a framework for a movie, sold a studio on it, then wrote and rewrote and rewrote the script."
"The author, who displays sheer, unadulterated love for his subject, also delivers a savvy, unusually informative tutorial on how to take a motion picture from the concept stage to script development, casting, production, and post-production."
"The more pages I dog-ear, the more compelling I found the book."
"...an entertaining, casual book with the tone of a dinner table conversation."
"In contemporary parlance, Shelton keeps it real."
"shows that Bull Durham is popular partly because it is funny, but it also reveals an additional source of the movie's enduring appeal: willingness to address aging ..."
"Highly entertaining and informative look at a popular film classic, this book should find wide interest among film and sports buffs."
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