Nicole Kidman

Knopf. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2006. Hardcover. 1400042739 . 1 x 9.4 x 5.9 Inches; 304 pages; <p>From the brilliant film historian and critic David Thomson, a book that reinvents the star biography in a singularly illuminating portrait of Nicole Kidman&#8212;and what it means to be a top actress today. At once life story, love letter, and critical analysis, this is not merely a book about who Kidman is but about what she is&#8212;in our culture and in our minds, on- and offscreen.<br><br> Tall, Australian, one of the striking beauties of the world, Nicole Kidman is that rare modern phenomenon&#8212;an authentic movie star who is as happy and as creative throwing a seductive gaze from some magazine cover as she is being Virginia Woolf in <i>The Hours. </i>Here is the story of how this actress began her career, has grown through her roles, taken risks, made good choices and bad, and worried about money, aging, and image.<br><br> Here are the details of an actress&#8217;s life: her performances in <i>To Die For, The Portrait of a Lady, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, </i>and <i>Birth, </i>among other films; her high-visibility marriage to Tom Cruise; her intense working relationship with Stanley Kubrick and her collaborations with Anthony Minghella and Baz Luhrmann; her work with Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Renée Zellweger, and John Malkovich; her decisions concerning nudity, endorsements, and publicity.<br><br> And here are Thomson&#8217;s scintillating considerations of what celebrity means in the life of an actress like Kidman; of how the screen becomes both barrier and open sesame for her and for her audience; of what is required today of an actress of Kidman&#8217;s stature if she is to remain vital to the industry and to the audiences who made her a prime celebrity.<br><br> Impassioned, opinionated, dazzlingly original in its approach and ideas, <i>Nicole Kidman </i>is as alluring and as much fun as Nicole Kidman herself, and David Thomson&#8217;s most remarkable book yet.</p> .