Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82449 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
This is the life of the elusive actor Robert De Niro. A pre-eminent Hollywood character performer of contemporary times, De Niro's film portraits, such as the young Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather II", Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull" and Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" are some of the most vivid ever put on celluloid. De Niro cannot be cast to type and prefers to work for old friends like Martin Scorsese, and (apart from "Frankenstein") has never played anything but 20th-century roles. John Baxter calls him "the archetypal empty bottle which only becomes visible when it's filled by a role": which makes him such a tempting subject for one of Hollywood's most well-known biographers. As well as his film roles, Baxter examines De Niro's often controversial private life and his collaborations with directors like Martin Scorsese and performers like Harvey Keitel and Meryl Streep. He also discusses his increasingly ambitious off-screen activities.

Customer Reviews

An opinionated, incomplete and poorly researched biography
Good biographies are incredibly difficult to come by. For one, many are either too sketchy or too trivial. Others are at fault with the biographers themselves, as many are either too critical or too obsequious. John Baxter's account of acting legend Robert De Niro's life is both too sketchy and overly critical, a perfect illustration of how writing a biography is a fine balance that's difficult to get right.

The biography covers De Niro's life up until about 2003, but while Baxter's account of his childhood is quite detailed, the book progressively becomes increasingly sketchy and critical, as well as opinionated. Because it's an unauthorised account, Baxter fills in a lot of the blanks himself, indirectly researching his source material rather than conducting any interviews himself. In a way, it's quite a lazy and incomplete way of approaching the subject, so whilst some accounts of De Niro's career or personal life may be relatively detailed, others will be horribly insubstantial and uneven. It's a very inconsistent book, and at times, especially the further one reads, it becomes very choppy and fragmented. De Niro is undeniably an enigmatic figure; so why write a biography on him if you're not going to reveal a complete and accomplished portrait?

Whilst the structure leaves a lot to be desired, the key flaw is Baxter's evident negative attitude towards De Niro. At times Baxter really seems to be unfairly attacking De Niro, not only for his film roles, but for his personality. He makes fun of De Niro's tendency to become quite uneasy and inarticulate in interviews, and really digs into his shy nature as if it were some kind of flaw. The quotes he attributes to De Niro are similarly pointers to the star's lesser moments, and Baxter completely overlooks many of the profound and intelligent insights De Niro has made about his profession. It's a very biased account, and the doom of this approach is sealed in Baxter's evaluation of De Niro's career. He essentially accuses De Niro of lacking versatility, as he is apparently unable to play "intelligent" characters, judging his only good roles to be ones where he either physically transforms himself or learns another language. Otherwise, Baxter always points to how his co-stairs upstage him. De Niro's subtler, quieter roles are forgotten, and granted, a lot of his recent roles have been weak, but he has accomplished far more than Baxter thinks he has. Some films (particularly lesser known ones) are covered by a spoiler-rific filmography (the description of the plot is not always correct), maybe one or two ounces of trivia, and then a sweeping statement about his acting. Research lacks.

That said, Baxter has a good writing style, and he does have a knack for making anecdotes interesting. It's just that the book lacks a lot of substance, a full portrait of the great(?) man never drawn, instead making him up of individual fragments of information that often seem to contradict each other. We never have a good grasp of De Niro by the end, so ultimately the book is a very hollow biography, with only a few interesting points. Then, once it's over, there's no conclusion, it simply fizzles out to an abrupt halt. Although, Baxter's conclusion would've only been a sweeping simplification of a man who deserves far more merit than the author gives him.

De Negative - An Unfair Portrayal
This unauthorised biography of one of Hollywood's Greatest Legends is one great yawn from start to finish. The author goes into great detail regarding the plot for every film that De Niro has ever starred in. Aside from this, the whole book is completely negative in it's narrative about this great actor, to the point where you honestly believe the author bears a personal grudge towards Mr. De Niro. The author plays down all of Mr.De Niro's achievements to the degree where you almost find yourself checking the front cover to make sure that the book is, in fact, about Robert De Niro's acting abilities. Anyone who is a fan of Robert De Niro, who is renowned for his roles in Godfather 2, The Deerhunter,Taxi Driver and Goodfellas,to name but a few,will be disgusted and disappointed with this vindictive portrayal of a brilliant actor.

De Niro: A "Bore-ography"
In a word, tedious. Unless you're a huge de Niro fan obsessed with the trivia of his life, you're going to find this book difficult to finish (like I did). This is mostly because of the subject material rather than the writing style (although that is unremarkable too).

When it boils down to it, de Niro the person doesn't have much to say: There's no exciting interviews with the man himself, just endless filmography, chickography and business interests.