(Larger Image)
|
There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale - A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Lord of the Rings
by Sean Astin, Joe Layden
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Virgin Books (2005-09-08)
ISBN: 0753510871
EAN: 9780753510872
Paperback: 384 pages
Edition: New edition
SKU: B335-1163
Condition: As New
|
Customer Reviews
|
An interesting insight and well worth the read
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-10-10
This book has sat on my bookshelf for around three years now after receiving it as a present.
Despite my love for Lord of the Rings, I just couldn't seem to take to Sean Astin, possibly because of the DVD commentaries, but for whatever reason, I couldn't.
However, I recently decided to give the book a chance and was not expecting a great deal, possibly to not even finish it.
But, I found myself enjoying it from the start and difficult to put down. My initial thoughts on Astin as coming across as self-important appear to be correct after reading the book. BUT, I found the fact that he was refreshingly honest and self-depracating throughout the book, made it for me.
Other reviews have noted how much he 'whines' and 'moans' but many of his thoughts are one's that we all go through on a regular basis about 'life not being fair.' Although many of us are not capable of admitting that, even at a later date.
It gave me an interesting insight into the world of movies and also Lord of the Rings, without spoiling the movie for me, in fact it has made me want to watch it again.
It is a valid point from another reviewer that he does seem obsessed with respect from more renowned actors than himself and rarely seems to mention lesser known people. I guess that is a by-product from being a child-star.
In summary, I thought it was brave of Astin to admit and reveal his weaknesses of thought (he had no need to!). I feel a lot more respect for him after having read the book and am very pleased I did so.
|
|
If your a fan of LOTR or Sean Astin.......
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-03-01
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I wouldn't recommend you read this book! Why? let me explain. I loved Sean Astin's as Sam in the LOTR, like every other actor he gave a stellar performance and was frankly brilliant. I also loved him in the Goonies, in my mind a childhood classic!! In this book (to be fair to him) he gives a open, honest and frank account of his career and the whole LOTR film process. However if your a fan of the trilogy this book doesn't add a great deal, a lot of this is covered in the DVD extended editions! Only a third of the book is devoted to the LOTR, the rest is about Sean's few other films and personal feelings. If your a fan of Sean Astin I think you will be bitterly disappointed. After reading this book I didn't warm to him. The moment I finally lost patience was when he dreamed of having a dinner/meeting with Peter Jackson, stating 'the two us discussing ideas like two titans of the film industry!'. Peter Jackson a titan, yes of course, Sean Astin.....sorry no!
Sean's writing style I also found frustrating, when he finally started to talk about the LOTR, he would go of on a tangent about his other films, Rudy being the main one, before coming back to the original story.
For me this is a classic case of wishing I hadn't been tempted in the first place. The vision that you had of someone, completely shattered by reality. Sometimes it best to leave some things alone!!
|
|
Dreary ramblings that I found myself skipping through
Rating (1)
Date: 2008-02-06
As an ardent fan of the LOTR trilogy I was really looking forward to this book. I needn't have bothered because, more than anything else, it is more about an insecure actor whining and moaning his way through the story of his time on the film, a film that he thought he was grossly underpaid for, never mind the fact that it made him quite well-known.
Poor old Peter Jackson having such an ungrateful and negative actor around for so long. I bet he never invites SA to be in another film that he directs.
What comes through the most is just how jealous of other actors' 'coolness' he is, how he would have directed things differently to PJ, etc etc. There were chunks that I just skipped and it could have been edited to 100 pages less.
Don't bother.
|
|
Should have been called 'All About Sean: A Behind the Scenes Look at his Life'
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-02-11
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I was deeply disappointed by this as I was expecting to learn more about The Lord of The Rings films from someone who had been on the 'inside'. Instead what I got was a lot about Sean and then a lot more about Sean with only little bits of other stuff thrown in amongst yet more stuff about Sean!
A word of warning to the potential reader - Beware - because you may find that you run the risk of beginning to dislike Mr Astin and what could be (and has been) described by some as his whingeing. I decided to cut short my reading before I reached this point as I wanted to continue to have a regard and esteem for a man who is an actor of worth.
If you want to learn LOTS about Sean Astin and his life experiences so far, along with his views of 'the craft' then this is for you. If like me you wanted to learn about the movie stay well clear as you will not learn much about Peter Jackson's fabulous cinematic trilogy from this book.
|
|
Whine and whine again
Rating (2)
Date: 2006-10-28
8 out of 9 customers found this reveiw helpful
It would be churlish of me to summarize this book with the following statement: "Reading `There and Back Again' will tell you far less about the `Lord of the Rings' films than you want and far more about Sean Astin than you need." But it seems apt having spent the last couple of weeks reading this grumpy memoir.
Let's be clear: this book isn't for fans of the film at all - it is a vehicle for Astin to muse about his life as an actor. My first point against the publishers would therefore be the misleading tagline the book receives: "An Actor's Tale - A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Lord of the Rings". There is barely half the book devoted to specifically LOTR material and it's hugely disappointing. I should have smelled a rat early on when Astin admits to not having ever heard of Tolkien when he was offered the part.
I was disappointed over the lack of LOTR insights, but I at least expected the rest of the book to be an entertaining view of Astin's acting life. Sadly this isn't the case: Astin is a whiner. Barely a page goes by without him complaining about some aspect of his career, whether it be critical indifference to his performances, his monetary worth, or the chip on his shoulder about never having really made the `big time' as he puts it (until LOTR at least).
It's clear from musings about his early career that Astin suffers from low self-esteem, self-doubt and crushing under confidence in his own abilities. This of course is nothing new for many actors. He badly wants the recognition of his peers and seems desperate for it even when it's negative. Yet bizarrely his writing becomes inconsistent when he later shows extreme over-confidence in his `heroic' portrayal of Sam or his annoyance that he couldn't influence the production of LOTR more. At one point he remarks how Christopher Lee was crestfallen when Saruman was entirely cut from the third film: "sometimes brutal decisions have to made", yet when his own scenes were lightly trimmed he throws a fit and screams to his wife "They've ruined it!" It's this inconsistency that makes the book a confusing and annoying read.
There is a degree of honesty about the problems Astin has faced and his descriptions of how he dealt with these issues. He has written erudite reasoning for his behaviour and many pages are devoted to analyzing himself and then trying to improve: a commendable trait and one that could be respected if you could believe it. But Astin has had far too long to think this stuff through and the cynic in me believes that his `self-improvement' thoughts were not experienced at the time as written, but only while he was actually writing his book several years later.
Beyond Astin's self-confessed propensity for melodrama and a lot of personal background that I really didn't want to know, his writing style is a mess. The book constantly jumps around between anecdotes of his early career right in the middle of an account of something on the LOTR set. It's jarring, annoying and doesn't respect the reader. When we finally do get some interesting information about the film production, it's usually focused on some aspect that Astin wasn't happy with.
It's not all bad. Some of the anecdotes are almost amusing and I do think the friendships he describes with Elijah Wood and Christopher Lee were genuine as far as Astin saw them, but again the cynic can't help but notice that the only people Astin seems to respect are those who are `successful' in the movies - he doesn't seem to ever hang around anyone in the industry `lesser' than him.
I didn't enjoy this book. I found the whole experience tiring and reading should be anything but tiring. I learnt little about the LOTR films (the main reason I bought it) and more about Astin than I care to know. I finished it feeling that although Astin is a decent actor with some good work behind him, he simply cannot get over himself long enough to recognize his accomplishments and enjoy them.
|
|
|