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List Price: $21.95 | | Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Salesrank: 879295
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| Our Price: $12.75 |
| Used Price: $2.75 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
"Pomerance is the inimitable lyric poet of cinema scholars, bringing the imagination of a creative artist and the rigor of an exacting intellect to these masterly riffs on Depp’s complexities and conundrums. The protean actor could not have found a commentator more in tune with his mercurial career and elusive, mesmerizing self."—David Sterritt, author of Mad to Be Saved: The Beats, the ’50s, and Film
"Johnny Depp Starts Here offers an important contribution to the field of star studies. . . . Pomerance’s passion is highly contagious."—Michael DeAngelis, DePaul University
From beloved bad-boy to cool and captivating maverick, Johnny Depp has inspired media intrigue and has been the source of international acclaim since the early 1990s. He has attracted attention for his eccentric image, his accidental acting career, his beguiling good looks, and his quirky charm. In Johnny Depp Starts Here, film scholar Murray Pomerance explores our fascination with Depp, his riddling complexity, and his meaning for our culture. Moving beyond the actor’s engaging and inscrutable private life, Pomerance focuses on his enigmatic screen performances from A Nightmare on Elm Street to Secret Window.
The actor’s image is studied in terms of its many strange nuances: Depp’s ethnicity, his smoking, his tranquility, his unceasing motion, his links to the Gothic, the Beats, Simone de Beauvoir, the history of rationality, Impressionist painting, and other ambiguities. In a series of treatments of his key roles, including Rafael in The Brave, Bon Bon in Before Night Falls, Jack Kerouac in The Source, and the long list of acclaimed performances from Gilbert Grape to Cap’n Jack Sparrow, we learn of Johnny onscreen in terms of male sexuality, space travel, optical experience, Roland Barthes, nineteenth-century American capitalism, Orientalism, the vulnerability of performance, the perils of sleep, comedy, the myth of the West, Scrooge McDuck, François Truffaut, and more.
Both deeply intriguing and perpetually elusive, Depp is revealed as the central screen performer of the contemporary age, the symbol of performance itself.
Johnny Depp Starts Here Reviews:
I'm sorry I bought this book! 
2006-03-26 - This idiot believes he can write, but he is very good at using big words that makes him think he is intelligent, but he's not! He sounds stupid and he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about! Of course, none of his readers do either!!! He is obviously a fan of Johnny Depp's (aren't we all?), but that's the nicest thing I can say about Mr. Pomerance. Sorry.
Excellent Depp and film resource! 
2005-10-10 - 'Johnny Depp Starts Here' is definitely an excellent resource for the serious film scholar. Pommerance synthesizes multiple strands of theory with the multiplicity/performativity of identity and works of Johnny Depp in an engaging and accessible manner. Having done previous film projects on Depp, I tend to be skeptical about texts purporting to address the actor and his works as what I have found up to this date, for the most part, more resembles an extended issue of 'Teen Beat' than an address of film, theory, or any scholarly engagement. This book, however, does not disappoint -- easily the best book-length text on Depp theory and film I have found so far.
An Unusual Love Affair Revealed
2005-10-04 - Murray Pomerance's book is nothing one can be prepared for. It is not a filmography, not a biography. It's not an analysis of Johnny's films, nor of his characterizations. Yet it is partially all of these - Pomerance's book is a love letter to an illusion - the screen presence of Johnny Depp. Pomerance is in love with that elusive vision and raptures about the hidden and lyric meanings of that image. He could as well have written about Garbo's screen presence.
The book is not for everyone and definitely not for simple fans of Mr. Depp's screen work. It is a book written by and for film scholars, not film fans. The book is esoteric and complicated - Mr. Pomerance loves stringing descriptive words together (and the more obscure words the better). One is sent to one's dictionary almost at every paragraph. Sentences must be re-read (like poetry) to capture the images and meanings of Mr. Pomerance's words.
That said, it is a great book and Johnny -if he ever reads it - should be right proud that he has evoked such a serious, thoughtful and well felt tribute.
Tedious!
2005-08-30 - I was very disappointed in this book. I found it tedious, rambling, and disjointed. There were a few interesting facts thrown in for good measure, but you have to slog through so much drivel that the trip just isn't worth your time.
Excellent Study of Depps Acting, NOT intended as a biography
2005-07-20 - I highly recommend this unusual study of Johnny Depp's ability to disappear into character. By using specific examples from some of Depps finest roles (Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood..etc...), the author illustrates the art behind the mask, without destroying the mystery. Interesting reflections on Depps refusal to be catagorized or defined, combined with an innate talent, reminds me more of Bob Dylan everyday!!
