Admit One: My Life in Film
Emmett James
FizzyPop (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0984258108 / 9780984258109)
Nonfiction/Memoir, 216 pages
Opening Lines: "If I could tell you just one thing about my life it would be this: my alter ego was once a very famous man."
Book description, via the publicist: First set in Croydon, South London, in the 1980s, Admit One details how Emmett James escaped the pains of adolescence by going to the cinema. With wry, self-deprecating humor and observation, the author reflects on, obsesses over, and rages about film and its correlation to our pasts. Life soon imitates art, and the narrator finds that his true calling is in transiting one side of the screen to the other. He decides to leave England for the only place where he can realize his dream of becoming an actor ––America.
We then follow the narrator on his numerous Hollywood adventures, watching as he glides smoothly from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated screenwriter. At every turn, the films that inspired Emmett James as a child resurface, and they serve to contextualize his humorous collection of stories. He provides unique insights into the fascinating world of film, and eventually stumbles into acting in the highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic.
We then follow the narrator on his numerous Hollywood adventures, watching as he glides smoothly from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated screenwriter. At every turn, the films that inspired Emmett James as a child resurface, and they serve to contextualize his humorous collection of stories. He provides unique insights into the fascinating world of film, and eventually stumbles into acting in the highest-grossing movie of all time, Titanic.
Comments: While books transport and fire the imagination for some of us, movies can do the same for others (and some of us are just as affected by both). Emmett James is far from the first to dream of becoming part of the world of the movies that inspired him, but he is one of the relatively small number of those who have made it a reality, and his story is pretty entertaining in itself.
Each chapter of James' memoir opens with a capsule description of a film that somehow relates to the chapter that follows. In the first half of the book, the relationship is pretty straightforward - he talks about seeing the movie and how it affected his life at thr time, growing up in the London suburbs. In the second half, he literally moves to Hollywood and takes some interesting detours along the road to becoming a working actor - not necessarily the same thing as a "movie star," but the best that most Hollywood hopefuls will manage to achieve, and far more than many ever do.
This is a quick and entertaining read, in more ways than one. I found James' chatty tone engaging, and as someone who works in Hollywood but isn't part of "Hollywood," I found his behind-the-scenes stories particularly interesting, if not especially insightful - even so, they could still be instructive to those curious about the day-to-day struggles of trying to gain a foothold in the business. The actor/author seems to have a generally healthy perspective on what can sometimes be an unhealthy line of work, and while this book strikes me as more the work of a good storyteller than a gifted writer, reading it wasn't a bad way to spend a few hours.
Rating: 3/5
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