Quirke, Antonia

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Quirke, Antonia

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Camden New Journal, Camden, England, film critic.

WRITINGS:

Jaws ("BFI Modern Classics" series), British Film Institute (London, England), 2002.

Choking on Marlon Brando (memoir), Overlook Press (New York, NY), 2007, published as Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers, Fourth Estate (London, England), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Antonia Quirke is a British film critic whose obsession with films and actors began when she was a child. Her first book is a study of the film Jaws, a favorite. Quirke notes that this was the last Spielberg film that was not entirely under his control, and yet many feel it to be his best. She writes of the director's use of characters, the John Williams score that is much more than the "da-da, da-da" that warns of impending danger, the unique framing, and the difficulties in making the film. Quirke does not go into great detail about the latter but instead provides a list of resources that do include greater explanation of the problems that arose. Photographs of important moments in the film accompany the text.

In reviewing the book for Metro, Jamie Forbes wrote: "There are so many clever points made in so few pages that I can only tease you here…. Quirke's writing is crisp and fun and highly readable, as she carries us though the film in a neat narrative, cruising off every now and then to offer insights before seamlessly dropping back into the story. Reading Quirke's Jaws is rather like listening to a DVD commentary. It feels like you're watching the film with her and her thoughtful observations are unobtrusive and welcome."

Quirke next wrote a memoir published in the United States as Choking on Marlon Brando and in England as Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers. She writes of seeing Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire on the family television as a ten-year-old, and her resulting episode of hyperventilation that was serious enough that her parents called an ambulance. As an adult she reviewed films for a small left-wing journal, which combined her need for work and her passion. In her book Quirke writes of the actors who have made the greatest impression on her, including Robert Mitchum, for his "genius for standing still"; Russell Crowe, "Look at his mass and velocity in LA Confidential: the heaviness of his thought process, the speed of his temper"; and Christopher Walken, "the cut in his lip is like the V of a child-drawn seagull." She also reveals her impressions of Al Pacino, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and others. Quirke writes of her own life and the men in it, but the British title reflects her fantasy of being the wife of French actor Gerard Depardieu.

In reviewing the memoir for the London Times, Kate Saunders described it as being "beautifully written, shamelessly honest and deeply comical…. Quirke is a young film critic of eccentric brilliance—she lives and breathes film, and she cannot stop living her life through a viewfinder, as if she could see it printed on celluloid."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Quirke, Antonia, Choking on Marlon Brando, Overlook Press (New York, NY), 2007, published as Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers, Fourth Estate (London, England), 2007.