Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother

January 6, 2020
Sonnenfeld recounts harrowing childhood experiences followed by his success in the film business in this episodic and uneven debut memoir. En route to becoming a respected cinematographer in the 1980s and then a hugely successful comedy director in the ’90s, Sonnenfeld’s difficult relationship with his parents is a recurring theme—the title comes from an incident when his mother had Madison Square Garden interrupt a Jimi Hendrix performance to page Sonnenfeld about missing his curfew. Sonnenfeld employs a deadpan narrative style, an effective choice when recounting his early work in the 1970s porn industry and, later on, dealings with Hollywood players such as Penny Marshall and Scott Rudin, but jarring when dealing with childhood trauma, including repeated molestations by his mother’s cousin and, as a five-year old, being asked by his father to convince his distraught mother not to commit suicide. Since these incidents are only treated superficially, the complicated dynamics underlying his relationship to his parents never become truly clear. Sonnenfeld is on surer ground discussing his artistry, with his look at cinematography proving a particular highlight. Readers will wish this intermittently entertaining and enlightening book had a sharper focus.

February 1, 2020

With this candid memoir, Sonnenfeld (b. 1953) traces his journey from a troubled childhood to success as a sought-after filmmaker. Growing up in New York City, he contended with a philandering father, a neurotic mother (when Sonnenfeld was five, his father woke him up, asking him to talk his mother out of suicide), and a relative who sexually molested him. After graduating from film school, he worked as a cinematographer: first, briefly, on pornographic movies, then with the Coen brothers on Blood Simple and Raising Arizona. At the urging of producer Scott Rudin, Sonnenfeld agreed to direct The Addams Family--which launched a career that would include Get Shorty and three Men in Black features. Here, he mines scores of details, from the absurd to the mundane, painting a vivid picture of life on and off the set. A gifted storyteller, Sonnenfeld finds comedy in almost every situation--including his own pain. However, he turns serious, too, as he looks back on his dysfunctional upbringing. Above all, he stresses, anyone can overcome hurdles and thrive. VERDICT While film enthusiasts will appreciate Sonnenfeld's witty anecdotes, this self-deprecating memoir will also resonate with anyone seeking an inspirational story. --Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2019
The director of The Addams Family and Men in Black tells all. Sonnenfeld makes his debut as a memoirist with a brisk, funny recounting of his improbable rise to fame in the movie world. With a brief interlude as a cameraman for porn films--an experience he recalls in visceral detail--Sonnenfeld carved out a successful career as a cinematographer (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona), director of photography (Big, When Harry Met Sally), and movie and TV director (Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and Pushing Daisies). The only child of a neurotic, manipulative mother who "had a very fluid relationship with the truth" and a philandering father, the young Barry was sexually abused by his mother's first cousin, who lived with the family for a while. When Sonnenfeld confronted his parents about the abuse, they responded coolly: "don't forget child molestation didn't have the same stigma back then that it has now." His mother smothered him with her fears, threatening to kill herself if he opted to go to a residential college, but she also encouraged him to go to film school when she saw that his career as a photographer was not taking off. Although his parents reneged on their offer to pay tuition--"Don't be ridiculous. I would never say such a thing," his mother exclaimed after he enrolled--NYU's film school launched him into cinematography. Sonnenfeld offers a behind-the-scenes look at the many directors, producers, and actors with whom he worked. The Coen brothers, he writes, were "total novices" when they started filming Blood Simple, a low-budget movie that brought Sonnenfeld to the attention of Penny Marshall, who needed a cinematographer for Big. Sonnenfeld came to like Marshall despite her legendary indecisiveness and negativity; she balked at Sonnenfeld's visual style and even Tom Hanks' acting. The author was in the midst of filming When Harry Met Sally when volatile, unpredictable Scott Rudin summoned him to direct The Addams Family--after several other directors turned Rudin down. Zesty anecdotes about family, marriage, and fatherhood combine with Hollywood gossip to make for an entertaining romp.

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March 1, 2020
Sonnenfeld, director of the original Men in Black trilogy as well as the Addams Family movies and Get Shorty, shares his memories of life in the roach-infested apartment where he grew up in New York City and of working as a cinematographer on the films that put the Coen brothers on the map. Sonnenfeld's parents were a taxing pair. His philandering father declared bankruptcy every seven years after more business ventures failed to launch, while his mother was mired in depression and threatened to kill herself if Sonnenfeld ever left for school. His parents promised to pay for film school at NYU (a promise they ended up going back on), which set Sonnenfeld on the path that eventually led to Hollywood. Sonnenfeld views all of this with an unflinching eye, going into stark detail about everything from his first professional shoots on nine pornography films to his adventures with the Coen brothers to the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother's cousin. A candid, sometimes dark, entertaining, anecdotal trip down memory lane from a Hollywood icon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)