Tony Scott got his start as a film director when he joined his brother at the lucrative commercial directing company Ridley Scott Associates. After directing Top Gun—his second film, which changed not only the trajectory of his own life but of the entire action-movie industry—Scott’s career would be a roller coaster of blockbuster hits, personal films and confounding failures.
With extensive research and original interviews with actors, cinematographers and writers, this book documents Tony Scott’s larger-than-life persona from his early days to his untimely death, which left a hole in genre filmmaking yet to be filled.

Larry Taylor is an author and film historian with an MA in English, and a lifetime love for the movies. He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Larry Taylor
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 213
Bibliographic Info: 31 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7566-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3549-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 3
Part I: Painting Vampires
1. The Artist 11
2. Vampires Out of Time 18
Part II: Into the Stratosphere
3. Top Guns 25
4. The Three Corners of Top Gun Analysis 37
5. Beverly Hills 41
6. Scott and Leary 46
Part III: Embracing the Edge
7. Sex, Violence and Revenge 51
8. Thunder Roadblock 56
9. Tony Scott and Shane Black, in Over Their Heads 62
10. A Marriage of Style and Sound 71
11. Scott, Tarantino and the Birth of the ’90s Crime Aesthetic 83
Part IV: ­High-Tech Decade
12. Tension Under the Sea 91
13. The Simpson Tragedy 100
14. The Fan and Subverting Hero Worship 103
15. Enemy of the State 112
16. Spies and Sports Cars 118
Part V: The Denzel Years
17. Mexico City Bloodletting 127
18. Tony Scott’s Signature Masterpiece 136
19. The Model and the Bounty Hunter 140
20. A Film Built Around Tragedies 148
21. Going Underground 155
22. Unstoppable 165
Part VI: Into the Wind
23. A Full Slate 175
24. August 2012 180
25. The Rock and Roll Alchemist 185
Filmography 191
Chapter Notes 193
Bibliography 197
Index 203