Best of
Film
1998
The Big Lebowski
Joel Coen - 1998
trying to do the right thing. Like the award winning Fargo, The Big Lebowski is suffused with a droll humor and a verbal felicity that is as delightful as it is startling.
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Peter Biskind - 1998
This down-and-dirty romp through Hollywood in the 1970s introduces the young filmmakers--Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Altman, and Beatty--and recreates an era that transformed American culture forever.
Chinatown
Robert Towne - 1998
Jake Gittes is a successful 'bedroom dick': a private eye specialising in cases of marital infidelity. Paradoxically he might also be the last truly ethical man in a corrupt town. Lured into an investigation of the death-by-drowning of City Water Commissioner Hollis Mulwray, Gittes gets more than usually entwined with his new client, Mulwray's enigmatic widow Evelyn. He then finds himself crossing swords with Evelyn's redoubtable father, the aging business magnate Noah Cross, who has professional and personal reasons of his own for wanting both Hollis and Evelyn silenced.Academy Award-winner for Best Original Screenplay of 1974, Robert Towne's Chinatown is widely regarded as the finest American movie script of the post-war years. Complex in narrative design, infused with the sordid real-life history of Los Angeles' economic growth and unmistakably adult in its updating of the trademark violence and sexual intrigue of film noir, on the page Chinatown still shines - and cuts - like a blade.
Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir
Eddie Muller - 1998
A place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life. Eddie Muller, who led readers on a guided tour of the seamier side of motion pictures in Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema, now takes us on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-World War II years, when art, politics, scandal, style--and brilliant craftsmanship--produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural mythology. Dark City is a 1999 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Critical / Biographical Work.
All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from The Toxic Avenger
Lloyd Kaufman - 1998
Lloyd Kaufman's spirited, outrageous, no-holds-barred look at low-budget, guerilla filmmaking is truly an inspiration to
Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World
Pete Tombs - 1998
Fully illustrated, this book includes an Indian song-and-dance version of Dracula; Turkish version of Star Trek and Superman; China's "hopping vampire" films, and much more.
Set Lighting Technician's Handbook: Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution
Harry Box - 1998
Detailed. Practical. Set Lighting Technician's Handbook, Third Edition is a friendly, hands-on manual covering the day-to-day practices, equipment, and tricks of the trade essential to anyone doing motion picture lighting. This handbook offers a wealth of practical technical information, useful techniques, as well as aesthetic discussions. The Set Lighting Technician's Handbook focuses on what is important when working on-set: trouble-shooting, teamwork, set protocol, and safety. It describes tricks and techniques for operating a vast array of lighting equipment including xenons, camera synchronous strobes, black lights, underwater units, lighting effects units, and many others. Since its first edition, this handy on-set reference continues to be widely adopted as a training and reference manual by union training programs as well as top university film production programs. New in the third edition is an expanded resource section, new illustrations and tables, and coverage of new lighting products and techniques for how to use them.
Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star
William J. Mann - 1998
Offscreen, he was openly gay. This bestselling biography captures the rich gay subculture of Hollywood before the Production Code--before studio intimidation led to the establishment of the Hollywood closet. Alone among his contemporaries, Billy Haines (1900-1973) refused to compromise and was ultimately booted out by Louis B. Mayer. Forced to give up acting, Haines went on to become a top interior designer to the stars and to clients such as Nancy Reagan. By his side through it all was his lover, Jimmie Shields; their fifty-year relationship led their best friend, Joan Crawford, to call them the "happiest married couple in Hollywood." Wisecracker is an astounding piece of newly discovered gay history, a chronicle of high Hollywood, and--at its heart--a great and enduring love story.
Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson - 1998
Deprived of love and respect from his family, Eddie is renamed 'Dirk Diggler' and conquers the world of porn, but manages to retain his essential innocence. As the turbulent seventies shade into the hedonistic eighties, Dirk's career goes into a tailspin; but he is rescued by the safety net of the extended family fostered by hard-core movie director Jack Horner.Paul Thomas Anderson's screenplay is exemplary in its ability to interweave the stories of its large cast of characters. In accord with the wisdom of the Roman dramatist Terence (who claimed, 'Nothing human is alien to me'), Anderson has engaged with a side of life widely considered to be irredeemably sleazy, and has mined humour, sadness and compassion out of his unlikely subject matter.
The Exorcist
Mark Kermode - 1998
There are also interviews with director William Friedkin and writer/producer William Peter Blatty.
Sexual Politics & Narrative Film
Robin Wood - 1998
Wood explores the relationships between narrative form and style and sexual politics, probing the political and sexual ramifications of fascism and cinema, marriage and the couple, romantic love, and representations of women, race and gender in films from the United States, Europe, and Japan.
The Material Ghost: Films and Their Medium
Gilberto Pérez - 1998
Gilberto Perez draws on his lifelong love of the movies as well as his work as a film scholar to write a lively, wide-ranging, penetrating study of films and filmmakers and the nature of the art form.
Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Phillip Lopate - 1998
As an undergraduate at Columbia, he organized the school's first film society. Later, he even tried his own hand at filmmaking. But it was not until his ascent as a major essayist that Lopate found his truest and most lasting contribution to the medium. And, over the past twenty-five years, tackling subjects ranging from Visconti to Jerry Lewis, from the first New York Film Festival to the thirty-second, Phillip Lopate has made film his most cherished subject. Here, in one place, are the very best of these essays, a joy for anyone who loves movies.
On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder
Ed Sikov - 1998
Now, drawing on new interviews, current research, and previously inaccessible archives, Ed Sikov offers endlessly entertaining portrait of one of this centurys most influential directors and screenwriters.
2001: Filming the Future
Piers Bizony - 1998
Considering there are many books devoted to the films of Kubrick and particularly this film, this is quite possibly the best place to start if you are interested in the more visual aspects of the film: special effects, film making, and behind the scenes. The photographs are stunning, the articles are incredibly well researched, and the overall scope of the book is broad and thorough.
Sweet Smell of Success
Clifford Odets - 1998
Written by Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest, The Sound of Music) and the celebrated leftist playwright Clifford Odets, it is a vicious dissection of the world of public relations and journalism which conjures up a world of creeping hysteria and acid disenchantment. Tony Curtis playing the scuttling press agent Sidney Falco, and Burt Lancaster the Walter Winchell-like columnist J. J. Hunsecker, gave the performances of their careers.With a specially commissioned introduction by Ernest Lehman, and an appreciation of the film's director, Alexander Mackendrick, by James Mangold.
More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts
James Naremore - 1998
More Than Night discusses such pictures. It also shows that the central term is more complex & paradoxical than realized. Film noir refers both to an important cinematic legacy & to an idea projected onto the past. This wide-ranging cultural history offers an original approach to the subject, as well as new production information & commentary on scores of films, including Double Indemnity, The Third Man, & Out of the Past, & such neo-noirs as Chinatown, Pulp Fiction & Devil in a Blue Dress. Naremore discusses film noir as a term in criticism; as an expression of artistic modernism; as a symptom of Hollywood censorship & politics in the 40s; as a market strategy; as an evolving style; as a cinema about race & nationality & as an idea that circulates across all information technologies. This interdisciplinary book has valuable things to say not only about film & tv, but also about modern literature, the fine arts & popular culture in general. In a field where much of what's published is superficial & derivative, this work is certain to be received as a definitive treatment.
What it Is, What it Was: The Black Film Explosion of the 70's in Words and Pictures
Gerald Martinez - 1998
Full color.
Shooting to Kill
Christine Vachon - 1998
Hailed by the New York Times as the "godmother to the politically committed film" and by Interview as a true "auteur producer," Christine Vachon has made her name with such bold, controversial, and commercially successful films as "Poison," "Swoon," Kids," "Safe," "I Shot Andy Warhol," and "Velvet Goldmine."Over the last decade, she has become a driving force behind the most daring and strikingly original independent filmmakers-from Todd Haynes to Tom Kalin and Mary Harron-and helped put them on the map.So what do producers do? "What don't they do?" she responds. In this savagely witty and straight-shooting guide, Vachon reveals trheguts of the filmmaking process--rom developing a script, nurturing a director's vision, getting financed, and drafting talent to holding hands, stoking egos, stretching every resource to the limit and pushing that limit. Along the way, she offers shrewd practical insights and troubleshooting tips on handling everything from hysterical actors and disgruntled teamsters to obtuse marketing executives.Complete with behind-the-scenes diary entries from the sets of Vachon's best-known films, Shooting To Kill offers all the satisfactions of an intimate memoir from the frontlines of independent filmmaking, from one of its most successful agent provocateurs-and survivors.
The French New Wave
Jean Douchet - 1998
Douchet... considers his subject from almost every possible angle."--Library Journal. "A landmark in film scholarship."--Cineaste
Film Posters of the 70s: The Essential Movies of the Decade
Tony Nourmand - 1998
Book by
Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Michelle Citron - 1998
Original. UP.
The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film
Phil Hardy - 1998
In The Gangster Film, series editor Phil Hardy has created yet again a landmark in film reference.Included in this lavish volume are critical entries on more than 1,500 gangster films, complete with plot synapses and credits, and 650 black and white photographs to capture the look of this exciting genre. Arranged chronologically, The Gangster Film offers deliciously opinionated and detailed descriptions, statistical information, credits and trivia from early classics such as Public Enemy, Key Largo, Dragnet, and On the Waterfront to contemporary blockbusters such as The Grifters, Chinatown, The Godfather, and Pulp Fiction. Essential, authoritative, and entertaining, The Gangster Film is the guide for serious students of film, film buffs, and home viewers.
Women in Horror Films, 1930s
Gregory William Mank - 1998
Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, King Kong, the Wolf Man, or any of the other legendary Hollywood monsters. Some were even monsters themselves, such as Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Gloria Holden as Dracula's Daughter. And while evading the Strangler of the Swamp, former Miss America Rosemary La Planche is allowed to rescue her leading man. This book provides details about the lives and careers of 21 of these cinematic leading ladies, femmes fatales, monsters, and misfits, putting into perspective their contributions to the films and folklore of Hollywood terror--and also the sexual harassment, exploitation, and genuine danger they faced on the job. In a previously unpublished account, Bride of Frankenstein's Anne Darling remembers when, at age 17, she was humiliated on-set by director James Whale over the color of her underwear. Filled with anecdotes and recollections, many of the entries are based on original interviews, and there are numerous old photographs and movie stills.
Cinematography
Peter Ettedgui - 1998
kind of attention reserved for directors and actors, there is little doubt that this is the key technical role in the process of revealing a story through images. filmmaking and represent a diversity of film cultures. cinema heritage and the fact that their work has helped to expand -- if not revolutionize -- the language of film. practicing professionals, students, and movie buffs alike. cinematographers and through the powerful images they have created for the screen. filmmaking and represent a diversity of film cultures, from African Queen to Delicatessen. Highly illustrated -- over 500 color pictures and 300 black and white photos -- and written entirely based on each cinematographer's own words from interviews This book, featuring the world's finest cinematographers, will inspire practicing professionals, students, and movie buffs alike.
Hollywood's Maddest Doctors: Lionel Atwill, Colin Clive, George Zucco
Gregory William Mank - 1998
Author Gregory Mank delves into the lives and careers of three of the actors who helped shape the modern horror film.
A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers
Scott MacDonald - 1998
An informative exchange with Amos Vogel, whose Cinema 16 Society drew American filmgoers into a broader sense of film history, is followed by interviews reflecting a wide range of approaches to filmmaking. Sally Potter discusses her popular feature, Orlando, in relation to the experimental work that preceded it, and Canadian independent John Porter argues compellingly for small-gauge, Super-8mm filmmaking. Ken Jacobs discusses the "Nervous System" apparatus with which he transforms old film footage into new forms of motion picture art; Jordan Belson describes his Vortex Concerts, ancestors of modern laser light shows; and Elias Merhige talks about going beneath the "rational structure of meaning" in Begotten.A Critical Cinema 3 presents independent cinema as an international and multiethnic phenomenon. MacDonald interviews filmmakers from Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Armenia, India, the Philippines, and Japan and examines the work of African Americans, European Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. He provides an introductory overview of each interviewee, as well as detailed film/videographies and selected bibliographies. With its predecessors, A Critical Cinema (California, 1988) and A Critical Cinema 2 (California, 1992), this is the most extensive, in-depth exploration of independent cinema available in English.
Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design in Hollywoods Golden Age
Juan Antonio Ramírez - 1998
Nonetheless, you probably have some idea of these and many other places because of their portrayal on screen. The movies have overcome the constraints of time and place by bringing us images of diverse and otherwise unfamiliar settings.This work covers the many applications of art and architecture to sets appearing in movies produced in Hollywood between 1915 and 1955, after which time location shooting became ever more common (and less artistic). Part One deals with the physical characteristics and immediate functions of a wide variety of architectural sets constructed during Hollywood's Golden Age. Part Two is concerned with the varieties of essentially mythic expressionism to which this ephemeral architecture was put.
The Films of Stan Brakhage in the American Tradition of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Charles Olson
R. Bruce Elder - 1998
His body of work -- some seventy hours -- is one of the largest of any filmmaker in the history of cinema, and one of the most diverse. Probably the most widely quoted experimental filmmaker in history, his films typify the independent cinema.Until now, despite well-deserved acclaim, there has been no comprehensive study of Brakhage's oeuvre. The Films of Stan Brakhage in the American Tradition fills this void. R. Bruce Elder delineates the aesthetic parallels between Brakhage's films and a broad spectrum of American art from the 1920s through the 1960s.This book is certain to stir the passions of those interested in artistic critique and interpretation in its broadest terms.
Cloud in Trousers
Christopher Doyle - 1998
Though new to American audiences, Doyle's work has been shown in museums and galleries through out Europe and especially in Asia where, under his Chinese name Du Ke Feng, he is a beloved pop-culture figure in his own right. The look he invented for such films as Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild and Chungking Express have been endlessly imitated, and he has just completed his first film in America, Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho.
Performance
Colin MacCabe - 1998
In this book, having conducted extensive interviews with surviving participants, Colin MacCabe presents the definitive history of the making of Performance, as well as a new interpretation of its artistry.
The Touch of Jesus
Paul Eshleman - 1998
Paul Eshleman's amazing accounts will encourage your faith and inspire you to get involved in one of the most effective evangelistic strategies of our time.
Sam Peckinpah's the Wild Bunch
Stephen Prince - 1998
The intensity of its violence was unprecedented, while the director's use of multiple cameras, montage editing, and slow motion quickly became the normative style for rendering screen violence. This volume includes freshly-commissioned essays by several leading scholars of Peckinpah's work. Examining the film's production history from script to screen, its rich and ambivalent vision of American society, and its relationship to the Western genre, among other topics, it provides a definitive reinterpretation of an enduring film classic.
Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 1999
Roger Ebert - 1998
Presents detailed descriptions and reviews of virtually every movie that has opened nationally over the past year, reports from the major film festivals, interviews with important movie figures, and essays on the movie world.
Alan Clarke
Richard Kelly - 1998
Yet Clarke enjoyed only a vague renown among the public, even though some of his most incendiary productions - Scum, The Firm, Made in Britain - attracted great controversy. But he was greatly admired by his fellow professionals: 'He became the best of all of us', Stephen Frears observed after Clarke's untimely death in 1990.In his work Clarke explored working-class lives and left-wing themes with unflinching directness and humour. He forged alliances with gifted writers and producers, and his facility for encouraging stunning performaces (from Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Ray Winstone) made him a hero amongst actors. As a man, Clarke's wit, vigour and generosity were legendary. Yet he retained a privacy which made him enigmatic and imbued his work with much of its austere radiance. This volume is a tribute to Clarke, made out of the thoughts and memories of those who worked with him and knew him best, and includes a celebatory essay by eminent critic, David Thomson.
Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay
Henry Bacon - 1998
Through analysis of his achievements, Visconti also emerges as a twentieth century inheritor and renewer of the nineteenth-century narrative tradition, especially that of the novel and the opera.
The Ingrid Pitt Bedside Companion for Vampire Lovers
Ingrid Pitt - 1998
Cult film star Ingrid Pitt presents the horror film buffs guide to the vampire phenomenon on screen and off, in legend, literature and the movies.
Men With Guns & Lone Star
John Sayles - 1998
The second uses a murder investigation to reflect political and emotional anxieties on the Texas/Mexico border. Additional text by the author discusses the development of the two screenplays.
Peeping Tom
Leo Marks - 1998
The finished film was severely cut by the censors, so here for the first time we get a clear idea of Powell's and Marks' intentions.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age
Tom Weaver - 1998
In Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Paul Mantees costar was a monkey named Barney who received billing as "Mona, the Woolly Monkey." Actress Randy Stuart played the wife of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Alan Caillou wrote the original pilot outline for televisions The Six Million Dollar Man. Asked to look over the final script six months later, he noticed that exactly one of his lines was being used (and that out of context) and that 27 writers were being given writing credit! Tom Weaver--author of Attack of the Monster Movie Makers, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes, They Fought in the Creature Features, and Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers--returns with a new collection of interviews that go behind the scenes of Golden Age science fiction, horror and fantasy filmmaking. Among the interviewed are Casey Adams, John Badham, Antony Carbone, Robert Clarke, Sidney Hayers, Lewis Allen, Gene Evans, Alex Gordon, Jackie Joseph, Ken Miller, John Moxey, Arthur Ross, Ariann Ulmer, Debra Paget and Edward Dmytryk.
Anima Animus Animation: EVASVANKMAJERJAN
Jan Švankmajer - 1998
Their paintings, images, poems, important encounters, scripts, tactile objects, diary entries, films, ceramic vessels, plays, puppets, collages, texts and dreams represent the great imaginative activity of contemporary Czech surrealism. The monograph, with the secondary title Between Film and Free Expression, is divided into ten thematic chapters and accompanied by a bibliography, a list of exhibitions and a filmography, and is mostly based on original texts by both artists.
Screen World 1997, Vol. 48
John Willis - 1998
Each volume includes every significant U.S. and international film released during that year as well as complete filmographies, capsule plot summaries, cast and characters, credits, production company, month released, rating, and running time. You'll also find biographical entries - a prices reference for over 2 000 living stars, including real name, school, place and date of birth. A comprehensive index makes this the finest film publication that any film lover could own.
Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic
Dan Auiler - 1998
Now, for the first time, the story of this remakable film is revealed. Writing with the full cooperation of the director's family and many crew members, Dan Auiler offers up a remarkable in-deph re-creation of Hitchcock's signature thriller. The result is one of the most thorough and illuminating studies of a single film ever published, and a testament to the enduring power of Hitchcock's masterwork of suspense.
Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection
Jerrold Levinson - 1998
As such its potential interest is by no means confined to professional philosophers; it should also appeal to art historians and critics, literary theorists, and students of film. Prominent philosophers in both aesthetics and ethics tackle a wide array of issues. Some of the questions explored in the volume include: Can art be morally enlightening and, if so, how? If a work of art is morally better does that make it better as art? Is morally deficient art to be shunned, or even censored? Do subjects of artworks have rights as to how they are represented? Do artists have duties as artists and duties as human beings, and if so, to whom? How much tension is there between the demands of art and the demands of life?
The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s
Charles Drazin - 1998
He also introduces readers to some lesser known, equally significant figures, like Robert Hamer, the maverick director of Kind Hearts and Coronets, and Filippo Del Giudice, flamboyant Italian genius.
Pépé le Moko
Ginette Vincendeau - 1998
It tells the story of the glamorous gangster Pepe, trapped in the Casbah in Algiers. This highly romantic and atmospheric thriller was crucial to the development of French film noir and inspired a number of remakes and many imitations. Vincendeau's meticulous analysis, written in a lively and accessible style, places Pépé le Moko in its aesthetic, generic and cultural contexts.
Vincent Price: Midnight Marquee Actor's Series
Gary J. Svehla - 1998
In addition to his films, there is a chapter devoted to his radio work and another covering the stage play Diversions and Delights. The book also includes a never before published interview with Mr. Price by historian/author Lawrence French. A must for Vincent Price lovers.
Sayles on Sayles
John Sayles - 1998
John Sayles goes step-by-step through the trajectory of his career and film-making practice, and in the process illuminates the work of one of the truly authentic independent US film-makers.
Transcultural Cinema
David MacDougall - 1998
As a filmmaker, he has directed in Africa, Australia, India, and Europe. His prize-winning films (many made jointly with his wife, Judith MacDougall) include The Wedding Camels, Lorang's Way, To Live with Herds, A Wife among Wives, Takeover, PhotoWallahs, and Tempus de Baristas. As a theorist, he articulates central issues in the relation of film to anthropology, and is one of the few documentary filmmakers who writes extensively on these concerns. The essays collected here address, for instance, the difference between films and written texts and between the position of the filmmaker and that of the anthropological writer.In fact, these works provide an overview of the history of visual anthropology, as well as commentaries on specific subjects, such as point-of-view and subjectivity, reflexivity, the use of subtitles, and the role of the cinema subject. Refreshingly free of jargon, each piece belongs very much to the tradition of the essay in its personal engagement with exploring difficult issues. The author ultimately disputes the view that ethnographic filmmaking is merely a visual form of anthropology, maintaining instead that it is a radical anthropological practice, which challenges many of the basic assumptions of the discipline of anthropology itself. Although influential among filmmakers and critics, some of these essays were published in small journals and have been until now difficult to find. The three longest pieces, including the title essay, are new.
Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction
M. Madhava Prasad - 1998
The study treats the Hindi film as a social institution which is a reflection of current social and political formations and analyzes the role, function and ideology of Indian cinema.
Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of Walt Disney
Robin Allan - 1998
It is based on archival research and interviews with many of those who worked with Disney.
A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video
David N. Meyer - 1998
Each entry includes a concise plot summary and complete screen credits.
Henry Fool
Hal Hartley - 1998
Henry Fool insinuates himself into the family of a garbage man named Simon, and changes their lives irrevocably.
Strangers on a Train
NOT A BOOK - 1998
Granger thinks Walker is joking until his estranged wife is murdered, and he realizes that he is expected to fulfill his part of their bargain.
Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton
Bruce Sachs - 1998
Behind the scenes was one man working flat out to produce those wonderful creatures. That man was Roy Ashton, and it was he who created all of the make-up effects for mummies, werewolves and Gothic horrors. Greasepaint and Gore takes a look into the props wardrobe and make up unit where Ashton, long before computer technology existed, created his own high standards of magical illusions. With an introduction from the late Peter Cushing OBE, who had the opportunity to watch Roy Ashton at work countless times (after all make-up can also make you look glamorous as well as horrific), this is a demonstration of a true professional at work. Greasepaint and Gore catalogues the largest single collection of Hammer production artefacts in existence, and is a must have for any horror. or indeed any film fan!
Contemporary Cinematographers on Their Art
Pauline B. Rogers - 1998
Each interview gives a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the most popular shots in movies and television shows were lit and captured. Technically and philosophically oriented, Contemporary Cinematographers on Their Art explores the tools, trends, personalities, and professional achievements of contemporary cinematographers, highlighting the behind-the-scenes struggles of the business of making motion pictures. Each chapter delves into the personal challenges, political properties, inter-departmental interactions, and artistic achievements of the artists who bring scripts to life through their choice of cameras, lights, lenses, filters, gels, and other supporting equipment.Covering a variety of film and television genres--from soaps to half-hour sitcoms, to cable and network productions and low- and big-budget features--each interview explores the tools cinematographers use to capture their shots, from traditional equipment to innovative camera and lighting "toys," as well as the integration of mechanical and computer graphic effects.
The Beyond
Steven P. Romano - 1998
released through Rolling Thunder Pictures. Each copy of this impressive novel comes with a CD featuring the complete soundtrack to the film, bonus unreleased tracks, trailers, and dialogue from the film.
"You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet": The American Talking Film: History and Memory 1927-1949
Andrew Sarris - 1998
Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a masterwork that has taken 25 years to complete. Here is a sweeping--and highly personal--history of American film, from the birth of the talkies (beginning with The Jazz Singer and Al Jolson's memorable line You ain't heard nothin' yet) to the decline of the studio system. By far the largest section of the book celebrates the work of the great American film directors, with giants such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks examined film by film. Sarris also offers glowing portraits of major stars, from Garbo and Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, Margaret Sullavan, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. There is a tour of the studios--Metro, Paramount, RKO, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal--revealing how each left its own particular stamp on film. And in perhaps the most interesting and original section, we are treated to an informative look at film genres--the musical, the screwball comedy, the horror picture, the gangster film, and the western. A lifetime of watching and thinking about cinema has gone into this book. It is the history that film buffs have been waiting for.
The Films of Lon Chaney
Michael F. Blake - 1998
Leading Chaney scholar Blake completes his series of books on the actor with this in-depth filmography. The Films of Lon Chaney contains summaries of each of Chaney's movies, along with selected reviews and notes on the productions. Also included is information on the films Chaney planned but never made, and a listing for 'Man of A Thousand Faces, ' the biographical film made on Chaney starring James Cagne
The Adventures Of Roberto Rossellini: His Life And Films
Tag Gallagher - 1998
Francis, Voyage in Italy, and Louis XIV; Anna Magnani's lover; Ingrid Bergman's husband; and Isabella Rossellini's father. Continually enmeshed in controversy, perhaps no other figure in the history of world cinema has been so reviled—and so revered. Tag Gallagher's masterful biography of Rossellini, the first in any language, was fifteen years in the making. It is the result of assiduous research, lengthy interviews with almost everyone who knew him, and investigations into the making and reception of his films. The cast of characters includes Vittorio Mussolini, Il Duce's son and Rossellini's Fascist-era producer; Howard Hughes, who produced Stromboli and then, in a fit of jealousy over Ingrid Bergman, butchered its American release; and dozens of other people. Combining a portrait of a dynamic and daring man with brilliant discussions of his work, Tag Gallagher tells a story as rich and moving as Rossellini's miraculous films.
The Mask of Art: Breaking the Aesthetic Contract-Film and Literature
Clyde Taylor - 1998
it brings to black studies and cultural critique an internationalism that emphasizes the richness of forms of creative expression outside the norms set by European aesthetics. Highly recommended..." --ChoiceCultural critic Clyde Taylor exposes the concept of "art" as a tool of ethnocentricity and racial ideology. By examining various texts including The Birth of a Nation and The Cotton Club, Taylor demonstrates how rationales of "art" are used to mask personal, class, and cultural biases. Other works such as those by Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, and Spike Lee are scrutinized in terms of resistance to the dominant system of aesthetics.
Interpreting the Moving Image
Noël Carroll - 1998
This volume provides a close analysis of major films of both the narrative and the avant-garde traditions. Written in accessible and enaging language, it also serves as a guide to such classics as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Citizen Kane, as well as the art of cinema in the postmodern era.
Horror Movie Posters
Richard J. Allen - 1998
Oversized paperback edition, 80 pages.Full-color horror movie posters, 306 of them in all, going back to 1914.
Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919–1945
Jan-Christopher Horak - 1998
With one exception, all are original to this volume, and many are the first to treat comprehensively such early filmmakers as Mary Ellen Bute, Theodore Huff, and Douglass Crockwell.Also included in the book is a listing of all American avant-garde films produced in the years before World War II as well as a bibliography of the most relevant criticism, literature, and news accounts.