Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood


Mick LaSalle - 2000
    Then two stars came along: Greta Garbo, who turned the femme fatale into a woman whose capacity for love and sacrifice made all other human emotions seem pale; and Norma Shearer, who succeeded in taking the ingenue to a place she'd never been: the bedroom. In their wake came a deluge of other complicated women-Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, and Mae West, to name a few. Then, in July 1934, the draconian Production Code became the law in Hollywood and these modern women of the screen were banished, not to be seen again until the code was repealed three decades later.A thorough survey and a tribute to these films, Complicated Women reveals how this was the true Golden Age of women's films.

My Last Sigh


Luis Buñuel - 1982
    This long out-of-paint autobiography provides insight into the genesis of Bunuel's films and conveys his frank opinions on dwarves, Catholicism, the Marquis de Sade, food, and smoking, not to mention his recipe for a good dry martini!

Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned From Eighties Movies (And Why We Don't Learn Them From Movies Any More)


Hadley Freeman - 2015
    Comedy in Three Men and a Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future; all a teenager needs to know in Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, and Mystic Pizza; the ultimate in action from Top Gun, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; love and sex in 9 1/2 Weeks, Splash, About Last Night, The Big Chill, and Bull Durham; and family fun in The Little Mermaid, ET, Big, Parenthood, and Lean On Me.In Life Moves Pretty Fast, Hadley puts her obsessive movie geekery to good use, detailing the decade’s key players, genres, and tropes. She looks back on a cinematic world in which bankers are invariably evil, where children are always wiser than adults, where science is embraced with an intense enthusiasm, and the future viewed with giddy excitement. And, she considers how the changes between movies then and movies today say so much about society’s changing expectations of women, young people, and art—and explains why Pretty in Pink should be put on school syllabuses immediately.From how John Hughes discovered Molly Ringwald, to how the friendship between Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi influenced the evolution of comedy, and how Eddie Murphy made America believe that race can be transcended, this is a “highly personal, witty love letter to eighties movies, but also an intellectually vigorous, well-researched take on the changing times of the film industry” (The Guardian).

Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions


Guillermo del Toro - 2013
    Now, for the first time, del Toro reveals the inspirations behind his signature artistic motifs, sharing the contents of his personal notebooks, collections, and other obsessions. The result is a startling, intimate glimpse into the life and mind of one of the world's most creative visionaries. Complete with running commentary, interview text, and annotations that contextualize the ample visual material, this deluxe compendium is every bit as inspired as del Toro is himself.Contains a foreword by James Cameron, an afterword by Tom Cruise, and contributions from other luminaries, including Neil Gaiman and John Landis, among others.

The Making of The African Queen Or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind


Katharine Hepburn - 1987
    And why —Come hell or high waterThrough thick and through thinFor better and for worseBut not quite until death did we part —It was great fun. — K. H.

Lulu in Hollywood


Louise Brooks - 1982
    Eight autobiographical essays by Brooks, on topics ranging from her childhood in Kansas and her early days as a Denishawn and Ziegfeld Follies dancer to her friendships with Martha Graham, Charles Chaplin, W. C. Fields, Humphrey Bogart, and others are collected here. Originally published: New York: Knopf, 1982.

Hollywood Babylon


Kenneth Anger - 1959
    Originally published in Paris, this is a collection of Hollywood's darkest and best kept secrets from the pen of Kenneth Anger, a former child movie actor who grew up to become one of America's leading underground film-makers.

Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists


A.V. Club - 2009
    Club issue a slightly slanted pop-culture list filled with challenging opinions (Is David Bowie's "Young Americans" nearly ruined by saxophone?) and fascinating facts. Exploring 24 great films too painful to watch twice, 14 tragic movie-masturbation scenes, 18 songs about crappy cities, and much more, Inventory combines a massive helping of new lists created especially for the book with a few favorites first seen at avclub.com and in the pages of The A.V. Club's sister publication, The Onion. But wait! There's more: John Hodgman offers a set of minutely detailed (and probably fictional) character actors. Patton Oswalt waxes ecstatic about the "quiet film revolutions" that changed cinema in small but exciting ways. Amy Sedaris lists 50 things that make her laugh. "Weird Al" Yankovic examines the noises of Mad magazine's Don Martin. Plus lists from Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Ben Garant, Tom Lennon, Andrew W.K., Tim and Eric, Daniel Handler, and Zach Galifianakis -- and an epic foreword from essayist Chuck Klosterman.

The Cinema Book


Pam Cook - 1985
    Authoritative and comprehensive, the third edition has been extensively revised, updated and expanded in response to developments in cinema and cinema studies. Lavishly illustrated in color, this edition features a wealth of exciting new sections and in-depth case studies.

Elia Kazan: A Life


Elia Kazan - 1976
    He reveals his working relationships with his many collaborators, including Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, James Dean, John Steinbeck and Darryl Zanuck, and describes his directing "style" as he sees it, in terms of position, movement, pace, rhythm and his own limitations. Kazan also retraces his own decision to inform for the House Un-American Activities Committee, illuminating much of what may be obscured in McCarthy literature.

Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square


Bill Landis - 2002
    If the gore epics, women-in-prison films, and shockumentaries showcased within their mildewed walls didn't live up to their outrageous billing, the audience shouted, threw food, and even vandalized the theaters. For dedicated lovers of extreme cinema, buying a movie ticket on the Deuce meant putting your life on the line. Authors Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford came to know those grindhouses better than anyone else, and although the theaters were gone by the mid-1980s, the films remained. In Sleazoid Express, Landis and Clifford reproduce what no home video can -- the experience of watching an exploitation film in its original fight-for-your-life Deuce setting. Both a travelogue of the infamous grindhouses of yore and a comprehensive overview of the sleaze canon, Sleazoid Express offers detailed reviews of landmark exploitation classics and paints intimate portraits of directors whose notorious creations played the back end of triple bills for years on end. With wit, intelligence, and an unflinching eye, Landis and Clifford offer the definitive document of cinema's most intense and shocking moments as they came to life at a legendary place.

The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques


Joseph V. Mascelli - 1983
    Included are discussions on: cinematic time and space; compositional rules; and types of editing.

Leading Couples (Turner Classic Movies)


Frank Miller - 2008
    Bogart and Bacall. Tracy and Hepburn. These on-screen (and sometimes off-screen) couples defined romantic chemistry and the art of falling in love. From Turner Classic Movies, Leading Couples features the most unforgettable screen pairings of the studio era, including actors and actresses with many film courtships and those who made their indelible mark in a single, memorable movie. Engaging and thoroughly researched, each profile includes trivia, behind-the-scenes stories, biographical overviews, and memorable quotes, illustrated by rare stills and poster art.

Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics


Michael Rabiger - 1989
    Ideal for film production and directing classes, as well as for aspiring and current directors, Directing covers all phases of preproduction and production, from idea development to final cut. Thoroughly covering the basics, Directing guides the reader to professional standards of expression and control, and goes to the heart of what makes a director. The book outlines a great deal of practical work to meet this goal, with projects, exercises.The third edition emphasizes the connection between knowing and doing, with every principle realizable through projects and exercises. Much has been enhanced and expanded, notably: aspects of dramaturgy; beats and dramatic units; pitching stories and selling one's work; the role of the entrepreneurial producer; and the dangers of embedded moral values. Checklists are loaded with practical recommendations for action, and outcomes assessment tables help the reader honestly gauge his or her progress. Entirely new chapters present: preproduction procedures; production design; script breakdown; procedures and etiquette on the set; shooting location sound; continuity; and working with a composer. The entire book is revised to capitalize on the advantages offered by the revolutionary shift to digital filmmaking.

A History of the French New Wave Cinema


Richard Neupert - 2002
    A History of the French New Wave Cinema offers a fresh look at the social, economic, and aesthetic mechanisms that shaped French film in the 1950s, as well as detailed studies of the most important New Wave movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Richard Neupert first tracks the precursors to New Wave cinema, showing how they provided blueprints for those who would follow. He then demonstrates that it was a core group of critics-turned-directors from the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma—especially François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Luc Godard—who really revealed that filmmaking was changing forever. Later, their cohorts Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Pierre Kast continued in their own unique ways to expand the range and depth of the New Wave. In an exciting new chapter, Neupert explores the subgroup of French film practice known as the Left Bank Group, which included directors such as Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda. With the addition of this new material and an updated conclusion, Neupert presents a comprehensive review of the stunning variety of movies to come out of this important era in filmmaking.