Book picks similar to
The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer by David Bordwell
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Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer
Paul Schrader - 1972
Unlike the style of psychological realism, which dominates film, the transcendental style expresses a spiritual state with austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment. This important book is an original contribution to film analysis and a key work by one of our most searching directors and writers.
Horror Films of the 1970s
John Kenneth Muir - 2002
This detailed filmography covers these and 225 more. Section One provides an introduction and a brief history of the decade. Beginning with 1970 and proceeding chronologically by year of its release in the United States, Section Two offers an entry for each film. Each entry includes several categories of information: Critical Reception (sampling both '70s and later reviews), Cast and Credits, P.O.V., (quoting a person pertinent to that film's production), Synopsis (summarizing the film's story), Commentary (analyzing the film from Muir's perspective), Legacy (noting the rank of especially worthy '70s films in the horror pantheon of decades following). Section Three contains a conclusion and these five appendices: horror film cliches of the 1970s, frequently appearing performers, memorable movie ads, recommended films that illustrate how 1970s horror films continue to impact the industry, and the 15 best genre films of the decade as chosen by Muir.
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.
A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema
Emilie Bickerton - 2009
Founded in 1951, it was responsible for establishing film as the ‘seventh art,’ equal to literature, painting or music, and it revolutionized film-making and writing. Its contributors would put their words into action: the likes of Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer were to become some of the greatest directors of the age, their films part of the internationally celebrated nouvelle vague.In this authoritative new history, Emilie Bickerton explores the evolution and impact of Cahiers du Cinéma, from its early years, to its late-sixties radicalization, its internationalization, and its response to the television age of the seventies and eighties. Showing how the story of Cahiers continues to resonate with critics, practitioners and the film-going public, A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma is a testimony to the extraordinary legacy and archive these ‘collected pages of a notebook’ have provided for the world of cinema.
The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures
Donald Spoto - 1976
This completely revised and updated edition of the classic text describes and analyzes every movie made by master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.
Afterglow: A Last Conversation With Pauline Kael
Francis Davis - 1990
This is a biography of the ascerbic and witty film critic Pauline Kael.
Taxi Driver
Amy Taubin - 2000
This book provides a personal commentary on the film, a brief production history and a detailed filmography. In the "BFI Film Classics" series.
Fellini On Fellini
Federico Fellini - 1976
. . . The material interestingly helps clarify Fellini's film work, and his fans will enjoy this stimulating and intellectual 'biography.'"--Library JournalOne of the greatest Italian filmmakers, Federico Fellini (1920-1993) created such masterpieces as La Strada, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, and Amarcord. His prodigious body of work evokes Pirandello, existentialism, "the silence of God," as well as show business. Critics have accused him of being a charlatan, hypocrite, clown, and demon, and have hailed him as a magician, poet, genius, and prophet.
Fellini on Fellini is a fascinating collection of his articles, interviews, essays, reminiscences, and table talk, carefully arranged to chart the progress of his life and work. There are boyhood memories of his hometown, Remini, and his highly improbable beginnings as a scriptwriter for Rossellini; letters to Jesuit priests and Marxist critics defending his first international success, La Strada; anecdotes and revelations about the making of La Dolca Vita, 8 1/2, and The Clowns; and insights into all aspects of filmmaking. Here, Fellini reveals, as no one else can, a rich digest of his brilliant and controversial career.
Herzog on Herzog
Paul Cronin - 2003
The sheer number of false rumors and downright lies disseminated about the man and his films is truly astonishing. Yet Herzog's body of work is one of the most important in postwar European cinema. His international breakthrough came in 1973 with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, in which Klaus Kinski played a crazed Conquistador. For The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog cast in the lead a man who had spent most of his life institutionalized, and two years later he hypnotized his entire cast to make Heart of Glass. He rushed to an explosive volcanic Caribbean island to film La Soufrière, paid homage to F. W. Murnau in a terrifying remake of Nosferatu, and in 1982 dragged a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo. More recently, Herzog has made extraordinary "documentary" films such as Little Dieter Needs to Fly. His place in cinema history is assured, and Paul Cronin's volume of dialogues provides a forum for Herzog's fascinating views on the things, ideas, and people that have preoccupied him for so many years.
Lynch on Lynch
David Lynch - 1997
Over the course of his career, he has remained true to a vision of the innocent lost in darkness and confusion, balancing hallucination and surrealism with a sense of Americana that is as pure and simple as his compelling storylines. In this volume, Lynch speaks openly about his films as well as about his lifelong commitment to painting, his work in photography, his television projects, and his musical collaborations with Angelo Badalamenti.
Charlie Chaplin: Interviews
Kevin J. Hayes - 2005
By the end of the following year, moviegoers couldn't get enough of him and his iconic persona, the Little Tramp. Perpetually outfitted with baggy pants, a limp cane, and a dusty bowler hat, the character became so beloved that Chaplin was mobbed by fans, journalists, and critics at every turn. Although he never particularly liked giving interviews, he accepted the demands of his stardom, giving detailed responses about his methods of making movies. He quickly progressed from making two-reel shorts to feature-length masterpieces such as The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin: Interviews offers a complex portrait of perhaps the world's greatest cinematic comedian and a man who is considered to be one of the most influential screen artists in movie history. The interviews he granted, performances in and of themselves, are often as well crafted as his films. Unlike the Little Tramp, Chaplin the interviewee comes across as melancholy and serious, as the titles of some early interviews-"Beneath the Mask: Witty, Wistful, Serious Is the Real Charlie" or "The Hamlet-Like Nature of Charlie Chaplin"-make abundantly clear. His first sound feature, The Great Dictator, is a direct condemnation of Hitler. His later films such as Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight obliquely criticize American policy and consequently generated mixed reactions from critics and little response from moviegoers. During this late period of his filmmaking, Chaplin granted interviews less often. The three later interviews included here are thus extremely valuable, offering long, contemplative analyses of the man's life and work.
The Big Sleep
David Thomson - 1997
This text shows how The Big Sleep signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema, as the director Howard Hawks shot extra scenes, "fun" scenes, to replace the ones in which the murders are explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved.
Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike
Tom Mes - 2004
This edition features a new and expanded colour section, completely updated DVD information, and several brand new reviews of Takashi Miike films that were unavailable for coverage at the time of the book's initial production.
Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (Key Concepts)
Susan Hayward - 2000
Now in its second edition, the text has been completely revised and expanded to meet the needs of today's students and film enthusiasts. Some 150 key genres, movements, theories and production terms are explained and analyzed with depth and clarity. Entries include: * auteur theory* Blaxploitation* British New Wave* feminist film theory* intertextuality* method acting* pornography* Third World Cinema* Vampire movies.
The Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays
Akira Kurosawa - 1992
"Ikiru "(1952) tells the painful and intimate story of a Japanese civil servant coming to terms with old age and death. In "Seven Samurai "(1954) the inhabitants of a small Janpanese village employ a roaming band of samurai to defend them. In "Throne of Blood" (1957), based on "Macbeth," a samurai is encouraged by his wife to kill his lord.This edition also includes a critical introduction to each screenplay.