Cinema 1: The Movement-Image


Gilles Deleuze - 1983
    For Deleuze, philosophy cannot be a reflection of something else; philosophical concepts are, rather, the images of thought, to be understood on their own terms. Here he puts this view of philosophy to work in understanding the concepts—or images—of film.Cinema, to Deleuze, is not a language that requires probing and interpretation, a search for hidden meanings; it can be understood directly, as a composition of images and signs, pre-verbal in nature. Thus he offers a powerful alternative to the psychoanalytic and semiological approaches that have dominated film studies.Drawing upon Henri Bergson’s thesis on perception and C. S. Peirce’s classification of images and signs, Deleuze is able to put forth a new theory and taxonomy of the image, which he then applies to concrete examples from the work of a diverse group of filmmakers—Griffith, Eisenstein, Pasolini, Rohmer, Bresson, Dreyer, Stroheim, Buñuel, and many others. Because he finds movement to be the primary characteristic of cinema in the first half of the twentieth century, he devotes this first volume to that aspect of film. In the years since World War II, time has come to dominate film; that shift, and the signs and images associated with it, are addressed in Cinema 2: The Time-Image.

How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make


Denny Martin Flinn - 1999
    Flinn's book will teach the reader how to avoid the pitfalls of bad screenwriting and arrive at one's own destination intact.

Myth & the Movies: Discovering the Myth Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films


Stuart Voytilla - 1999
    and foreign films in every cinematic genre.

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 Making of Kubrick's 2001


Jerome Agel - 1970
    Here is the inside story of a monumental achievement conceded even by its enemies to mark a turning point in the art of cinema."If 2001 has stirred your emotions, your subconscious, your mythological yearnings, then it has succeeded."--Stanley Kubrick

Prometheus: The Art of the Film


Mark Salisbury - 2012
    The movie takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life's ultimate mystery.With an introduction by Scott himself, this lavish book will be the only publication to accompany Prometheus. Stunning production art and behind the scenes photos will grant the reader a window on the process of creating this astounding new epic.

A Short Guide to Writing about Film


Timothy Corrigan - 1989
    Both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide, this brief text introduces students to film terms and the major film theories, enabling them to write more critically. With numerous student and professional examples along the way, this engaging and practical guide progresses from taking notes and writing first drafts to creating polished essays and comprehensive research projects. Moving from movie reviews to theoretical and critical essays, the text demonstrates how an analysis of a film becomes more subtle and rigorous as part of a compositional process.

Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue


Robert K. Johnston - 2000
    Reel Spirituality successfully heightens readers' sensitivity to the theological truths and statements about the human condition expressed through modern cinema. This second edition cites 200 new movies and encourages readers to ponder movie themes that permeate our culture as well as motion pictures that have demonstrated power to shape our perceptions of everything from relationships and careers to good and evil. Reel Spirituality is the perfect catalyst for dialogue and discipleship among moviegoers, church-based study groups, and religious film and arts groups. The second edition cites an additional 200 movies and includes new film photos.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film


Michael Ondaatje - 2002
    From those conversations stemmed this enlightened, affectionate book -- a mine of wonderful, surprising observations and information about editing, writing and literature, music and sound, the I-Ching, dreams, art and history.The Conversations is filled with stories about how some of the most important movies of the last thirty years were made and about the people who brought them to the screen. It traces the artistic growth of Murch, as well as his friends and contemporaries -- including directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Fred Zinneman and Anthony Minghella -- from the creation of the independent, anti-Hollywood Zoetrope by a handful of brilliant, bearded young men to the recent triumph of Apocalypse Now Redux.Among the films Murch has worked on are American Graffiti, The Conversation, the remake of A Touch of Evil, Julia, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather (all three), The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The English Patient."Walter Murch is a true oddity in Hollywood. A genuine intellectual and renaissance man who appears wise and private at the centre of various temporary storms to do with film making and his whole generation of filmmakers. He knows, probably, where a lot of the bodies are buried."

Movie Speak: How to Talk Like You Belong on a Film Set


Tony Bill - 2009
    (assistant director) knowingly mumbles "Gone With the Wind in the morning, Dukes of Hazzard after lunch"? An oral tradition gathered and passed down for more than a hundred years, the language of moviemaking, like other secret lexicons, is the only accepted way of communicating on a set—and is all but unknown to the outside world. Technical, odd, colorful, mysterious, the working language of movies sheds light not only on the hugely complex process of making a film, but on the invisible hierarchies of a set, the unspoken etiquette between cast and crew, and the evolution of a process that's endlessly fascinating.Movie Speak is a book about language, but through language also a book about what it’s really like to be a director or a producer or an actor or a crew member. An Oscarwinning producer (The Sting), actor (who worked with Spielberg, Coppola, and Sydney Pollock), and director (Five Corners, Flyboys, My Bodyguard, and more), Tony Bill has been on sets for more than 30 years and brings a writer's love of language to this collection of hundreds of film terms. A futz. A cowboy. A Brodkin and a double Brodkin (a.k.a. screamer). Streaks ’n tips, a Lewinsky, Green Acres, rhubarb, a peanut, a Gary Coleman, snot tape, twin buttes, manmaker (and why you can yell for one if needed for a grip, but must whisper if it's for Tom Cruise)—these are the tricks of the trade.

Anatomy of Film


Bernard F. Dick - 1978
    Designed to be used in either English or Communication departments, Anatomy of Film helps students new to film develop a critical awareness of cinema without overwhelming them.

Skinema


Chris Nieratko - 2007
    As Johnny Knoxville so succinctly put it, Nieratko is an asshole, but whether Chris is rescuing a stalker from choking on her own vomit, getting his nose broken for having AIDS (he doesn't) or marrying the one woman that could put up with his insanity, his life sounds so much like a collection of hilarious bar stories it's impossible not to grab a beer and listen to the whole thing.