The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations
Wim Wenders - 1988
In the book Wenders moves from a contemplation of pure cinema, to a consideration and analysis of his own films. Beginning with the question: Why do you make films?, Wenders expresses his own unique approach to cinema.
The Best Film You've Never Seen: 35 Directors Champion the Forgotten or Critically Savaged Movies They Love
Robert K. ElderGuy Maddin - 2013
Among these guilty pleasures, almost-masterpieces, and undeniable classics in need of revival are unsung noirs (Murder by Contract), famous flops (Can’t Stop the Music, Joe Versus the Volcano), art films (L’ange), theatrical adaptations (The Iceman Cometh), B-movies (Killer Klowns from Outer Space), and even a few Oscar-winners (Some Came Running). In these conversations, the filmmakers defend their choices. These films, they argue, deserve a larger audience and for their place in movie history to be reconsidered. But the conversations’ tangents, diversions, and side trips provide as much insight into the directors’ own approach to moviemaking as into the film they’re discussing. The filmmakers are the perfect hosts, often setting the tone, managing expectations, and giving advice about how you should watch each movie. They’re often brutally honest about a film’s shortcomings or the reasons why it was lost in the first place. The Best Film You’ve Never Seen is not only a guide to some badly overlooked movies but a bold attempt to rewrite film history.
Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented the American Independent Film
Marshall Fine - 2006
Among filmmakers and film buffs, Cassavetes is revered, almost as a god. A major star of live television and a serious actor, he stumbled into making his first film, Shadows, and created a template for working outside the Hollywood system that would produce some of the most piercing and human films of the last thirty years including A Woman Under the Influence and Husbands. He became the prototypical outsider fighting the system for much of his career. Film critic Marshall Fine had unprecendented access to Cassavetes' wife, Gena Rowlands, and other members of their inner circle, as well as industry insiders who worked with Cassavetes -- some speaking publicly for the first time. Together, they tell his daring, tumultuous, and compelling story.
The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice
Ken Dancyger - 1993
Analyses of photographs from dozens of classic and contemporary films and videos provide a sound basis for the professional filmmaker and student editor. This book puts into context the storytelling choices an editor will have to make against a background of theory, history, and practice. This new edition has been updated to include the latest advances in digital video and nonlinear editing and explores the new trend of documentary as mainstream entertainment, using films such as "Farenheit 9/11" and "The Fog of War" as examples.
Music of James Bond
Jon Burlingame - 2012
In The Music of James Bond, author Jon Burlingame throws open studio and courtroom doors alike to reveal the full and extraordinary history of the soundsof James Bond, spicing the story with a wealth of fascinating and previously undisclosed tales.Burlingame devotes a chapter to each Bond film, providing the backstory for the music (including a reader-friendly analysis of each score) from the last-minute creation of the now-famous James Bond Theme in Dr. No to John Barry's trend-setting early scores for such films as Goldfinger andThunderball. We learn how synthesizers, disco and modern electronica techniques played a role in subsequent scores, and how composer David Arnold reinvented the Bond sound for the 1990s and beyond.The book brims with behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Burlingame examines the decades-long controversy over authorship of the Bond theme; how Frank Sinatra almost sang the title song for Moonraker; and how top artists like Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Duran Duran, GladysKnight, Tina Turner, and Madonna turned Bond songs into chart-topping hits. The author shares the untold stories of how Eric Clapton played guitar for Licence to Kill but saw his work shelved, and how Amy Winehouse very nearly co-wrote and sang the theme for Quantum of Solace.New interviews with many Bond songwriters and composers, coupled with extensive research as well as fascinating and previously undiscovered details--temperamental artists, unexpected hits, and the convergence of great music and unforgettable imagery--make The Music of James Bond a must read for 007buffs and all popular music fans. This paperback edition is brought up-to-date with a new chapter on Skyfall.
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.
The Making of Don
Krishna Gopalan - 2013
No one involved with the making of the film foresaw the kind of overarching impact it would have, not only in terms of its success at the box office but in spawning a cult phenomenon that would stay strong more than three decades later with its slick theme, fantastic music and unforgettable dialogues, that is what nbecame. The journey of Donwas not an easy one. Shot over four years, it faced several hurdles before making it to the theatres. While the casting and music of Don have now acquired legendary status, there were some close shaves before it all came together: Iftekhars role of the cop was eyed by a big star of the 1960s getting Kalyanji-Anandji to compose the score called for a delicate balancing act, it was only thanks to the shrewd advice of a mentor that the super-successful Khai ke paan Banaras wala was included at the very last minute. And, wonder of wonders, it was not Amitabh Bachchan who was paid the most for the film. Through a fast-paced narrative born out of interviews with the cast and crew and supplemented with rare photographs from the directors archives, The Making of Dontells a tale that is as compelling as the one that finally made it to the big screen. Engaging and captivating, this is the story of one of Bollywoods most memorable classic.
David Lynch: The Man from Another Place
Dennis Lim - 2013
Dredged from his subconscious mind, Lynch’s work is primed to act on our own subconscious, combining heightened, contradictory emotions into something familiar but inscrutable. No less than his art, Lynch’s life also evades simple categorization, encompassing pursuits as a musician, painter, photographer, carpenter, entrepreneur, and vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation.David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, Dennis Lim’s remarkably smart and concise book, proposes several lenses through which to view Lynch and his work: through the age-old mysteries of the uncanny and the sublime, through the creative energies of surrealism and postmodernism, through ideas of America and theories of good and evil. Lynch himself often warns against overinterpretation. And accordingly, this is not a book that seeks to decode his art or annotate his life—to dispel the strangeness of the Lynchian—so much as one that offers complementary ways of seeing and understanding one of the most distinctive bodies of work in modern cinema. Its spirit is true to its subject, in remaining suggestive rather than definitive, in allowing what Lynch likes to call “room to dream,” and in honoring the allure of the unknown and the unknowable.
Keeping a Rendezvous
John Berger - 1991
A photograph of a gravely joyful crowd gathered on a Prague street in November 1989 provokes reflection on the meaning of democracy and the reunion of a people with long-banished hopes and dreams.With the luminous essays in Keeping a Rendezvous, we are given to see the world as Berger sees it -- to explore themes suggested by the work of Jackson Pollock or J. M. W. Turner, to contemplate the wonder of Paris. Rendezvous are manifold: between critic and art, artist and subject, subject and the unknown. But most significant are the rendezvous between author and reader, as we discover our perceptions informed by John Berger's eloquence and courageous moral imagination.
The Portable Film School: Everything You'd Learn in Film School (Without Ever Going to Class)
D.B. Gilles - 2005
D.B. Gilles explains the fundamental skills and techniques of screenwriting and making a short film arming you with the two calling cards you'll need to break into Hollywood – without having spent the tuition or a minute in a classroom.
Conversations With Brando
Lawrence Grobel - 1987
Brando discusses many topics including acting, women, Native Americans and corporate America.
Screenwriting 101 by Film Crit Hulk!
Film Crit Hulk! - 2013
A LOT OF THESE SCREENWRITING BOOKS LIKE TO FILL YOUR HEAD WITH FALSE PROMISES AND EASY TRICKS. BUT IT’S SO DAMN FAR FROM THE OBVIOUS TRUTH: BECOMING A TALENTED WRITER TAKES A LONG TIME AND A LOT OF HARD WORK. THEY ALSO CONVENIENTLY FORGET TO MENTION THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU. THERE ARE OVER A MILLION SCRIPTS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD. HULK HAS READ, OH... A COUPLE THOUSAND OF THEM. AND NEARLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON HULK MEETS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY ALREADY HAS A SCRIPT OF SOME SORT. NOT ONLY DOES THE SHEER VOLUME OF SCRIPTS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH ONESELF IN THIS CLIMATE, BUT SO DOES THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALREADY A VAST NUMBER OF TALENTED, PROFESSIONAL WRITERS IN NEED OF WORK. SO GIVEN ALL THESE CRIPPLING ODDS, WE SHOULD ALL JUST GIVE UP, RIGHT? WELL, NO. YOU’RE NOT HERE READING THIS BECAUSE THAT REALITY BOTHERS YOU. AND THAT’S THE THING ABOUT THE MOVIES: THEY’RE WONDERFUL. THEY’RE THE IMAGINATION OF STORYTELLING MADE TANGIBLE. THEY’RE OUR DREAMS MADE REAL. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF ALL THAT? FILM CRIT HULK WAS CREATED IN A CHAOTIC LAB EXPERIMENT INVOLVING GAMMA RADIATION, THE GHOST OF PAULINE KAEL, AND TELEPODS FOR SOME REASON. NOW HULK HAS A DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE OF CINEMA WHEREIN HULK RECOGNIZES THE INHERENT VALUES OF POPULAR, NARRATIVE, OR EXPERIMENTAL STYLES! THROUGH A UNIQUE JOURNEY, HULK HAS ENDED UP WORKING IN HOLLYWOOD FOR OVER A DECADE AND NOW WRITES ABOUT CINEMA AND STORYTELLING IN THOROUGHLY HULK-SIZED FASHION. AND NOW YOU HOLD IN YOUR HANDS / HAVE ON YOUR SCREEN / WHATEVER IN YOUR WHATEVER, THE FIRST EBOOK BY FILM CRIT HULK. THE ONLY THING IT MEANS TO BE IS HELPFUL. Free sentence case version included!
Cinematography for Directors: A Guide for Creative Collaboration
Jacqueline B. Frost - 2009
This is the only book that focuses exclusively on the relationship between the director and cinematographer.
Nobody's Perfect: A Personal Biography of Billy Wilder
Charlotte Chandler - 2002
When he died recently, he left behind an incredible celluloid legacy. Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, Sabrina and other Wilder films have become a part of our shared experience and collective memory. In Nobody's Perfect, Billy Wilder speaks for himself, in what is as close to an autobiography as there ever will be. Charlotte Chandler, author of authorized bios on Groucho Marx and Federico Fellini, met Wilder in the mid-1970s and began a friendship that continued until his death. Over the course of more than 20 years, she interviewed not only Wilder, but many of the actors and other creative people who worked with him. The result is this remarkable book, a very personal look at one of filmdom's true creative geniuses. In a life as dramatic as his films, Wilder survived World War I and escaped the Holocaust. His great gift as a screenwriter soon became apparent, as did his easy rapport with actors. As a writer-director, he worked with such stars as Greta Garbo, William Holden, Tony Curtis, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Gloria Swanson, Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Marilyn Monroe - most of whom were interviewed for this book. This revealing and vastly entertaining book is a wonderful, timely tribute to this great writer-director, a legacy of Wilder's wit, insight and remarkable wisdom.