The Best Books About Film
- MacktheFinger
- Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:50 am
- Location: Chicago, IL
Re: The Best Books About Film
Several of his other books are well worth reading, as well. His writing is pretty extensive. Representing Reality is certainly the fundamental text, but I'd also recommend Ideology and the Image and Blurred Boundaries.
Some others might include Alan Rosenthal's The Documentary Conscience, Michael Renov's Theorizing Documentary.
Some others might include Alan Rosenthal's The Documentary Conscience, Michael Renov's Theorizing Documentary.
- Askew
- Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:23 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
Can anyone recommend the best book on the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder?
- rossen
- Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 3:23 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
I have Thomas Elsaesser's Fassbinder's Germany, which is pretty good and has an extended commentary on the films at the end. Another good book is Cristhian Braad Thomsen's Fassbinder: The Life And Work Of A Provocative Genius.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
In my opinion, the best scholarly monograph remains to be written, but Christian Braad Thomsen's Fassbinder: The Life And Work Of A Provocative Genius is a good try. The book just can't decide what it wants to be, and the writing is very dense and dry, so it's not a very rewarding read. I have not yet looked at A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a collection of essays edited by Brigitte Peucker, so I don't know if that's any good. It looks like it might be, though.
I'd say the best overall book on Fassbinder is still the collection of Fassbinder's own essays and interviews, The Anarchy of the Imagination. Most directors are not good interpreters of their own work, but Fassbinder knew what he was talking about.
I'd say the best overall book on Fassbinder is still the collection of Fassbinder's own essays and interviews, The Anarchy of the Imagination. Most directors are not good interpreters of their own work, but Fassbinder knew what he was talking about.
- Askew
- Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:23 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
Thanks guys, I'll check out both Fassbinder: The Life And Work Of A Provocative Genius and The Anarchy of the Imagination.
-
- Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:36 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
Indiana University Press holds a "Back to School Sale" (40%-60% off; Enter code SCHOOL) until September 15. You might want to look at their Cinema Studies section: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/index.php?cPath=6043" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- Cronenfly
- Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:04 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
If you don't have the Quandt Bresson book already, $15.98 is a very good price indeed.Zaki wrote:Indiana University Press holds a "Back to School Sale" (40%-60% off; Enter code SCHOOL) until September 15. You might want to look at their Cinema Studies section: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/index.php?cPath=6043" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- Red Screamer
- Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:34 pm
- Location: Tativille, IA
Re: The Best Books About Film
You can get David Bordwell's excellent book "Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema" for free here.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
Jane Feuer's the Hollywood Musical is great and an absolute steal at seven bucks and change.
Per our debate on psychoanalysis, Christian Metz' notorious the Imaginary Signifier is also eligible at around ten bucks and highly recommended but fair warning it is not an easy read.
Stephen Heath's Questions of Cinema is another not easy read but has some fascinating strict film approaches nonetheless, and is another bargain at around twelve bucks.
Though I prefer Metz' Film Semiotics, Peter Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema is a classic of the practice and only a shade under nine dollars.
Per our debate on psychoanalysis, Christian Metz' notorious the Imaginary Signifier is also eligible at around ten bucks and highly recommended but fair warning it is not an easy read.
Stephen Heath's Questions of Cinema is another not easy read but has some fascinating strict film approaches nonetheless, and is another bargain at around twelve bucks.
Though I prefer Metz' Film Semiotics, Peter Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema is a classic of the practice and only a shade under nine dollars.
- YnEoS
- Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:30 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
So I just finished reading Barry Salt's Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis. Are there any other books out there that contain this kind of level of detailed analysis, perhaps devoted to more specific times and places in film history?
Not so concerned about all the graphs and ASL stuff, but just authors who've made a fairly exhaustive effort to watch a whole ton of films from the period they're analyzing, with some knowledge of what tools and conventions were at the filmmakers' disposal.
Not so concerned about all the graphs and ASL stuff, but just authors who've made a fairly exhaustive effort to watch a whole ton of films from the period they're analyzing, with some knowledge of what tools and conventions were at the filmmakers' disposal.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
The obvious recommendation seems to be Bordwell, Thompson, and Staiger's The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. I would also recommend Bordwell's On the History of Film Style.
- YnEoS
- Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:30 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
I owe a lot to Bordwell and Thompson for getting me interested in film history in the first place. But amusingly Barry Salt criticizes that specific book in the afterword to the 2nd edition of Film Style and Technology.
Since the first edition of this book there has been a practical demonstration of the pitfalls for the uninformed trying to do this kind of work, in Bordwell and Thompson's The Classical Hollywood Cinema (Routledge, 1985). Here the authors repeatedly miss key points, or get them wrong because of their incompetence in film technique, aided by their conceit that a Ph.D. in Film Studies, combined with as many footnotes as possible, is all you need to produce useful knowledge. In any case, written sources alone should not be trusted, as I have illustrated at one or two points along the way.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
Some dude calls Bordwell, Thompson, and Staiger "uninformed" in the afterword because no one would have read any further had it appeared earlier. That work is one of the most seminal and well-respected works of classical Hollywood academic study, period.
- YnEoS
- Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:30 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
Actually, I think he criticizes them in the beginning of the book as well.
I still found his methodical style of film analysis useful, despite his repeated attempts to make an ass of himself by dismissing the validity of all other methods of study.
I still found his methodical style of film analysis useful, despite his repeated attempts to make an ass of himself by dismissing the validity of all other methods of study.
- YnEoS
- Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:30 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
I've got something of a confused broad request for book recommendations (or more likely several recommendations), so if anyone knows of any good books that are even remotely tangentially related, I would like to hear about them.
Basically I'm looking for some sort of history/industrial study of the american grindhouse circuit, or more broadly anything dealing with international markets for any sort of popular and/or exploitation film industries.
I'm not 100% sure exactly what I'm looking for, but in my head I feel like the best places to start looking would be the history of American independent films and exploitation, as well as Japanese and Italian exploitation films and any other industries that had some sort of popular global influence.
The impetus for this is I've been reading lots of books on HK cinema lately, and I really like hearing about how certain actors are picked because they're popular in some certain foreign market, also what national cinemas various countries are exposed to and how that influences the films they make. Basically I'm trying to get some sort of idea of different perspectives on how global cinema evolved. Rather than frequent histories of various national studios or the evolution of the international arthouse scene, I'm looking for what sort of movies an average filmmaker anywhere in the world would be watching, and how various national/popular cinemas influence each other. I'm also not necessarily looking for things specifically on exploitation/popular genres, it just seems that these are often the most influential and travel the farthest internationally, outside of arthouse circuits.
Sorry if this is somewhat of a confusing post, again it's one of those things where I won't really know exactly what to look for until I read it. So if anyone knows of anything vaguely related that would be extremely helpful, and perhaps after some initial research I'll be able to better phrase exactly what it is what it's looking for.
Basically I'm looking for some sort of history/industrial study of the american grindhouse circuit, or more broadly anything dealing with international markets for any sort of popular and/or exploitation film industries.
I'm not 100% sure exactly what I'm looking for, but in my head I feel like the best places to start looking would be the history of American independent films and exploitation, as well as Japanese and Italian exploitation films and any other industries that had some sort of popular global influence.
The impetus for this is I've been reading lots of books on HK cinema lately, and I really like hearing about how certain actors are picked because they're popular in some certain foreign market, also what national cinemas various countries are exposed to and how that influences the films they make. Basically I'm trying to get some sort of idea of different perspectives on how global cinema evolved. Rather than frequent histories of various national studios or the evolution of the international arthouse scene, I'm looking for what sort of movies an average filmmaker anywhere in the world would be watching, and how various national/popular cinemas influence each other. I'm also not necessarily looking for things specifically on exploitation/popular genres, it just seems that these are often the most influential and travel the farthest internationally, outside of arthouse circuits.
Sorry if this is somewhat of a confusing post, again it's one of those things where I won't really know exactly what to look for until I read it. So if anyone knows of anything vaguely related that would be extremely helpful, and perhaps after some initial research I'll be able to better phrase exactly what it is what it's looking for.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
I recommend to you without hesitation Eric Schaefer's Bold! Daring! Shocking! True: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959.
- Matt
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
The University of California press has 770 books available free online, including 16 film titles.
There are a few excellent scholarly books here, including Charles Musser's Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company and Roberta Pearson's Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films. It would be great if they'd put up Lotte Eisner's long-OOP book on Murnau.
You can't download them (at least not easily as PDFs or e-book files), but they can be read via web browser.
There are a few excellent scholarly books here, including Charles Musser's Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company and Roberta Pearson's Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films. It would be great if they'd put up Lotte Eisner's long-OOP book on Murnau.
You can't download them (at least not easily as PDFs or e-book files), but they can be read via web browser.
- Red Screamer
- Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:34 pm
- Location: Tativille, IA
The Best Books About Film
Cinematic States by Gareth Higgins is a great read. Some of his movie picks are better than others (I imagine it will ruffle some board members' feathers that he chose Footloose for Oklahoma) but all the essays are thoughtful, passionate and often times very funny. The chapter on Massachusetts written in the voice of the shark from Jaws and stories like having to prepare for bombings while going to the drive-in in Belfast, alone justify giving this book a read
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: The Best Books About Film
Does anyone know of good (in print) books on Jonas Mekas particularly with regards to the diary films. Also if there's ever been a book written about Jerzy Kawalerowicz's relationship to Judaism that would be great too.
- Tom Amolad
- Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:30 pm
- Location: New York
Re: Film Criticism
Could some kind soul direct me to some good books or essays on gender and the western (especially the classical western)? I'm particularly looking for scholarly and semi-scholarly stuff, or classic journalistic statements that themselves that became influential.
Did Robin Wood ever write any essays specifically about gender and the western (or particular westerns)? The concern hovers around his various writings on Hawks, but I'd love to find something more specifically on the topic.
Did Robin Wood ever write any essays specifically about gender and the western (or particular westerns)? The concern hovers around his various writings on Hawks, but I'd love to find something more specifically on the topic.
- Gregory
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm
Re: Film Criticism
His monograph on Rio Bravo (BFI Film Classics) was really informed by a lot of his usual concerns, including gender and sexuality. There's some more in his early book Howard Hawks, and the 2006 edition has a new introduction along with the 1981 intro, but the westerns are just one facet of his overall analysis of Hawks's work. Aside from that, the western that he wrote most extensively about was probably Heaven's Gate.
The best, most accessible book in this area that I know of is the anthology The Book of the Western, edited by Ian Cameron and Douglas Pye (published in the UK as The Movie Book of the Western). It's just crammed with good essays, many of which incorporate gender, class, race, and other dimensions of the genre. Wood's essays in it are about Drums Along the Mohawk and Duel in the Sun, and both have some discussion of gender and domestic/family roles in the films.
The best, most accessible book in this area that I know of is the anthology The Book of the Western, edited by Ian Cameron and Douglas Pye (published in the UK as The Movie Book of the Western). It's just crammed with good essays, many of which incorporate gender, class, race, and other dimensions of the genre. Wood's essays in it are about Drums Along the Mohawk and Duel in the Sun, and both have some discussion of gender and domestic/family roles in the films.
- ianthemovie
- Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:51 am
- Location: Boston, MA
- Contact:
Re: The Best Books About Film
Several years ago I taught an undergraduate writing course on the Western genre and found the following books helpful:
The Western Reader , edited by Jim Kitses and Gregg Rickman - great anthology of writings on the Western genre form the 1960s to the 90s. Authors range from J. Hoberman and Robin Wood to Sherman Alexie and Andre Bazin. Kitses' own "Authorship and Genre: Notes on the Western" (1969) is a good foundational piece.
Horizons West, by Jim Kitses - looks at a handful of major Western auteur filmmakers (Ford, Eastwood, Leone, Peckinpach, et al.) and discusses their themes and styles in relation to the genre as a whole. Very readable and engaging. (Relatedly, Kitses' audio commentary track on the Criterion edition of Stagecoach is very good.)
West of Everything, by Jane Tompkins - great feminist reading of gender in the Western. Tompkins' argument is forceful but even-handed and sensitive (she's clearly a fan of Westerns, even as she's aware of their flaws) and her writing is wonderful. Her background is in 19th-century American lit, not film studies, so she will often discuss the films in reference to novels and other cultural texts (paintings, etc.) from the period. Her analysis doesn't focus so much on particular films (though she discusses Red River at some length) than on the individual elements of genre as a whole (including a whole chapter on horses!). If you're interested in gender and the Western, I would start here.
Ward Churchill's writings on Native American representations are also worth looking at. Very provocative and interesting. Ex. "Fantasies of the Master Race" and "Lawrence of South Dakota" (an analysis of Dances with Wolves).
From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western, by Patrick McGee - I recall being frustrated with this books, which I believe takes a more Lacanian/psychoanalytic approach to the genre and was fairly dense, but may or many not be useful to you depending on your needs.
There's also a recent collection of essays on The Searchers, edited by Peter Lehman, in which contributors take a range of critical positions on that film (race, gender, etc.)
I know Robin Wood's BFI monograph on Rio Bravo has already been mentioned but Edward Buscombe's BFI books on The Searchers and Unforgiven are also very good.
J. Hoberman also discusses a number of 1940s and '50s Westerns (The Searchers, High Noon, Fort Apache) in reference to Cold War-era politics in his recent book An Army of Phantoms.
Hope this helps.
The Western Reader , edited by Jim Kitses and Gregg Rickman - great anthology of writings on the Western genre form the 1960s to the 90s. Authors range from J. Hoberman and Robin Wood to Sherman Alexie and Andre Bazin. Kitses' own "Authorship and Genre: Notes on the Western" (1969) is a good foundational piece.
Horizons West, by Jim Kitses - looks at a handful of major Western auteur filmmakers (Ford, Eastwood, Leone, Peckinpach, et al.) and discusses their themes and styles in relation to the genre as a whole. Very readable and engaging. (Relatedly, Kitses' audio commentary track on the Criterion edition of Stagecoach is very good.)
West of Everything, by Jane Tompkins - great feminist reading of gender in the Western. Tompkins' argument is forceful but even-handed and sensitive (she's clearly a fan of Westerns, even as she's aware of their flaws) and her writing is wonderful. Her background is in 19th-century American lit, not film studies, so she will often discuss the films in reference to novels and other cultural texts (paintings, etc.) from the period. Her analysis doesn't focus so much on particular films (though she discusses Red River at some length) than on the individual elements of genre as a whole (including a whole chapter on horses!). If you're interested in gender and the Western, I would start here.
Ward Churchill's writings on Native American representations are also worth looking at. Very provocative and interesting. Ex. "Fantasies of the Master Race" and "Lawrence of South Dakota" (an analysis of Dances with Wolves).
From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western, by Patrick McGee - I recall being frustrated with this books, which I believe takes a more Lacanian/psychoanalytic approach to the genre and was fairly dense, but may or many not be useful to you depending on your needs.
There's also a recent collection of essays on The Searchers, edited by Peter Lehman, in which contributors take a range of critical positions on that film (race, gender, etc.)
I know Robin Wood's BFI monograph on Rio Bravo has already been mentioned but Edward Buscombe's BFI books on The Searchers and Unforgiven are also very good.
J. Hoberman also discusses a number of 1940s and '50s Westerns (The Searchers, High Noon, Fort Apache) in reference to Cold War-era politics in his recent book An Army of Phantoms.
Hope this helps.
- Tom Amolad
- Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:30 pm
- Location: New York
Re: The Best Books About Film
Thanks to you both -- and also to the moderators for moving my question to this more appropriate thread, which my memory had conflated with the criticism thread.
-
- Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:52 am
- Location: New York City
Re: The Best Books About Film
Buscombe also has a BFI on Stagecoach that has some good info on Ford and early westerns. Robert Self also wrote an excellent book on Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller which while focusing mostly on the film and revisionist westerns includes some good points contrasting it to classical westerns in styles, tropes, techniques, etc.
- Satori
- Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 10:32 am
Re: The Best Books About Film
Hi, does anyone know of a good book on the history of pornographic film in the U.S.? I am particularly interested in the changing material contexts of distribution and exhibition, and not so much in textual analysis. A book that covered the intersections between the material histories of mainstream and gay porn would be especially helpful. Thanks.