The Best Books About Film

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filmyfan · #351 Post by **filmyfan** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:49 pm

Having finally got round to watching my Lost Horizon DVD at the weekend and been throughly fascinated by the whole thing-is anyone one aware of the best literature on Capra ?-I read the biogaphy by McBride some years ago and maybe should revisit it but is there anything specific to Lost Horizon itself-it doesnt't appear so from my quick web search....the whole background to the history, missing footage, restoration would make a great book i would think and the chap (Kendall Miller) who does the documentary on the DVD seems to know his stuff about the film !

yukiyuki · #352 Post by **yukiyuki** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:25 pm

filmyfan wrote:Having finally got round to watching my Lost Horizon DVD at the weekend and been throughly fascinated by the whole thing-is anyone one aware of the best literature on Capra ?-I read the biogaphy by McBride some years ago and maybe should revisit it but is there anything specific to Lost Horizon itself-it doesnt't appear so from my quick web search....the whole background to the history, missing footage, restoration would make a great book i would think and the chap (Kendall Miller) who does the documentary on the DVD seems to know his stuff about the film !

how about the one by Ray Carney? Is it any good?

ellipsis7 · #353 Post by **ellipsis7** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:29 pm

Capra was unusually one of Cassavetes' favourite directors...

Jean-Luc Garbo · #354 Post by **Jean-Luc Garbo** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:26 pm

Is Marvin D'Lugo's book on Carlos Saura any good?

King Prendergast · Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:51 pm

How about some philosophy of film suggestions... not Continental-style film studies mind you, but hard core Anglo-American, analytical philosophy of film books?

davebert · #356 Post by **davebert** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:19 pm

Here's another suggestion request to add to the pile. I hope some of our resident experts can help me.

I am interested in finding a good book that covers the history of the Japanese studios, either a broader reading of all them, or a specific tome on Toho, Shochiku, Nikkatsu, etc. I saw mention of the Nikkatsu Action Cinema book, but the New York Public Library doesn't have it.

Long ago I read some of Ritchie's broader books about Japanese film (are these still definitive? I thought I remembered reading criticism here that beyond the groundbreaking nature of his study, many of the theses were flawed... or maybe that was Bordwell or someone else), as well as many director biographies, which provided anecdotes of production and background politics, but only through the lens of Kurosawa, Ozu, etc.

Rufus T. Firefly · Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:35 pm

There's a very interesting and well researched book called The Imperial Screen by Peter B. High, which covers film production during 1931-1945. It has some info on the various studios and how they came under the control of the bureaucracy, though the focus tends to be more on narrative trends in cinema of the period. The Nikkatsu book, which I haven't had the chance to read yet as it only arrived on Monday, takes the form of biographies of major stars and directors with some interviews. Other than those and the Ritchie books, I'm not aware of anything that deals in depth with studio histories. You could try asking on one of the specialist forums, like Samurai Archives Citadel or Ninja Dojo, although the tendency on those is more towards fanboy appreciation of genre films and not cinema history.

EDIT: I've just found a new and expensive book by Stuart Galbraith called The Toho Studios Story that might fit your bill.

davebert · #358 Post by **davebert** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:10 pm

Cool, thanks! It just occurred to me a few days ago that while I feel school did a pretty good job illustrating American and European film origins (and some other national cinemas in East Asia which are later developments), I have no idea how Japanese film production started, and any juicy 100-year-old gossip contained therein.

perkizitore · #359 Post by **perkizitore** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:14 pm

Is this set of books worth purchasing: World Film Directors - Volumes 1 and 2

jbeall · #360 Post by **jbeall** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 1:54 pm

Stephanie Zacharek reviews Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema for the NY Times.

LQ · #361 Post by LQ » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:32 pm

Peter Bondanella's Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present is probably the single best panoramic guide to Italian cinema.

MichaelB · #362 Post by **MichaelB** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:42 pm

LQ wrote:Peter Bondanella's Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present is probably the single best panoramic guide to Italian cinema.

Seconded - and equivalents for other countries are The Czechoslovak New Wave by Peter Hames (which has a much wider range than the title implies), Hungarian Cinema by John Cunningham and Polish National Cinema by Marek Haltof. In all three cases they'd be my clear first choices if I wanted a single guide to the subject.

King Prendergast · Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:13 pm

jbeall wrote:Stephanie Zacharek reviews Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema for the NY Times.

Stephanie Zacharek is an idiot

Murdoch · #364 Post by **Murdoch** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:21 pm

King Prendergast wrote:
jbeall wrote:Stephanie Zacharek reviews Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema for the NY Times.
Stephanie Zacharek is an idiot

Richard Schickel's review was even worse, he spends the entire time trashing Godard for the most bullshit reasons. There's a link to it in the Godard filmmakers thread, but I'd suggest avoiding it if you want to keep your sanity.

Don Lope de Aguirre · Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:38 pm

After previous disappointments do we finally have the Mizoguchi book we have all been waiting for?

ellipsis7 · #366 Post by **ellipsis7** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:47 pm

I'm sticking with MacCabe's very fine JLG@70 - flicked through Brody's book but not persuaded....

#367 Post by **domino harvey** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:50 pm

A library just purchased my Taschen Antonioni book on Half.com-- now I can finally retire!

Hopscotch · #368 Post by **Hopscotch** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:28 pm

domino harvey wrote:A library just purchased my Taschen Antonioni book on Half.com-- now I can finally retire!

Did it go for a million dollars or something? I could swear I just saw a Taschen Antonioni book at Strand in New York. What I didn't see there was a single book on Godard!

Also, anyone here read My Last Sigh? I'll search for the title, but fresh opinions are welcome too if anyone's cracked it recently.

Banana #3 · #369 Post by **Banana #3** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:27 pm

Does anyone feel there is a definitive work about Stanley Kubrick?

peerpee · #370 Post by **peerpee** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:51 pm

Depends what you want to read? Opinion or facts? -- If you want facts and detail -- the big Taschen Kubrick book is absolutely immense.

Banana #3 · #371 Post by **Banana #3** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:01 am

I want comprehensive.

The greatest resource the Taschen book provides is in its imagery. The rest I find general, really, and full of information that can be found elsewhere.

Is Ciment's really good? That one seems technically definitive, but I really want comprehensive.

Highway 61 · #372 Post by **Highway 61** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:41 am

The answer, sadly, is no. Vincent Lobrutto's biography, published shortly before he died (although with no input for SK), disappointed me. As I remember it, the book devoted far too much space to quoting Kubrick's collaborators who all more or less say that he was such a powerful personality, which, of course, everyone already knows. Michael Herr's significantly shorter Kubrick conveys the same image of the man in many, many less pages. Lobrutto, however, includes lots of info on Kubrick's youth and early filmmaking days that may very well be of interest to you. But as soon as his London, recluse years come, the well runs dry.

Cimet's book is indeed the best that I've come across. He mixes analysis with interviews and plenty of great pics. Frankly, it's better than the super expensive Taschen book.

I also enjoyed Robert Kolker's A Cinema of Loneliness, which analyzes Arthur Penn, Scorsese, Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Altman, and Kubrick. A great book.

The very reliable James Naremore recently published a very academic analysis of the director's work. Although I haven't read it, I'm guessing it's among the best critical discussions out there.

The absolute worst book is Frederic Raphael's Eyes Wide Open. Raphael has no problem hiding his contempt for Kubrick and EWS; it's as if he only worked with him so he could drop his name at a party.

Frankly, we won't see a definitive book on Kubrick until his estate gives a solid film historian/biographer unlimited access to his archives, which is fairly likely actually.

Blissful Sinner · Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:53 am

My personal favorite Kubrick book is Stanley Kubrick: Interviews.
It's just a collection of interviews that Kubrick did over the years, but it gives pretty good insight into his process that I've read.

Plus reading Kubrick talk about anything is pretty damn enjoyable.

Elmyr · #374 Post by **Elmyr** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:08 am

Perhaps not comprehensive in the way you're looking for, but the Naremore book is excellent and the best critical study of Kubrick that I've read. Ciment's book is good and has some great interviews but something about his writing and the structure of that book always left me cold.

Cinetwist · #375 Post by **Cinetwist** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:10 am

Highway 61 wrote:Frankly, we won't see a definitive book on Kubrick until his estate gives a solid film historian/biographer unlimited access to his archives, which is fairly likely actually.

is extensive archives, the most sparwaling personal archives I've ever seen (1000 boxes), have just been donated to the University of the Arts London. And anyone is allowed access to the stuff, so any new biographers have no excuse for not making use of it all. Here's a documentary on it.

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