The Best Books About Film

[Maltic]

I have a few copies of the first volume ('Aldrich to King').

I've attempted to buy vol. 2 ('Kinugasa to Zanussi'), or both volumes together, a number of times on Amazon Marketplace, but I keep receiving just another copy of vol. 1...

It's a great book, but when it occurs to me to look up a particular director, it'll usually be someone from the latter part of the alphabet, and I'm, like, "doh!"

[reaky]

Yes, my immediate reaction to a dictionary of directors was “Ah, Lang, Ozu, Powell, Sirk, Sternberg, Welles, Wilder!” My taste in directors is oddly weighted towards the second half of the alphabet.

[domino harvey]

Love Roud, have his books on Godard and Langlois but haven't checked those comps out yet-- thanks for the rec!

[Maltic]

Langlois himself has an article on early French cinema in vol. 1.

I thought I'd give vol. 2 another go. It had been a few years since my last attempt. Hopefully Ebay does better than Marketplace.

[Maltic]

Thanks to eBay, I finally have both volumes.

A few of editor Roud's comments and updates (which he has put in bold after each entry/article in the book):

I do not share Gillett's and many others' enthusiasm for what little of Kinugasa's work I have seen. And I find it hard to believe that Kinugasa had not seen any German expressionist films before making his in any case overrated curiousity A Page of Madness.

The presence of Robert Kramer and the absence of Stanley Kramer from this Dictionary are not accidental.

It would seem that the 'spaghetti Western' has gone into decline. Leone has not been active of late (except as producer), and the Trinità series gets more mediocre with each film. A temporary eclipse of the genre, or is it played out? I'd plumb for the latter explanation, but we shall see.

[Per] Lindberg cannot even be said to be a 'subject for further research', because, as far as I know, very few people have seen any of his films. He is the only director in this Dictionary about whom this could be said. Is Cozarinsky right? Perhaps we shall find out one day; meanwhile, Lindberg has his place in this Dictionary as a salutary example of terra incognita in film history

[therewillbeblus]

Does anybody know if there's an English-friendly physical copy or PDF available of the Cahiers du Cinema issue entirely devoted to analyzing Leos Carax' Les Amants du Pont-Neuf ?

[beamish14]

Does anybody know if there's an English-friendly physical copy or PDF available of the Cahiers du Cinema issue entirely devoted to analyzing Leos Carax' Les Amants du Pont-Neuf ?

Is this the October 1991 issue with it on the cover, or is there another?

[therewillbeblus]

Does anybody know if there's an English-friendly physical copy or PDF available of the Cahiers du Cinema issue entirely devoted to analyzing Leos Carax' Les Amants du Pont-Neuf ?

Is this the October 1991 issue with it on the cover, or is there another?

I'd imagine so - I just know they did an entire issue on it around the time of release

[domino harvey]

It's available as part of a big torrent of Cahiers du Cinema on back channels (issues 301-500-something), but you'll need to translate it

[therewillbeblus]

It's available as part of a big torrent of Cahiers du Cinema on back channels (issues 301-500-something), but you'll need to translate it

I saw that and figured I'd be able to find it in there, but didn't know the issue number and don't know how to translate. Thanks anyways!

[TechnicolorAcid]

It's available as part of a big torrent of Cahiers du Cinema on back channels (issues 301-500-something), but you'll need to translate it

I saw that and figured I'd be able to find it in there, but didn't know the issue number and don't know how to translate. Thanks anyways!

Found this:

Supplement to the n°448, 01.10.1991, under the direction of Leos Carrax on the occasion of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf release's in cinema.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks, that seems to be the right one - There's just a long segment dedicated to it, but that makes more sense than an entire magazine!

[Orson Kane]

I'm looking for books about how to critically evaluate or read subtexts into films?

Recently, I listened to a Video Archives podcast with Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. Avary said that a significant moment in his filmmaking career came from a professor of film studies who would do in depth readings into films that otherwise might not be considered for detailed review. Specifically he referenced "Repo Man" and how his views on the film and Alex Cox completely changed as a consequence for a film he'd originally viewed as just a gonzo comedy.

The other reason is, I'm an aspiring filmmaker so also like to read critical analyses like this and see if I can do it off my own back for films I've found either too obscure or other without many redeeming qualities and see if I can figure something out of it. It would be great to be able to go back to films like Gasper Noe's "Irreversible" or Srđan Spasojević's "A Serbian Film" and see if there's anything worth critically evaluating for a future filmmaker.

Thanks

[domino harvey]

Monaco’s How to Read a Film, Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction (as this is a textbook, you can probably find an older edition for next to nothing used), Thomson’s How to Watch a Movie

[ianthemovie]

Learning how to critically evaluate and analyze film is the project of a lifetime, one that you shouldn't expect to master after reading a single book! That said, if you're interested in horror and exploitation film some other good foundational texts that might help you get started are Robin Wood's writings on horror cinema, such as the anthology Robin Wood on the Horror Film, and Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol Clover. Both of these authors were foundational in turning a serious critical eye on "low-brow" horror and slasher movies, analyzing them for their political and social subtexts with a focus on gender and sexuality. Richard Dyer might also be a good person to look at for this, as he performed intelligent critical readings of various "disreputable" cultural forms including slasher movies, pornography, disco music, etc.

These titles are slightly old and dated now but they still hold up pretty well, and the underlying analytical principles are rigorous. There have since been many more such attempts to critically examine low-brow/trash cinemas but to my mind they are not always very careful or nuanced.

[The Curious Sofa]

It's often good to start with the classics and studying Hitchcock was my key to understanding subtext in genre/commercial cinema and there is so much writing on him. I especially like Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films Revisted, The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory by Tania Modleski, The Philosophical Hitchcock: Vertigo and the Anxieties of Unknowingness by Robert Pippin but there are many others (just stay away from Donald Spoto).

If you are looking for writing on films on the intersection of art, trash and horror, look out for Stephen Thrower (especially Eyeball Compendium unfortunately OOP and hard to come by) and Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women), though both writers mostly deal with films from the 60s, 70s and 80s. They also contribute to many genre documentaries and DVD/BD commentaries.

A few essays are making a case for A Serbian Film, you'll find them on the Wikipedia page under "Academic Writing" and there may be similar ones on Gaspar Noe's films.

[therewillbeblus]

Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films Revisted

Highly recommended, if only for the best Marnie defense I've ever read. It's not common for me to reread the same bit of film criticism around every viewing, but I do with this one

[The Curious Sofa]

"If you don't like Marnie, you don't really like Hitchcock. But if you don't love Marnie, you don't really love cinema.”

Robin Wood (also recommended by ianthemovie) is one of the best writers on film to make you understand subtext.

[domino harvey]

If we are recommending actual works of film criticism/analysis to someone dipping their toes in the water, better to go with something like the Norton Reader for Film Analysis (also available cheap in a first edition), with dozens of films discussed in depth by dozens of critics

[NWRdr4]

I’ll echo the praise for Robin Wood. I don’t share many (if any) of the overtly political lenses that he utilizes to dissect films, but I still find his writings invaluable and return to them often. He has a knack for guiding you through his thought processes that helps you develop a critical eye of your own.

Since both he and Noé’s Irréversible were brought up earlier, it’s worth noting that Wood wrote a detailed essay of the film for Film International that can be found free online here.

[Mr Sausage]

Is there a good collected edition of Wood’s writing?

[Maltic]

Apart from the horror anthology, 3 collections were published.

Personal Views (mid 1970s)
Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (mid 1980s)
Sexual Politics (mid 1990s)

They were later re-issued with new articles added.

The first one is still largely "auteurist", while the latter two have his brand of Marx/Freud and that.

They're all Leavisite, though.

Here's a detailed bibliography

[domino harvey]

That linked bibliography is a great resource, thanks for sharing! I had no idea Movie released a guide to the Apu Trilogy— I can recommend the editions on Chabrol and Antonioni, and I need to read the Bergman one. Didn’t know there was one for Penn either, and it covers all of his films I’d want to read about too!

[Dr Amicus]

For Hammer fans, Wayne Kinsey has been producing limited edition books collating a lot of the information from his earlier magazines and books along with new details. I’ve missed ones on set design and Bray Studios, but have the first two volumes of The House That Hammer Built, a lavish film by film history of the Hinds/ Carreras years. Volume 2 arrived today, 1950-1954, and it looks hugely impressive. Available, at the moment at least, from the website at www.peverilpublishing.co.uk.

[soundchaser]

I am deeply torn by Carrie Courogen's recent biography of Elaine May Miss May Does Not Exist. On the one hand, it is a remarkable compiling of thorough research (who else has taken the time to examine May's later theatrical writings in context?), and its difficult central figure makes even attempting a biography like this a feat worth celebrating. On the other hand (or perhaps another side of the same hand), there's too much Courogen and not enough May here, and the glimpses of the former do not paint her in a flattering light. The prose is pedestrian, except when it's unbearably twee. For example: Courogen calls May "Elaine" throughout, which I can't help feeling is a deeply insufferable choice that's designed to rile people like me -- concerned at least a little with this book's "stature" -- up. All it does, in my mind, is make the book lesser than. It's clear Courogen has come from the blog -> film magazine pipeline, and while there have certainly been great writers to come out of that world, the evidence here suggests she's not one of them. I don't want to make too much of the introduction, in which she admits gleefully to having stalked May through the mail and in person, but it sets the tone for the rest of the work: a half-baked psychoanalysis-cum-feminist-manifesto that does a disservice to May's talent, her difficult personality, and the precarious nature of the film industry at large.

At one point, Courogen asks why filmmakers like Bogdanovich and Coppola weren't landed in director jail after high-profile disasters, and it's enough to make you want to throw the book across the room. The former's career DID tank at a certain point, after which time he was relegated to for-hire TV movies; the latter saw a huge return on investment from Apocalypse Now. Had Mikey and Nicky or Ishtar (a film I deeply love, to be clear) made three times their initial budgets, I suspect May would have directed more features. Using Bogdanovich and Coppola specifically to make this point suggests Courogen distrusts her audience to know better, or to think about anything beyond the cultural relevance of those two names. "These two are men, and so they had an easier time of it" is the depth of analysis here.

Lest anyone accuse me of being a reactionary: I am not opposed to a feminist manifesto biography of May, even a second-wave one. She was a trailblazer for women in comedy and film and "the arts," broadly. A book that takes seriously the challenges of being a woman in those fields in the mid-to-late 20th century would be a welcome one. But Courogen uses this approach too sparingly, dropped in whenever she needs to undercut Mike Nichols's relative successes or excuse away May's eccentricities. This bio is not tied together by this supposed through-line; it's less a heuristic than a "well, obviously," and it lends no insights into the subject it's supposed to be discussing.

This specific issue is emblematic of a larger issue with the book, and with Courogen's thesis. May is a well-known liar, she posits, and so it's impossible to know what she was really thinking at any given time. The obvious solution, then, is to take a work-central approach: let May's art speak, since she is not a trustable source about her own life. Let this be less a traditional biography of a person -- because at the end of the day, why does it need to be? -- and more a celebration of these great works that are finally getting their due. But Courogen doesn't do that. She spends little time discussing the films themselves beyond superficial thoughts about their scripts, and even her analysis of May's theatrical work (which, again, I welcome!) is focused more on their reception than their content. This is Elaine May, even Elaine May the artist, as centrifuge -- everything revolves around her, wildly, with free-wheeling glee; but nothing comes close to actually reaching her. The great biographers can figure out a way out of that trap. The conclusion Courogen reaches? "In an age where we know too much about too many people, Miss May insists on remaining unknowable, seen but never truly seen."

"Maybe Elaine hates awards for the very reason that Warren Beatty tried to convince her to go: because she's scared."

With respect: we're all scared. But nobody's writing a book about me.