The Best Books About Film

[Never Cursed]

In 1969, Grove Press started a line of film scripts (different from the earlier Evergreen series) that did double duty as readers of contemporary press and critical reaction along with source material, if applicable, and ephemera related to the film, plus a ton of frame blow ups. Truly a Criterion Collection (ahem, or how it once was) approach to publishing scripts (one that the Rutgers series two decades later carried on, in part)

But I cannot find any source of how many films received this treatment. These are the only four I know of:

L’Avventura
Les quatre cents coups
Masculin Feminin
Rashomon

Is that it? I sure hope not, these things are incredible! The Godard one alone is a masterclass on what a book version of a deluxe boutique film release could be

One library to which I have access claims that, at the very least, an imprint named Grove Press published scripts for Tom Jones, La Nuit Americaine, and The Story of Adele H around that time. A similar edition of I Shot Andy Warhol (which reprinted, among other things, the SCUM Manifesto!) appeared much later. Do those four have an editor or author listed besides that of the screenwriters?

[domino harvey]

I can see inside the Tom Jones book on eBay, it’s just the script. Same for Adele H and Nuit (L’argent de poche likewise)

Grove Press was one of the original “outsider” presses. They also distributed movies, including I Am Curious (Yellow) and the original US run of Godard’s Week End!

[domino harvey]

Do those four have an editor or author listed besides that of the screenwriters?

I only have Masculin Feminin but ordered L’avventura and 400. The intro to MF mentions I Am Curious Yellow, which was published one year prior but it appears its only supplemental material is court transcripts about its obscenity trial (can’t be sure though, because it is unreasonably hard for sellers to photograph the table of contents for a book they’re selling). It also doesn’t match the cover style of the other four books

Consulting Editor: Pierre Billard
General Editor, Film Book Series: Robert Hughes

Their edition was also compiled with Godard’s input in addition to Billard’s choices

[Walter Kurtz]

"The Passenger" GP

[Matt]

I think there are more, but it's hard to say for certain. You say they're different from the Evergreen series? I'm not familiar with what was in that series. Did that have editions of the scripts for Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad?

I can find the four you listed in library catalogs, but they have "An Evergreen Black Cat book" as the series title, as well as "Film Book Series." But those four are the only ones I can find that have both series titles. There is a 1964 Grove Press edition of the script of Tom Jones with the "Film Book Series" title but not the "Evergreen Black Cat" series title, and then there are additional editions of scripts for films like The Passenger and The Story of Adele H. with the "Evergreen Black Cat" series title, but not "Film Book Series."

I can put together a list of what I can find within the next day or so. There aren't many, I just need to go to bed right now.

EDIT: oops, didn't see all the other responses above. But I'll still gather what I can find.

[pianocrash]

IIRC I Am Curious: Yellow was one of Grove’s all time best sellers, which is why it’s so easily available all these years later.

I went ahead & checked my copy (standard issue cover pb), and it is the complete script with heaps of b&w photos, along with the obscenity trial highlights, & nothing else

[domino harvey]

"The Passenger" GP

Includes two reviews, so better than some of these, but still not comparable to the four titles. These are books that run 280+ pages and a third of that is supplemental material, there’s no mistaking it. Can’t believe they didn’t do more of these if that’s in fact the case

Thanks Matt and pianocrash!

[therewillbeblus]

What are the best places to look for some of these Grove Press editions? I'm specifically interested in L’Avventura and Masculin Feminin. Looks like they're out of stock in many places

[domino harvey]

AbeBooks and eBay, or your local used book store if they have a film section. There’s a good looking copy of L’avventura on Abebooks for twelve bucks plus shipping (I hemmed between ordering it and one from eBay), Masculin Feminin (as Masculine Feminine btw) is much harder to find at a non obscene price right now but I think stuff like this goes in waves, I’ve seen it for like $20. Rashomon and 400 Blows seem more widely available at cheaper prices at the moment.

And I don’t have the Rutgers Film in Print versions of L’avventura or Rashomon but there’s a decent chance there is some overlap in the supplemental pieces (moot point for me since the Grove version was significantly cheaper than the Rutgers for the Antonioni anyways) - the Godard and Truffaut films did not receive the Rutgers treatment for these films (they did ones on Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player, the latter of which would surely be superfluous given Focus On book is fully dedicated to these kind of supplemental materials. Rohmer’s Maud and Truffaut’s Metro also received Rutgers editions)

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks, I ordered the L’avventura! I'll keep an eye out for the others

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Grove Press was one of the original “outsider” presses. They also distributed movies, including I Am Curious (Yellow) and the original US run of Godard’s Week End!

About twenty years ago I saw a 16mm screening of Weekend at a Dallas museum and it was a Grove print. It had of course completely faded to pink, and two scenes with long monologues delivered by offscreen characters (the garbagemen and the FLSO member reciting Lautréamont) were dubbed into English, which was very strange.

[domino harvey]

I am also tangentially reminded of the forgotten Dustin Hoffman/Mia Farrow vehicle John and Mary where the two lovers first meet by arguing about the film in a NYC bar. Other than one off festival showings, even a well known director like Godard didn’t have a lot of his films shown commercially outside of Paris until many years after release, if at all. But you gotta imagine this was one of the easiest of his films to market at the time to hip young audiences, so it totally makes sense that they’d invest in it.

Went down a rabbit hole last night of Grove Press’ Evergreen Review, which gradually went from a typical slightly with it literary journal to a counterculture artifact selling hippie porn. What a time to be alive!

[beamish14]

Barney Rosset, the founder of Grove Press, was a fascinating man. A documentary about him in his twilight years, when he was living off a pension in a small apartment after completely changing American culture forever by fighting for freedom of speech, is worth a watch