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Hope this isn't repeat info but I think Garrett Stewart is pretty fascinating. He was a professor of mine at the University of Iowa. I've only delved into this one:



It goes about as deep as can be imagined into how photography (actual single photograms, photographic technology, and the photograms that make up a film) operates as a foundational and metaphoric trope in cinema.

....but this looks and sounds great as well:

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni claimed, three decades ago, that different conceptions of time helped define the split in film between European humanism and American science fiction. And as Garrett Stewart argues here, this transatlantic division has persisted since cinema’s 1995 centenary, made more complex by the digital technology that has detached movies from their dependence on the sequential frames of the celluloid strip. Brilliantly interpreting dozens of recent films—from Being John Malkovich, Donnie Darko, and The Sixth Sense to La mala educación and Caché —Stewart investigates how their treatments of time reflect the change in media from film’s original rolling reel to today’s digital pixel. He goes on to show—with 140 stills—how American and European narratives confront this shift differently: while Hollywood movies tend to revolve around ghostly afterlives, psychotic doubles, or violent time travel, their European counterparts more often feature second sight, erotic telepathy, or spectral memory. Stewart questions why these recent plots, in exploring temporality, gravitate toward either supernatural or uncanny apparitions rather than themes of digital simulation. In doing so, he provocatively continues the project he began with Between Film and Screen, breaking new ground in visual studies, cinema history, and media theory.

tojoed wrote:

ellipsis7 wrote:It's good, but Rosenbaum (who translated it) says it is the lesser of the two books Bazin wrote on Welles, and retrospectively he realises he gave his attentions to the wrong one.

What's the title of the other one? I don't know it. Has it beeen translated?

It hasn't been translated, and is Bazin's 1950 book on Orson Welles, not the different critical study published towards the end of Bazin's life, translated as 'Orson Welles - A Critical View', English version published first in 1978... See Rosenbaum's 'Discovering Orson Welles' for references...

Thanks, Ellipsis, I'll check out Rosenbaum.

I'm teaching an upper-level undergraduate seminar on German cinema in the spring and am trying to find a book to use. Does anyone know a good book that focuses on the history of German film, but that also emphasizes some theory as well as technology and the the basics of film language? I would prefer a book in German (since that's the language the course will be taught in), but English would be fine, too.

Any suggestions?

Thorold Dickinson - A World of Film just published by Manchester University Press. For any admirers of The Queen of Spades and the original Gaslight (and I'd like to think there are many) this collection of essays, memoirs, and interviews about Dickinson should be worthwhile, if a little expensive. It also contains a 100 page dossier of his own writings about film. John Boorman says of Dickinson ".. he had Michael Powell's daring.David Lean's taut editing and Carol Reed's emotional tension." Praise indeed.

denti alligator wrote:I'm teaching an upper-level undergraduate seminar on German cinema in the spring and am trying to find a book to use. Does anyone know a good book that focuses on the history of German film, but that also emphasizes some theory as well as technology and the the basics of film language? I would prefer a book in German (since that's the language the course will be taught in), but English would be fine, too.

Any suggestions?

You might try Thomas Elsaesser's "Weimar Cinema and after - Germany's historical imaginary". It includes a study of German films from 1920 to the late thirties, re-evaluation of the terms"Expressionist cinema" and "film noir", and a chapter on the writings of Siegfried Kracauer and Lottte Eisner.

Not much on the basics of film language, I'm afraid, but an excellent book on the whole period. Apologies Denti, if you have already considered this and found it not suitable.

Can anyone recommend some good books that deal with classical Hollywood musicals (any time from emergence of sound through the end of the Freed period)?

domino harvey wrote:Can anyone recommend some good books that deal with classical Hollywood musicals (any time from emergence of sound through the end of the Freed period)?

Essentials (the Altman, Fordin and Mast books in particular):

- Altman, Rick. The American Film Musical. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1987.
- Altman, Rick, ed. Genre: the Musical. London: BFI, 1981.
- Brooks, Jodi. ‘Ghosting the Machine: the Sounds of Tap and the Sounds of Film’. Screen 44.4, 355-378.
- Feuer, Jane. The Hollywood Musical. London: BFI, 1993.
- Fordin, Hugh. The World of Entertainment!. New York: Doubleday & Co, 1975.
- Kobal, John. Gotta Sing Gotta Dance. London: Hamlyn, 1983.
- Kreuger, Miles, ed. The Movie Musical from Vitaphone to 42nd Street. New York: Dover, 1975.
- Mast, Gerald. Can’t Help Singin’: the American Musical on Stage & Screen. New York: Overlook, 1987.
- Rubin, Martin. Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.

Might also be of use:

- Green, Stanley. Encyclopaedia of the Musical Film. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.
- Hoberman, J. 42nd Street. London: BFI, 1993.
- Willett, Ralph. ‘From Gold Diggers to Bar Girls’. Approaches to the American Musical. Exeter: Exeter UP, 1996. 44-54.

Agree on the recommendation of Altman's American Film Musical. Another good one is Gallafent's Astaire and Rogers -- insightful and well informed interpretations of the films and how they fit together, not only the Astaire-Rogers cycle but also the films the two made on their own in the late '30s and '40s.

THANK YOU Foggy Eyes and Gregory for the great tips, you've given me a lot of books to add to my list!

Buñuel and Mexico: The Crisis of National Cinema

Analyzes Bunuel's Mexican studio films from a perspective of Mexican socio-politics. Very refreshing to read somone who doesn't try to cram these films into a surrealist hole.

domino harvey wrote:Can anyone recommend some good books that deal with classical Hollywood musicals (any time from emergence of sound through the end of the Freed period)?

I can second that book by Mast. One of my favorite critics, he brings a lot of intelligence and humour to what he analyses. He's one of the few critics that makes me want to run and immediately watch the film he had just discussed.

Cartoonist, film expert and Tim Lucas compatriot Stephen Bissette mentions, on his blog here, the publication of what appears to be a superb book on Ray Harryhausen.

The full sized version of the Taschen Kubrick book has also been reprinted and is $127 at Amazon.

Can anyone recommend the best book out there on James Dean? One that covers his life and career?

Has anyone read this recently published biography of Claude Rains? It is called Claude Rains: An Actor’s Voice.

Linda Williams, the preeminent scholar of erotic cinema, has a new book out which is excellent, Screening Sex. Every bit an equal of her groundbreaking Hard Core.

Can anyone recommend some good books on film noir?

RobertAltman wrote:Can anyone recommend some good books on film noir?

More Than Night, Naremore, is the best overview.
Tom Gunning's book on Lang is very important as well.

King Prendergast wrote:

RobertAltman wrote:Can anyone recommend some good books on film noir?

More Than Night, Naremore, is the best overview.
Tom Gunning's book on Lang is very important as well.

Thanks, just ordered More Than Night. I was impressed with Naremore´s commentary track on Mr Arkadin, so hopefully this will be good.

If you're looking for something a little more specialized (i.e. harder) J.P. Telotte's Voices in the Dark is very good.

Not really a book about film, but Edward Steichen: In High Fashion has some absolutely gorgeous portraits of Hollywood stars (and some directors) from about 1923-1935. There are particularly stunning photos of Gloria Swanson, Dietrich, Garbo, Crawford, Nazimova, Loretta Young, and Lupe Vélez. There is also a picture of Ginger Rogers, unrecognizable in plump adolescence and dark hair, and one of Gary Cooper, age 29, being a stone cold fox (both from 1930).

Lynch on Lynch is one. My Last Sigh is another.

I wish I wasn't broke because that Steichen book just made my day! (I guess it's on my Christmas list now.) He's my favorite photographer. I have a framed poster-size reproduction of his Garbo portrait. I love all his work, but just that one in particular. I'm glad you posted this, Matt.

Which of the two recent Preminger books is superior? I get the sense that Fujiwara is the Michael Barrier to Hirsch's Neal Gabler.....

King Prendergast wrote:Which of the two recent Preminger books is superior? I get the sense that Fujiwara is the Michael Barrier to Hirsch's Neal Gabler.....

I haven't read the Preminger book yet (must pick it up soon), but it is almost certainly vastly superior. Fujiwara's study of Tourneur is superb, and from what I've heard the new one is very much in the same vein.