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There's a head to head of monographs come end september, LA GRANDE ILLUSION from BFI Film Classics & also IB Tauris French Film Series...

Has L'avventura gone out of print? It seems to be drying up everywhere: http://www.find-book.co.uk/0851705340.htm

I'm currently having a frenzy about BFI Film Classics books and am looking at buying a lot of them. However, considering how many there are and how, in total, it might amount to (both in terms of money, shelf space and time to read them), I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add.
I'm extremely curious, and don't care about buying stuff about movies I haven't seen or even heard about before, so feel free to add about whichever book you know.
I've only bought 8 so far (Olympia, The General, The Shining, Pandora's Box, The Birth of a Nation, The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, Night and the City) but have seen about 50 or so that might fit what I'm interested in / curious about.

tenia wrote:I'm currently having a frenzy about BFI Film Classics books and am looking at buying a lot of them. However, considering how many there are and how, in total, it might amount to (both in terms of money, shelf space and time to read them), I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add.
I'm extremely curious, and don't care about buying stuff about movies I haven't seen or even heard about before, so feel free to add about whichever book you know.
I've only bought 8 so far (Olympia, The General, The Shining, Pandora's Box, The Birth of a Nation, The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, Night and the City) but have seen about 50 or so that might fit what I'm interested in / curious about.

Camille Paglia's on The Birds made me laugh (in a good way) Sometimes its interesting when someone makes a case for The Sound of Music or Titanic, films which are popular classics rather than hugely admired films which have been written lots about by film historians. Simon Callow on The Night of The Hunter and Penelope Houston on Went the Day Well are great.

tenia wrote:I'm currently having a frenzy about BFI Film Classics books and am looking at buying a lot of them. However, considering how many there are and how, in total, it might amount to (both in terms of money, shelf space and time to read them), I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add.
I'm extremely curious, and don't care about buying stuff about movies I haven't seen or even heard about before, so feel free to add about whichever book you know.
I've only bought 8 so far (Olympia, The General, The Shining, Pandora's Box, The Birth of a Nation, The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, Night and the City) but have seen about 50 or so that might fit what I'm interested in / curious about.

I have approx 20-30 BFI classics and most are pretty good-and in fact I just started On the Waterfront a week or so ago and its a good one.

I tend to like the ones that talk about the director/production history and also analysis of scenes etc..but not all of them are like that.

Some of my faves are:-8 1/2, Sweet smell of Success, Cleo, Bringing up Baby, Chinatown, Double Indemnity, Rome Open City, Once Upon a Time in America.

But thats just me!

Just dip in and see what you think!

Gary Indiana's volume on Salo is great but eccentric. Mark Kermode's on The Exorcist is an essential if you like that film.

I would also highly recommend John Rockwell's book on The Idiots from the series, though that is from the modern classic strand.

tenia wrote:I'm currently having a frenzy about BFI Film Classics books and am looking at buying a lot of them. However, considering how many there are and how, in total, it might amount to (both in terms of money, shelf space and time to read them), I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add.
I'm extremely curious, and don't care about buying stuff about movies I haven't seen or even heard about before, so feel free to add about whichever book you know.
I've only bought 8 so far (Olympia, The General, The Shining, Pandora's Box, The Birth of a Nation, The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, Night and the City) but have seen about 50 or so that might fit what I'm interested in / curious about.

Is there a way to buy these en masse? I love them, but they're so short I never wind up picking them up

Thanks filmy, colin and Werewolf for your answers !

matrixschmatrix wrote:Is there a way to buy these en masse? I love them, but they're so short I never wind up picking them up

Not really. They're currently being published translated in France, so it got me curious, and it turns out many are quite cheap on Amazon.co.uk (down sometimes to £5.6 apiece). So I just strolled through the listings, placed aside those which might interest me, and now, I'm looking at a way to filter these down, because this list looks a bit too long.

tenia wrote:I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add. I'm extremely curious, and don't care about buying stuff about movies I haven't seen or even heard about before, so feel free to add about whichever book you know.
I've only bought 8 so far (Olympia, The General, The Shining, Pandora's Box, The Birth of a Nation, The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, Night and the City) but have seen about 50 or so that might fit what I'm interested in / curious about.

I would second the recommendation for Camille Paglia on The Birds, which is lots of fun. Salman Rushdie on The Wizard of Oz is superb--very droll, insightful, and deeply felt. Jonathan Rosenbaum on Greed is predictably smart. Michael Wood on Belle de Jour is great. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith on L'Avventura is quite good, if a tad dry. Mark Sanderson on Don't Look Now is impassioned, detailed, and poetic. I quite like David Thompson (not David Thomson) on Last Tango in Paris, which was instrumental in helping me understand and appreciate that film. Many other great titles: Simon Callow on Night of the Hunter, Amy Taubin on Taxi Driver, Michel Chion on Eyes Wide Shut, Yuri Tsivian on Ivan the Terrible...

Some titles I was less impressed by: Charles Maland on City Lights which is overlong and repetitive. Jon Lewis on The Godfather which is very thin on content and does not do justice to the greatness of that film. Iain Sinclair on Crash--overlong, digressive and pretentious. I found the volumes on Snow White and Far From Heaven both quite bad, making extremely simplistic or obvious points with no real depth to the analysis at all.

I will also put in a good word for Sue Vice on Shoah which does an excellent job unpacking that film, given its unwieldiness and challenging nature. Chris Darke on La Jetee was also an appropriately mysterious and poetic meditation on that film.

In short, the quality and style of these books varies widely depending on the author. Some are more highly theoretical; some are academic; some are fanciful and poetic. Looking into the author's background may help give you a sense of what approach they are taking. The ones written by esteemed critics like Rosenbaum, Taubin, J. Hoberman, Robin Wood, et al. are usually safe bets.

Part of my first selection was actually based on the writers, glad to see it's indeed a good filter.

The two BFI books I wasn't a fan of were Murray Pomerance on Marnie and Mark Kermode on The Exorcist. I just couldn't get on with Pomerance's writing style. It's a shame because Marnie is my 2nd favourite Hitchcock. Over the last couple of decades its become the one I've revisited the most. I wished there was more good writing on it. And The Exorcist because.......Kermode.

matrixschmatrix wrote:

tenia wrote:I'm currently having a frenzy about BFI Film Classics books and am looking at buying a lot of them. However, considering how many there are and how, in total, it might amount to (both in terms of money, shelf space and time to read them), I'm wondering if any of you here would already know which ones can be avoided altogether because of how little they add...

Is there a way to buy these en masse? I love them, but they're so short I never wind up picking them up

There is a 2-volume hardcover collection of 50 monographs, arranged chronologically. It can be pricey, currently $90 on Amazon, but I bought it 18 months ago for $40, so keep your eyes open on your favorite internet used book seller. Also, I use CamelCamelCamel religiously to check whether current prices are out of norm, whether there are trends in used prices decreasing, etc. You can see my purchase back in 2016 at that $40 on the Camel page. Considering that it has 50 monographs, back when the series started and only covered classics, it's a wonderful deal, even at $90, if you don't already have any of them. When I bought it, I had about 35, but the remaining gaps were around $10 each, so I took the plunge. Plus, this allowed me some back-up relief if the individual volumes (which my oldest son takes with him nearly every day in car trips, etc., because of their small size and light weight) get damaged or lost. I love this series (and the BFI Modern Classics companion series that they released for a few years).

Also, we've discussed this series in years past in other threads, Tenia, so you should check those out for other suggestions and comments. Like this thread. But we also had some discussion on the first page of this very thread, back in 2005, where a few of us posted about our favorites (and I reveal my ignorance). I stand by my recommendation of the Indiana Press guides, though - Naremore on Psycho, Bordwell (as a grad student!) on Passion of Joan of Arc, great stuff and fast reads.

It's actually $300 new or $85 used now

I’m seeing references (like an Amazon listing) to a 1995 volume on The Passion of Joan of Arc by Mai Zetterling but can’t find any copy available anywhere, not even in a library. Was this actually published or was this one of the few titles that got announced but never released?

Probably, not much help but Woldcat.org claims there is a copy at LIBRIS(?) in Stockholm...
Besides not showing up on the British Library or Library of Congress catalogues, the titles I've got with what appear to be first printings (Napoleon and Lolita from 1994, Bride of Frankenstein from 1997 and Rio Bravo from 2003) do not list The Passion of Joan of Arc as published or forthcoming.

Matt wrote: Mon Feb 13, 2023 5:37 am I’m seeing references (like an Amazon listing) to a 1995 volume on The Passion of Joan of Arc by Mai Zetterling but can’t find any copy available anywhere, not even in a library. Was this actually published or was this one of the few titles that got announced but never released?

An update: "... head of BFI publishing Colin McCabe suggested a series of monographs and the ‘BFI Classics’ series was born. Meeker didn’t want books by the usual critics and ‘experts’, instead turning to his wide range of friends and contacts. One of the first was Salman Rushdie on The Wizard of Oz (1939), while Labour MP Gerald Kaufman contributed his reflections on Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Actor and director Mai Zetterling approached Meeker wanting to write about The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), though sadly she died before submitting it." Source (6th paragraph)

Well, that’s the saddest possible answer to my question. Thanks for posting that, though!

>> a copy at LIBRIS(?) in Stockholm

Maybe an unfinished draft manuscript???

If that were the case, it would be cataloged as a manuscript. This is a record for the book-as-published, but the library’s actual catalog shows no holdings (no actual book or manuscript, not even in digital form) at all. They do have records for what look like other Mai Zetterling manuscripts, but these have actual holdings at the Svenska filminstitutets bibliotek.

Libraries often create these kinds of “brief records” (or add them to their catalogs) in anticipation of publication, but they would also delete them at a certain point if the book was never acquired. I can’t say why this particular library never deleted it other than to speculate that, as the National Library of Sweden, they feel a duty to maintain some record of the book even if it only ever existed as an idea.

domino harvey wrote: Mon May 06, 2024 7:08 pm All non-preorder titles are 30% right now from Bloomsbury

Deal is dead.

I believe it ended today. Bad timing!