The Best Books About Film

[aox]

Frames could be copyrighted and so you'd get hundreds of individual frames being cataloged-- this is how a lot of silent films have survived. As far as branding went, look at Life of an American Fireman, which featured the Edison brand literally filmed in the background of the action. I don't have my copies in front of me, but early film books like Million and One Nights or Movie-Made America would probably be good resources

Thanks domino, i completely forgot that the early companies put their copyright symbol 'in the film'. I go every year to the NYC retrospective, "Film 100 Years ago", and this was constantly brought up for 1907 and 1908 retrospective and I expect the same for 1909. I will look into those works you mentioned. Again, thanks for your guidance.

[Matt]

For a long time, films could only be copyrighted if a complete print was deposited with the Library of Congress. Many studios thought this was an unnecessary expense, so most early films did not get copyrighted. Copyright or no, films got duped left and right, so Edison and his MPPC pals thought that limiting access to film production and exhibition would be a better option. And it was, for them, until the courts decided against them. If you're studying intellectual property law and the origins of the way copyright works now, the cases brought by and against the MPPC are where it's at (until you get to the 1970s).

Any good film history textbook will lay this all out for you. Try Bordwell/Thompson, David Robinson's
From Peep Show to Palace: The Birth of American Film, or Eileen Bowser's The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915.

[hidaniel]

Cronenberg on Cronenberg was a really good read. Some wonderful insights into how the modern Canadian movie industry developed -- highly recommend it to anyone interested in that subject.

[aox]

For a long time, films could only be copyrighted if a complete print was deposited with the Library of Congress. Many studios thought this was an unnecessary expense, so most early films did not get copyrighted. Copyright or no, films got duped left and right, so Edison and his MPPC pals thought that limiting access to film production and exhibition would be a better option. And it was, for them, until the courts decided against them. If you're studying intellectual property law and the origins of the way copyright works now, the cases brought by and against the MPPC are where it's at (until you get to the 1970s).

Any good film history textbook will lay this all out for you. Try Bordwell/Thompson, David Robinson's
From Peep Show to Palace: The Birth of American Film, or Eileen Bowser's The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915.

Thanks again, I was able to pull both of these books out of the University library.

[zedz]

This should be an interesting area of study. There's the whole battle over patents for the technology (as noted, seen as a way to manage content), the charming practice of trademarking sets (lots of good examples of this in the Melies set or any collection of early Biograph shorts), and the invaluable historical footnote of 'paper prints' (I'm pretty sure there's a good summary of this practice in the book accompanying the first Treasures from American Film Archives set - whole films had to be printed on paper rolls to constitute a copyrightable 'document', and these records have survived for later rephotographing after the original film has decayed). And all of this is fuelled by the atmosphere of excited exploitation and wild plagiarism of a new, highly profitable craze (the perfect petri dish for hit-and-miss lawmaking).

[oldsheperd]

Can anyone recommend any books that cover the history of Porn? I'd be much obliged if you could. =D>

[Matt]

It's very old (1974), but Kenneth Turan and Stephen E. Zito's Sinema: American Pornographic Films and the People Who Make Them is essential for the early days. Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne's The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry is more up to date, but not as good.

I can also recommend Thomas Waugh's Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall if you're covering gay porn as well. There's also an unpublished dissertation on gay porn from a couple of decades ago that's excellent. I can dig up the citation if you're interested.

[oldsheperd]

Thanks, Matt. I saw the publishing date for Sinema on Amazon. Being that it was 1974 doesn't provide much comment on Porn's Golden Age. I'm particularly interested in the antecdotes and stories from figures in the adult film industry but also some of the challenges legal and otherwise. I just finished Eddie Muller's Grindhouse which was a pretty good overview of expolitation films including hardcore but I'm starting to get into watching 70's and 80's adult films so I'd like to know as much about it as possible.

[harry]

Can anyone recommend any titles from the University of Illinois Press Contemporary Film Directors series? I figured the Jonathan Rosenbaum book on Kiarostami would be worthwhile, but don't know about the rest. Nicole Brenez's book on Abel Ferrara seems promising (I appreciated her contributions to Movie Mutations), and have heard positive things about Chris Fujiwara's Jerry Lewis book (though I don't entirely understand how it fits in the series...).

[HarryLong]

and have heard positive things about Chris Fujiwara's Jerry Lewis book

Anything by Fujiwara is worth reading.

[domino harvey]

Wow, didn't know about that new Jerry Lewis book, definitely snatching that right up. Thanks for the heads-up!

[domino harvey]

I picked up the Lewis book and plan on reading it over the Christmas break, I'll report back when I finish

[Cobalt60]

Can anyone recommend any books that cover the history of Porn? I'd be much obliged if you could. =D>

Have you tried "Babylon Blue : An Illustrated History of Adult Cinema 1960-1998" from Creation Books? Its out of print but used copies go for around $20.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Has anyone ever had a look at one of those short English books which have been published by Seoul Selection in the last years and which are dealing with a specific Korean director on about 150 pages? I think the series is called "KOREAN FILM DIRECTORS".
I need some further information on Kim and Yoo and wonder whether I should buy them, as I can't get hold of them in the libraries. Can anybody comment on content and design of the series?

[tajmahal]

Has anyone ever had a look at one of those short English books which have been published by Seoul Selection in the last years and which are dealing with a specific Korean director on about 150 pages? I think the series is called "KOREAN FILM DIRECTORS".
I need some further information on Kim and Yoo and wonder whether I should buy them, as I can't get hold of them in the libraries. Can anybody comment on content and design of the series?

I have the LEE CHANG-DONG book, which I found interesting. It is an excellent series, mainly because, for most of the directors, there is so little critical writing in print.

If you haven't visited the KOFIC sight, you will be happy to know you can download some of the titles as pdf for free.

http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/KOFIC/Channel" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, you can download the entire KOREAN CINEMA TAODAY back-catalogue for free.

http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/KOFIC/Chann ... 0000000002" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enjoy!

[Wu.Qinghua]

Many thanks, Tajmahal.

Those links are very helpful, as you can have a look at the contents of each volume this way. And it's also good to know that the small books dealing with Park and Bong can be downloaded for free.

[colinr0380]

Andrew Sarris's Confessions of a Cultist is now available at the Internet Archive.

[domino harvey]

Andrew Sarris's Confessions of a Cultist is now available at the Internet Archive.

Oh this is great, thanks for posting! There should be more online OOP books in this thread

[James]

I want a new movie book and since I'm going to try and get into the Japanese New Wave, I went ahead and ordered David Desser's book Eros Plus Massacre. I hope I don't regret the steep $26 price tag.

[zedz]

I want a new movie book and since I'm going to try and get into the Japanese New Wave, I went ahead and ordered David Desser's book Eros Plus Massacre. I hope I don't regret the steep $26 price tag.

I doubt you will. A whole new world of expectation and frustration is about to open up for you!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I want a new movie book and since I'm going to try and get into the Japanese New Wave, I went ahead and ordered David Desser's book Eros Plus Massacre. I hope I don't regret the steep $26 price tag.

Excellent, excellent book. Well-written and organized, it'll easily be your standard reference for Japan's New Wave. I loved the book just for the Oshima information, but it has good material on Imamura, too.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I want a new movie book and since I'm going to try and get into the Japanese New Wave, I went ahead and ordered David Desser's book Eros Plus Massacre. I hope I don't regret the steep $26 price tag.

I just bought this a month ago and like the two posts said earlier, you won't regret it.

I started by Japanese New Wave obsession months ago, but unfortunately, aside from Maureen Turim's book on Nagisa Oshima, there's very little information or analysis of these films in English. This was the only book I could find about the movement and I don't regret it one bit.There seems to be very little wasted space and delves well into the attitude, feelings and political thoughts of the filmmakers and the type of audience that would see these films.

[Mark Metcalf]

I think the Desser book is terrific. My frustration in reading it, is not having access to view so many films that are discussed in the book.

[Wu.Qinghua]

I also like Desser's book, though it's 20 years old and I guess that there are some other topics to be discussed nowadays, too. I am wondering if anyone else has written another book on the Japanese New Wave. I remember that there's a rather interesting book/catalogue on ATG which has been released in 2003 when there was some kind of retrospective of ATG movies in Vienna. But is there any other major update?

Another short question: I've just realized that Calum Waddell wrote a book on Jack Hill (Calum Waddell: Jack Hill. The Exploitation and Blaxploitation Master. 2009, MacFarland). I am still waiting for some kind of readable book on the life and work of Pam Grier, but I concede, that this might also be very interesting. Has anybody read it yet and can comment on it/recommend it?

[James]

I'm not sure about the interest in the "pink film" or "Roman porno" genres on this forum, but I have ordered Jaspar Sharp's highly acclaimed "Behind the Pink Curtain: The History of the Japanese Sex Film" to compliment "Eros Plus Massacre". Two different styles of filmmaking to be sure, but it was the same time period. It will be interesting to learn about how society consumed these sorts of films, films that I admitted am not entirely familiar with but am certainly open to exploring, and how society affected the production of these films with repression and politics. It will definitely be an engrossing read and in the very least, an interesting thing to simply look through, as most reviews claim it's 400 pages of a heavily illustrated part of film history that has largely been forgotten about.