The Best Books About Film

[Yojimbo]

I ordered Georges Bernanos' book it is based on.

I hope it works out better for you than it did me. I read the Bernanos in preparation for this review and it was so good that it absolutely ruined the film for me (which I had never had much fondness for anyway). Same with The Leopard. The book is so good, I've had no desire to watch the film again after reading it.

I think 'Mouchette' might be my third favourite Bresson: equal first are 'Diary' and 'A Man Escaped': a major factor of its appeal for me was the somewhat langorous pacing and the brilliant use of natural sights and sounds: I suspect Malick's 'Days of Heaven' might have been influenced by it in that respect, but that film strives too much for lyrical beauty as a be-all and end-all, and the voice-over narration is infuriating
('infuriating' icon withheld, on request!)

[Dr Amicus]

Can anyone recommend any books/articles (even documentaries?) that address Sidney Poitier's popularity in the fifties and sixties with concern to the subsequent effect on or parallelism with race relations, both with whites and within the black community?

My memory's a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure it's covered (at least to some degree) in Donald Bogle's Toms, Coons, Mammies, Mulattos and Bucks. Also, although I haven't read it, I gather there's quite a bit in Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution, which covers the Best Picture nominees at the 68 Oscars - which included both In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

[matrixschmatrix]

Does anyone know of a good, comprehensive book on Murnau? The only one I've been able to find is Lotte Eisner's, and while I love her dearly the library will get upset if I keep their copy checked out any longer.

[tojoed]

Does anyone know of a good, comprehensive book on Murnau? The only one I've been able to find is Lotte Eisner's, and while I love her dearly the library will get upset if I keep their copy checked out any longer.

As far as I know, Lotte Eisner's book is the only one available in English.

[hidaniel]

I went through Kieslowski on Kieslowski which was a tad disappointing, mostly production-related memories and facts, some interesting, others not. I was hoping to hear more of his ideas on film/literature/etc. but can see value in him letting his films do the talking.

I agree with the overall assessment, the book was kind of disappointing. Though I actually found the production related stuff the most interesting, especially the problems inherent to creating movies in a restrictive environment and the idea that you create higher quality cinema when given hard set limitations on what you can show and how this causes people to become more creative to overcome those boundaries.

What I found disappointing was Kieslowski's reluctance to really go beyond the surface. He starts becoming interesting when he starts going into details but it seems for the most part he has no real desire to do so, choosing to be vague and extolling the virtues of trying to understand others even when disagreeing with them. I'm sure some of that stems from him documentary background and desire to be objective at all costs. Though not entirely, it's just speculation on my part but I'm sure he did not want to overtly criticize anyone as when the interviews for the book were conducted Poland was still very volatile politically.

Summary: Felt like he was holding back.

[HarryLong]

Does anyone know of a good, comprehensive book on Murnau? The only one I've been able to find is Lotte Eisner's, and while I love her dearly the library will get upset if I keep their copy checked out any longer.

Surely alibris or Amazon has used copies... ?

[perkizitore]

The Murnau book is expensive even for used copies.

[tojoed]

I've just finished reading "Heaven and Hell to Play With" - The Filming of Night of the Hunter by Preston Jones, and it's a wonderful book. The more I read about NotH and Charles Laughton the more I love it and him.
By the way, Terry Sanders, the second unit director, says at one point, "... NotH is a little bit wide screen (i.e 1.66.1).." and he goes on to point out that if you watch it in the wrong ratio you can see above the set in the Lullaby scene.

[HarryLong]

The Murnau book is expensive even for used copies.

Wow. So I see. This title was so easily available at one time I had no idea I had such a rarity on my hands.

[Ovader]

I saw James Roy MacBean's Film and Revolution referenced here and I am wanting to read more of politically engaged cinema so has anyone read that book and offer an opinion? Any recommendations of other books dealing with political cinema (including political thrillers) rather than books dealing with a specific director who has dealt with political themes such as Rossellini or Godard?

[johncarvill]

I thoroughly recommend 'City of Nets' by Otto Friedrich for a great overview of 40s Hollywood:


http://www.amazon.com/City-Nets-Portrai ... 0520209494" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ovader]

There is a book to be publish next year by Helen de Witt called Cinema and Revolution that may satisfy some of what I was looking for regarding political cinema.

[colinr0380]

More recent works are the three volumes of the DVD Delirium Guides. These are not highbrow though they do feature, for example, virtually all the Criterions and plenty of other highbrow stuff. What they do cover, better than any of the competition, is the world of cult movies, Asian new wave, Euro trash, the lot (if your name is Lino, then these are essential). The reviews are comprehensive, about two pages each, and small type at that, and more importantly for folk here, they cover all different versions worldwide and advise on aspect ratios, extras, print quality and more. If you want to know which version of Argento's Opera or Tsukamoto's Tetsuo to go for, look no further. A Beaver for the cultist and one you can hold in your hand. (Make sure you go for the Redux volume 1 though). A word of warning, or two. These books will lead to you spending large sums of money on films you possibly never heard of before, and the authors are very enthusiastic about their subject so blind buying is a little dodgy... For all that, the highest recommendation possible.

Just a quick heads up to let everyone know that Volume 4 of the series is just out. On a quick flick through of my copy I note that most of the BFI Blu-Rays are reviewed in there (the Jane Arden and Jack Bond films; all the Flipsides up to and including Permissive; Winstanley; the Pasolinis), and a couple of the Warners Archive releases, though not many Criterions this time (update: only a Salo version comparison - I'd have hoped that maybe the Monsters and Madmen set, Equinox or Robinson Crusoe On Mars would have been shoe-ins to feature, but perhaps they'll turn up in the next volume). However there's still a wonderfully huge range of exploitation-on-disc reviews in there!

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

Does anyone know of a good, comprehensive book on Murnau? The only one I've been able to find is Lotte Eisner's, and while I love her dearly the library will get upset if I keep their copy checked out any longer.

Not a monograph by any means, but Gilberto Perez's chapter on Nosferatu in Material Ghost is the best criticism I have read with regard to Murnau. In fact, if no one has mentioned this book yet on this thread (I would find that hard to believe after six hundred posts), I will now generally recommend this fantastic work.

If I'm repeating something here, my apologies (although it does bear repeating).

Cheers...

[MichaelB]

More recent works are the three volumes of the DVD Delirium Guides. These are not highbrow though they do feature, for example, virtually all the Criterions and plenty of other highbrow stuff. What they do cover, better than any of the competition, is the world of cult movies, Asian new wave, Euro trash, the lot (if your name is Lino, then these are essential). The reviews are comprehensive, about two pages each, and small type at that, and more importantly for folk here, they cover all different versions worldwide and advise on aspect ratios, extras, print quality and more. If you want to know which version of Argento's Opera or Tsukamoto's Tetsuo to go for, look no further. A Beaver for the cultist and one you can hold in your hand. (Make sure you go for the Redux volume 1 though). A word of warning, or two. These books will lead to you spending large sums of money on films you possibly never heard of before, and the authors are very enthusiastic about their subject so blind buying is a little dodgy... For all that, the highest recommendation possible.

Just a quick heads up to let everyone know that Volume 4 of the series is just out. On a quick flick through of my copy I note that most of the BFI Blu-Rays are reviewed in there (the Jane Arden and Jack Bond films; all the Flipsides up to and including Permissive; Winstanley; the Pasolinis), and a couple of the Warners Archive releases, though not many Criterions this time (update: only a Salo version comparison - I'd have hoped that maybe the Monsters and Madmen set, Equinox or Robinson Crusoe On Mars would have been shoe-ins to feature, but perhaps they'll turn up in the next volume). However there's still a wonderfully huge range of exploitation-on-disc reviews in there!

Isn't this essentially the print version of the Mondo Digital website? Or does the book offer anything you can't already get online?

[colinr0380]

There's an awful lot of that material there, but some exclusives. I haven't done a detailed comparison but looking at random there are reviews in this new volume there are reviews of the Blu-Rays of Let The Right One In and Midnight Meat Train, along with The Fox, Zulawski's The Devil, the Bollywood Horror double bills from Mondo Macabro, Om Shanti Om, Roselyn And The Lions that don't seem to be on the site (yet). More recommended to those who prefer to puruse the reviews in paper form I guess!

Also, apparently Volume 2 is out of print at the moment and will be getting reissued in a Redux version as happened with the first volume.

[dadaistnun]

From Variety:

Silent screen siren and cinema scholar Louise Brooks has been dead for a quarter century, but some of her thoughts on movies are only now being revealed.

Brooks kept private journals from 1956 until her death in 1985, and bequeathed them to the George Eastman House with instructions they remain sealed for 25 years.

That date passed in August, and Eastman staffers have been poring over the journals before making them available to the public.

The journals include cutting analysis of performances by her contemporaries.

Seeing Greta Garbo in "Anna Christie" in a 1957 screening, she wrote: "She strains terribly... Is made to read line on top of line without pauses for mental transitions."

Of Marlene Dietrich in "The Lady Is Willing," which she saw on TV, she wrote "Dietrich's lids, drooped by the heavy false eye-lashes give her eyes the expression of a puzzled bloodhound... still fascinating as a personality, extravagantly healthy, happy, amoral and consciousless (sic)."

"Dark Passage," she wrote, was a "perfect picture for Hump (sic) and Lauren Bacall ... His appeal lay in the fact that beyond any man I know, he loved women."

She was even critical of her own perf in 1936's "Empty Saddles": "wide range, dynamic, rich, 'cultured,' " she said of her voice, but added "purity of movement excellent -- Bad sway back from dancing with Dario."

Dario was her ballroom dancing partner.

[filmyfan]

Is anyone aware of any film by film analysis books about Capra-like those great 60's/70's monographs (BFI/Tantivy Press etc)that were all the rage way back then.

Have read the biog's but would like some critical discussion on the films..

Thanks

[Suspect]

Any love here for Theodore Roszak's Flicker? I read this years ago and had the urge to dig it out of the cupboard after seeing it mentioned in Sight & Sound's collection of great film books earlier this year. I was surprised to see it noted alongside the academic likes of Bazin et al as it is a (far-fetched) fiction, but upon reflection I remember it being quite perceptive - and loving - about the various facets of cinematic history and academia, and it was certainly these elements that gave the novel an edge that it's pre-Da Vinci Code fantasy story otherwise wouldn't have had.

[MichaelB]

This probably won't make anyone's shortlist of the best books about film, but the BFI has just published the whole of the 1914 Kinematograph Year Book online - and it's a real treasure trove for film historians.

[Ovader]

Can anyone recommend some good film noir reference sources? I've tried Overlook's Film Noir Encyclopedia, but it only offered plot summaries. I'm looking for dictionaries or encyclopedias that focus on the stylistic traits and define them in cinematographic terms. Naremore's book was just a history and not the type of source I wanted either.

Quite late in replying and I know psufootball07 responded with the Film Noir Reader since its specific chapter "Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir" may be what you need. The Noir Style is also recommended for those same needs.

[HarryLong]

Can anyone recommend some good film noir reference sources? I've tried Overlook's Film Noir Encyclopedia, but it only offered plot summaries. I'm looking for dictionaries or encyclopedias that focus on the stylistic traits and define them in cinematographic terms. Naremore's book was just a history and not the type of source I wanted either.

Quite late in replying and I know psufootball07 responded with the Film Noir Reader since its specific chapter "Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir" may be what you need. The Noir Style is also recommended for those same needs.

I'd provisionally recommend Silver & Ursini's FILM NOIR READERS (there are 4 collections). I say provisionally because I have not read these particular works, but the other books I've read (the HORROR FILM READER% and THE VAMPIRE FILM) by them were excellent.

[johncarvill]

Hi folks

Can someone recommend a good illustrated book on Alfred Hitchcock? I'm thinking along the lines of an intelligent coffee table book, if such a thing exists.

Feel free to pitch in with suggestions for best overall Hitchcock book too, by the way.

Cheers
JC

[Jack Phillips]

Hitchcock At Work is very good. It has photos and essays, and comes coffee-table ready.

[ambrose]

I don't know whether this is an appropriate place for an extended moan about the fifth edition of the biographical dictionary of film but yet again mr thomson has fallen short in regards to Asian cinema beyond old entries on the more canonical directors(and a strange entry on Wong Kar-Wai). one example of his laxity involves the inadequately updated entry on Naruse Mikio,since the last edition in 2003 the films of Naruse have been disseminated to a wider audience through the dvd market yet mr thomson has failed to take this into account with his description of naruse as an unknown property and a total absence of analysis of the mans films!.