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Can someone suggest a good Truffaut book? Ideally an equal mix of his life/bio and his films. thanks.

There's the Serge Tobianna book on Truffaut. It's really good on the films and has a lot of biographical detail. I forget who the co-author is, but one of them is a Cahiers contributor.

For Antonioni:

THE ARCHITECTURE OF VISION mentioned (along with its companion volume UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Sam Rohdie/ANTONIONI (bfi OOP)
Peter Brunette/THE FILMS OF MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (Cambridge)
Seymour Chatman/ANTONIONI, OR THE SURFACE OF THE WORLD (California)

There are excellent pictures and some reasonable text in -
Seymour Chapman & Paul Duncan (Ed.) MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (Taschen)

Any good books out there on Pasolini??

I would recommend John Pierson's "Spike, Mike, Slackers, and Dykes" a pretty informative, and funny guided tour of independent film from 1984's "Stranger than Paradise" up to "Clerks". I haven't finished it yet but I'm enjoying it so far.

Any good books out there on Pasolini??

Sam Rohdie's THE PASSION OF PIER PALO PASOLINI (bfi) is pretty good...

Pier Paolo Pasolini: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by Patrick Rumble and Bart Testa is very good, with an essay by Rumble on the Trilogy of Life that is a nice taste of his full-length book on those films. Also, reading Pasolini's essays on linguistics, politics, and cinema is an interesting way into his films.

Just reading my way through the new bfi book THE CINEMA OF MICHAEL POWELL - International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker, ed. Ian Christie and Andrew Moor. Really excellent lively stuff.

The first collection of essays on Powell putting him into critical context, two of them pay substantial acknowledgement to sources in CC commentaries, notably on IKWIG and PEEPING TOM... Indeed Laura Mulvey's essay states it is based on her piece on the PT disc (originally laserdisc)...

So it seems commentary tracks are becoming well established as a channel of primary publication...

can anyone tell me how Kieslowski on Kieslowski is? Or if there are any other books recommended on him?

I haven't read Kieslowski on Kieslowski, but Joseph G. Kickasola's The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski: The Liminal Image is a remarkably thorough study, and then there's Annette Insdorf's Double Lives, Second Chances, which is a nice introductory work, but it's not very substantial.

BrightEyes23 wrote:Any good books out there on Pasolini??

I'd highly recommend the biography that Barth David Schwartz did, Pasolini Requiem. It covers everything from an extensive forensic study of his death to how his poetry collided with his films to his complex relationships with Ninetto Davoli and Maria Callas. It's a long read but well worth the effort.

Can anyone recommend a decent book on Preston Sturges. I've seen Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges and Between Flops in used book stores and I know there are several others. Are any of them any good?

"Kieslowski on Kieslowski" is essential! He goes into illuminating detail about his films. My favorite comment is his love of Tarkovsky. It's a great addition to one's Kieslowski library as well a document from the man himself.

SncDthMnky wrote:I recently read Woody Allen on Woody Allen, which was superb. not much in terms of the actual technicality of filmmaking, but loads and loads of tidbits about storytelling.

Is this a good book to start on early Woody Allen, pre-'90s? What other books are good ones to pick up about his career up to that point?

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:Is this a good book to start on early Woody Allen, pre-'90s? What other books are good ones to pick up about his career up to that point?

For coverage of the classic "earlier, funnier ones", there is an early book by Eric Lax called On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy. Written in 1975 it covers his standup years all the way up to Love & Death. It's still pretty easy to find at used bookstores I think. (by the same guy who later wrote that decent biography of Woody in 1991.)(I also really like the Woody bits in Ralph Rosenblum's great bio book When the Shooting Stops...)

Amos Vogel's legendary, Film As a Subversive Art should be out now, but seems to have been delayed:

Amazon USA

Amazon UK



A landmark text on what Cinema is, or can be.

Quick question for everyone:

If I wanted to "get into" a new filmmaker do you think it is better to watch her/his film without any contextualization, get somewhat familiar with his/her oeuvre while viewing the films or read as much as possible before sitting down and watching (i like to read standing up). -or- is there such thing as too much contextualization/criticism?

What I do is get a book about a filmmaker and read up to the point of the next movie I want to watch. Then I watch the movie, and then read about that specific movie. I've found if I read first, it spoils the movie, and I end up going back to read that chapter anyway. Then after I read, I'll listen to the commentary, and watch it again if I liked it.

I would go to allmovie.com, first, actually. I fine pick what films I'll see when it comes to encountering a new director - start with the best, most acclaimed, and see if the hype is worth it. Then, if I'm really struck by the work, I watch more and begin to read up about them, using the same process by going to amazon, finding the best books about the directors, and then using Inter Library Loan to read them free... Some of my favorites from this process include Jane Campion and The Piano, Terry Gilliam, Kurosawa, of course... Sorry if I digressed too far off topic. Good luck, though!

Can anyone comment on Sarris's The John Ford Movie Mystery?

Just hauled myself through Laura Mulvey's BFI book on Kane. She clearly knows her stuff but the language is so jargon-loaded and self-referential it's like having your teeth filed. Example: "Like a version of the old, Wittingtonesque folk-tale of trans-class mobility, it is a story-cum-icon of American mythology."

I guess I'll take her word for it[/u]

Sarris' The John Ford Movie Mystery is a fine piece of movie criticism written in accessible language, to form a provoking study of the complexities, contradictions, and controversiality of one of America's greatest film directors (and cranky obtuse Irish son of a gun)... Written in 1976 it comes in at just under 200 pages and is OOP, I'm almost sure...

Science Is Fiction: The Films of Jean Painleve

Okay this isn't your average treatise on an auteur, what you get instead is a beautifully designed book, with divine images and stills from his many films coupled with a wonderful narrative offering another means of examining art, science, and nature.
Highly recommended to those with a penchant for natural history and the surreal.

Which book is better, James Monaco's How To Read A Film, or Boggs' Art Of Watching Film? Or are there better books out there? I'm thinking David Bordwell is a level above beginner's level, as far as technical aspects of filmmaking, which is my concern.

I am reading a history of narrative film by cook and it has been rewarding thus far, I am about 150 pgs through (it's over 1000 pgs long.) It gives a survey of the history of narrative cinema around the world. I can only read about 3-5 pages at a time though, as there are so many facts listed.

Cronenberg on Cronenberg should be a must for any C-berg fan. Unfortunately, after reading it, you will find most extras on DVDs to be redundant. It acts very much as an event-based study up through M Butterfly but also talks about thematic issues in each work. My only squak is that it doesn't have a Crash chapter.

Does anyone have a favorite film article(s)?

Publication, Year, and Issue please, I'd like to track these down.

I'll start with something simple and recent:
L.A. Times, Sept.25, 2005
Cameron Crowe on his use of music in films.

There is a top notch analysis of Friedken's To Live and Die in L.A. here.

Very well-written and with some fantastic observations. Definitely worth a look if you like this movie.

I'm doing a paper on the adaptation of Lem's novel Solaris and was wondering what the best books on Tarkovsky are. I am already going to pick of Sculpting in Time, as I was looking to purchase anyways and have waited too long. Can anyone vouch for any other books on him?