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Which are the best books on Grand Illusion?

There's also the BFI Film Classic on La Grande illusion.

Jasper Sharp's Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, despite its quasi academic approach (it's quite informative on the unique historical and economic forces that led to the boom of the "Pink Film" genre) still relies somewhat heavily on glossy soft-porn images from these films,more than necessary to illustrate the text, but for some reason this does not bother me!.To balance off this guilty pleasure i have also been reading the densely historical Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895-1925, by Aaron Gerow!. As an afterthought i wonder whether anyone has heard of this overpriced and obviously out of print book!. Frank Borzage:The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic. I recently bought the three Carlotta Blu-ray releases(Seventh Heaven Street Angel and Lucky Star) and desperately require more context.

100 Animated Feature Films, the latest BFI Screen Guide, by Andrew Osmond. Out in the UK on Thursday; the US has to wait until April...

Ok, this is a desert island situation (I'm being sent off to somewhere remote) and I need your help. First, what is the one Orson Welles book to get? "This is Orson Welles"?

Second, what is your favorite collection-of-interviews-with-directors book? I just discovered "Directing" by Tay Garnett and I love, love it. Would Sarris' "Interview with Film Directors" be the other one to get? or is "Action!" better?

Third, I apologize if these questions have been answered. I couldn't find a "search" button for this thread in particular and simply searching "Orson Welles" on the forum gave me too many hits.

Thanks!

In response to your initial inquiry, the first two volumes of Simon Callows projected trilogy of Welles books The Road to Xanadu and Hello Americans are such expansive labours of love you will hardly need another book on Welles!.

ambrose wrote:In response to your initial inquiry, the first two volumes of Simon Callows projected trilogy of Welles books The Road to Xanadu and Hello Americans are such expansive labours of love you will hardly need another book on Welles!.

It is worth consulting Jonathan Rosenbaum's 'Discovering Orson Welles', for excellent reviews and assessments of many of the broad spectrum of books on Welles from Leaming through Higham, Brady, Callow, Thomson, McBride, Carringer, Heylin, Bazin and Cowie, to name a few... Suffice it say to say, no one book really suffices, each has its foibles and faults, some more than others...

Sorry if someone has already submitted this: 50 ans de cinéma américain by Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Coursodon. Probably you know Tavernier as filmmaker, well, he's even better critic!

Tavernier's blog (in French)

truefaux wrote:Second, what is your favorite collection-of-interviews-with-directors book?

Lynch on Lynch is fascinating and essential.

Cronenberg on Cronenberg is another favourite of mine.

My personal favorite is Rossellini's 'My Method' book, which has plenty of interviews from his earlier days till the end, dealing with almost all his films. A nice companion to the Tag Gallagher.

Thank you for all the great suggestions! I will certainly look into every one of them.

Re: The One Welles Book, obviously, I anticipate that no one book will be comprehensive but I think the ones suggested here will be a good holdover until I get back to civilization.

Regarding Welles, I heartily recommend Naremore's The Magic World of Orson Welles. It's an overview of his oeuvre and discusses each film in some detail. It's not a biography, but it takes his life into account when discussing his films and the circumstances in which they were made.

I haven't finished it yet (I'm stuck on the Immortal Story chapter until I get around to ordering the Madman disc), but everything up to that point is informative, engaging, and thoughtful.

Regarding the Welles suggestions, all of those books are fine choices. If you want the most Welles in your Welles book than THIS IS ORSON WELLES is the way to go, although the two Callow biographies will be the most in-depth.

This perhaps goes without saying, but please avoid David Thomson's ROSEBUD which presents a very distorted view and is much more about the author himself (and his imaginings) than Welles.

I think THIS IS ORSON WELLES is extremely good, but Rosenbaum, who edited it, I think confirms that Welles is not always the most reliable source on Welles (in these i/vs by Bogdanovich)... Callow is an actor/director like Welles, and I suppose this is his starting point... Above all Welles was a showman, performer and magician, or maybe otherwise the foremost writer and director of American cinema, or perhaps then the young prodigy crushed by the relentless philistine system, or alternatively the potent artist forever destined to self destruct due to ingrained character flaws... What seems to be certain, books on OW sell, thus a virtual mini publishing industry... Callow would not have embarked on a multi volume project, unless it was somewhat commercially viable... In the end think the multiple elusive versions of Arkadin and the film variants about the same, something of that is true about Welles... (I write from Dublin, where he started his professional life, with tall tales and a lot of talent...)...

ellipsis7 wrote:I think THIS IS ORSON WELLES is extremely good, but Rosenbaum, who edited it, I think confirms that Welles is not always the most reliable source on Welles (in these i/vs by Bogdanovich)...

Yes, I should have mentioned that you don't necessarily get the most accurate representation of Welles' work by Welles himself; alas, every biographer has an agenda and Welles was multifaceted enough to aptly fill a dozen theories. In his own words, Welles would often distort or fabricate his history to tell a better story or anecdote. At the same time, he was willing to reveal personal foibles truthfully if he thought they would enhance the storytelling. Unlike Kane or Arkadin, he wasn't always trying to hide behind an image, but he was always looking for a way to make an impact on his audience, even if it resulted in a degree of personal embarrassment.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend some good books of on set photos. preferably a set that is geared more towards a look at the photography itself and not the films/actors they may contain, if that makes sense. Maybe even books dealing with a specific photographer.

thanks.

woahmer wrote:I was wondering if anyone could recommend some good books of on set photos. preferably a set that is geared more towards a look at the photography itself and not the films/actors they may contain, if that makes sense. Maybe even books dealing with a specific photographer.

Yes but the book is in French at the present time. It is a collection of photographs by Raymond Cauchetier called Photos de Cinéma: Autour De La Nouvelle Vague 1958-1968. Here is an English article of the photographer and the book.

Need to write an essay about Vampyr:
'What does Dreyer’s Vampyr achieve in its divergence from the norms of classical continuity cinema? In answering you might develop a comparison between Vampyr and one other vampire film.'
I have the Criterion edition of the film, so now i am looking for books related to the issue. Should i talk about Vampyr vs Dracula or something contemporary like Let the Right one in?

Also need help with this one too:
'In what ways did the growing popularity of science-fiction films in the 1950s reflect contemporary social and political concerns as well as addressing changes in the Hollywood film industry after World War II?'

perkizitore wrote:Also need help with this one too:
'In what ways did the growing popularity of science-fiction films in the 1950s reflect contemporary social and political concerns as well as addressing changes in the Hollywood film industry after World War II?'

This question screams for you to mention the original INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS with its aura of McCarthy hearings paranoia which resulted in the blacklisting of several prominent Hollywood writers and actors.

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perkizitore wrote:Need to write an essay about Vampyr:
'What does Dreyer’s Vampyr achieve in its divergence from the norms of classical continuity cinema? In answering you might develop a comparison between Vampyr and one other vampire film.'
I have the Criterion edition of the film, so now i am looking for books related to the issue. Should i talk about Vampyr vs Dracula or something contemporary like Let the Right one in?

It sounds like whoever set this question has read the essay on Dreyer / Vampyr in Roud's Cinema: A Critical Dictionary (by Noel Burch, I think), which goes into intense and fascinating detail about how stylistically radical the film is. Way more detail and information than you'll need, but a one-stop shop.

Any great history/critical books about screwball comedies? Something along the lines of David Desser's Eros plus Massacre or Rick Altman's American Film Musical (two great recommendations from this forum).