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Robin Wood's "Hitchcock's Films Revisited", "Sexual Politics", and "Hollywood from Vietnam" are currently 50% off.
Columbia University Press are having their Spring Sale on all of their titles (the code is "sale").

Zaki beat me to the punch, but do check out that sale. They also have the two recent books on Assayas as well as the invaluable Peter Hames books on the Czech New Wave and Michel Chion's books on sound. I ordered during the last half off sale and it was good. Don't get the media mail shipping or whatever was cheapest, though. The books sent to me were in a clamshell and only one of five arrived in good shape.

Anyone have any recommendations for an easy to read book on Jean Luc Godard, specifically his work up until Weekend? I've never "got" him and want to find something that's easy to read that can get me to appreciate him more.

Anything by Adrian Martin is worth a look. He breaks things down in a clear and concise manner being open to flaws in the works and having an infectious enthusiasm.

Morrey's Godard book in the French Film Directors series is a good primer

I see the BFI still has Richard Roud's book in print. It was written before books on Godard became a mini-cottage industry (in fact, it was supposedly the first book-length work on him in English), so it's not heavy on biographical details or outside sources--but it was my critical introduction to Godard and I imagine it's still useful for that purpose if you're only focused on the '60s films. I'm not familiar with the BFI version, but IIRC the 1970 edition (which is also readily available) stops around Le Gai savoir.

Has anyone here read James Broughton’s Seeing the Light (later published as Making Light of It)? I randomly discovered it in the library, and it’s been such a joy to read in these early days of spring. It reminds me of being a teenager, lying in a field reading Thoreau in the summertime and feeling absolutely free.

With the exception of a few photos, practically all of the book’s 80 pages are devoted to listing Broughton’s aphorisms on cinema, Zen, the Wizard of Oz and beyond, so I can understand why his style might be hard for some to swallow. Upon starting the book, it was immediately clear to me that I had to unleash myself from any cynicism, as his humility is easy to take potshots at. When I allowed myself to do this, I was able to really enjoy Broughton’s unique perspective, from which cinema is upheld with a holy reverence.

There are so many great quotes to be found in this tiny book that I stopped writing them down and decided that I would just have to buy a copy for myself. I haven’t read any other works by James Broughton and I’ve only seen a couple of his films, so I look forward to spending more time in his world.

MIT press is currently having a 50% off sale through tomorrow I believe.

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I have an English prof. friend who's finishing up a manuscript about Our Gang/The Little Rascals and starting to look for a publisher. It's her first book about film/TV, but not her first book. The focus is on representations of race in the series and the realities of race for the African American cast members. The writing is intellectually serious but not obscure, with an aim toward including previously untold personal stories of some of the actors. Anyone out there have any ideas of the best places for this to be published, academic presses or otherwise?

Has your friend been published in peer-reviewed journals before? Academic publishing is a nightmare, and it's even worse for book-length works. I don't even know how someone would go about going in blind, as even with having connections it's tough work. Do they have networking published colleagues that could put in a good word?

Her first book was published with a well-known university press, with which she still has a good relationship. Just isn't sure they are right for the new one. She has English and African American studies mentors and colleagues but not really any film/TV ones.

Has she looked at speaking at upcoming Lib Arts symposiums in the country? Now's the worst time, unfortunately, but she could potentially present an aspect from her forthcoming book to a larger audience of film professionals and network that way. Hell, she probably needs her points anyways and the school will likely pick up the tab. It's kind of a long way away solution-- they're usually in the fall and spring-- but as I'm sure you know, getting peer-reviewed and then published takes years and years anyways. The solution isn't just "Here's an imprint that will probably put out her book," at least to my eyes it ain't

is there any book about Hollywood and European cinema in Europe during and after the WWII ? I mean, in the sense of marketing, censorship and dubbing:
- Were the neutral countries like Spain, Sweden etc open markets? How did arrive the films? To travel on those years for me it's a mystery.
- Where did Americans dubbed and when into Italian or French? In Spain, in Hollywood, in South Italy?
- Was American cinema banned in occupied countries? and when? After Pearl Harbor? I read there were US films running in Vichy France.

Is there any book about How American cinema was treated, censored, released in German and Italy during the Fascist years?

In the 30s Italian audience loved American films, they loved even the ones they weren't allowed to see (e.g. Mae West's pictures), and in order to patronize Italian production Fascism had to ban Hollywood majors' productions since september 1938. A fistful of films still arrived in later years (e.g. Stagecoach), but films by Warner, Metro, Paramount etc. weren't allowed. During the war, American studios dubbed their films in Italian, working in the US and using italo-american crews (e.g. Arrigo Colombo), and after the war they sent these films in Italy. Accordingly, Hollywood production flooded Italian theaters between 1944 and the early 1950s.

Yugoslavia is an interesting case study because it was just about the only country behind the Iron Curtain that showed American films on a large scale, mainly because Tito fell out with Stalin in the late 1940s, but also because Tito (a huge film buff) was very keen to encourage Hollywood filmmakers to use Yugoslav locations and studio facilities. Esther Williams' Bathing Beauty was a particularly big local hit.

(My source for the above was primarily the documentary Cinema Komunisto, whose official website has a handy timeline).

Has anyone read James Naremore's BFI Classics book on Sweet Smell of Success? I'm thinking of picking it up as a companion to the film, but I'm curious to know how much overlap there is between the book and his commentary. Is the book still worth reading, or has the commentary made it redundant?

I think I'm comfortable on the Bresson (Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Trial of Joan of Arc?), but which Ozu and Dreyer films do the most legwork in Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film? I'm more interested in Schrader and his general subject than these filmmakers in particular, but I want to make sure I have the appropriate frame of reference before I dive into the book.

With Ozu he's fairly all over the place, but there are several references to each film in the Noriko trilogy and he assumes knowledge of early Ozu so I Was Born But... is probably good to know. He uses The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice as an example of a failed late Ozu and An Autumn Afternoon as a successful one. Ordet is probably mentioned more than any other film in the book, and in the Dreyer section he devotes entire passages to it, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Day of Wrath.

I have to admit though that the book didn't do much to increase my appreciation of the films, or maybe I just find very different things to enjoy in them. I think it's more useful to get a feel for what's important to Schrader about the films, and seeing how his creative misreading of them, in the Bloomian sense, influenced his own work.

Foam wrote:With Ozu he's fairly all over the place, but there are several references to each film in the Noriko trilogy and he assumes knowledge of early Ozu so I Was Born But... is probably good to know. He uses The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice as an example of a failed late Ozu and An Autumn Afternoon as a successful one. Ordet is probably mentioned more than any other film in the book, and in the Dreyer section he devotes entire passages to it, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Day of Wrath.

I have to admit though that the book didn't do much to increase my appreciation of the films, or maybe I just find very different things to enjoy in them. I think it's more useful to get a feel for what's important to Schrader about the films, and seeing how his creative misreading of them, in the Bloomian sense, influenced his own work.

Many thanks. Seems I have a little catching up to do on Ozu, but not as much as I'd feared. As you say, Schrader himself is my main interest, especially with the American Gigolo blu on the horizon, so I'm looking forward to having a read of this.

Some brief thoughts on My Lunches with Orson posted here.

Just got John McElwee's Showmen, Sell It Hot!: Movies as Merchandise in Golden Era Hollywood. OMG is it wonderful. Great rare pictures from his vault (including a near-nude young Joan Blondell!) and fascinating commentary on the intersection of classic Hollywood and how theater owners dealt with them.

How scholarly is it? Is it fully footnoted with a bibliography? I've never heard of the publisher, Paladin Communications, before.

Matt wrote:How scholarly is it? Is it fully footnoted with a bibliography? I've never heard of the publisher, Paladin Communications, before.

Not footnoted but sources for each chapter are in notes in the back.

Some of the discussion in the documentary list thread has had me thinking about documentary ethics as of late. Can anyone recommend canonical documentary texts and/or texts specifically on ethics within the art form?

Bill Nichols' Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary is great, probably the key contemporary text on documentary theory.