Film Art Books
Juliano Nichols
Here I have to declare an interest, in both senses: an enduring love of the Western, and a role in editing the much-expanded second edition of 2004. The best book of criticism bar none on the most important film genre.
A book I found so captivating I devoured it in a single night. As a postgrad studying aesthetics, I was enthralled to find an English-language philosopher who understood cinema! At the end I felt it had said practically everything it needed to say. An exaggeration, of course, but for a while I was convinced.
Two tomes that (should have, at least) changed the way we think about film history; two attempts to understand the (extra)ordinary in film cultures deemed totalitarian and therefore artistically irrelevant by our unquestioning middlebrow culture and its collaborators high and low.
Plus one: this lightly fictionalised memoir of film criticism, love affairs and the quest for beauty and perfection is so funny that it often makes you bark with laughter. Plus two: it is also an achingly serious discussion about why movies can be so potent, about the way they shape our fantasy lives and so our real lives, about how it really does matter whether or not you can love Withnail & I. Plus three: Quirke has an effortless knack for the mot juste; eat your liver, Flaubert. A potent and delicious cocktail.
Like most people in the unique position of foreknowledge of what others have said, I have avoided the choices that now seem obvious in this survey. My list is therefore devised partly to champion books neglected by everyone else.
Again, for me this book was about self-education. Not at all professionally involved in film when I bought it, I wanted something to help a London art student get more out of the films of Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol and Rivette. And if it was as puzzling in its way as some of the films seemed at the time, then that only intrigued me more, as any introduction to so important a subject should.
For a while I became obsessed with what must have been the best-documented disaster shoot in film history. I had the photo of Francis Ford Coppola pointing a revolver at his head up on my office wall the whole time I was writing Corpsing.
Published to accompany a BFI documentary, this is a beautifully illustrated and very sharp-eyed tour through a century of American cinema by a true obsessive. Scorsese is as interested in Allan Dwan, Phil Karlson, Jacques Tourneur and Sam Fuller as he is in the bigger-name directors.
This book is easy to undervalue. At first glance it looks like a series of nostalgic, fireside chats with actors and film-makers from the good old days of British cinema. However, no one else was doing these interviews. Thirteen years on, many of the 180 interviewees have died. McFarlane did future British historians an extraordinary service by capturing their reminiscences.
A book that opens minds to formalism in the fullest and most supple way. Burch has changed his position many times since 1967 (when the chapters first appeared in Cahiers du cinma), but there is still much to excite in these pages.
A study that manages to say a lot of fascinating, illuminating things about its subject even though it labours under the handicap that when it was published (1975) Hollywood had made almost no films about the Vietnam War.
Four little volumes of essays and reviews written in the 1940s and 1950s, published posthumously, that were absolutely formative for the film-makers of the nouvelle vague and for critics ever after. The selective and not very good English translation as What is Cinema? may have done more harm than good in reach-me-down film studies courses. A much better translation of most of the key essays has recently been published (What is Cinema?, edited and translated by Timothy Barnard, Montreal: Caboose, 2010), but for copyright reasons is available only in Canada.
For a reference book, am I allowed to put forward The Oxford History of World Cinema, despite being its editor (OUP, 1996)? If debarred, then the 2000 edition of the Time Out Film Guide, being less bulky than it has since become.
This is an exemplary collection, with a superb opening essay on the importance of resisting complicity with the culture supermarket. Its key statement, provocative but true: asking a critic what films to go to is as inappropriate as asking a geographer where to go on holiday.
Provocative, opinionated and a little crazy. I read this one until it fell apart, pre-viewing in my imagination films I had not yet seen and might never see. A fine example of literature as catalogue.
A terrific piece of journalism and a landmark in the history of American non-fiction writing, this look at how John Huston made The Red Badge of Courage remains the ultimate Hollywood behind-the-scenes story.
Global in outlook and grounded in the unparalleled collections and expertise of the Academy, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is the largest museum in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking. The Academy Museum Store offers retail merchandise that illuminates the world of cinema, celebrating the many stories of moviemaking. Our selection of books devoted to the history, art, and science of film is one of the most comprehensive collections of cinema books and catalogues in Los Angeles.
The BFI Film and TV Classics ranges introduce, interpret and celebrate landmarks of world cinema and television. Each volume offers an argument for the work's 'classic' status, together with discussion of its production and reception history, its place within a genre or national cinema, an account of its technical and aesthetic importance, and in many cases, the author's personal response to the film.
Almost 30 years since its inception and with nearly 200 films addressed, the celebrated BFI Film Classics line is launching with a new look in 2020 featuring specially-commissioned cover artwork from leading illustrators, designers and photographers.
'Magnificently concentrated examples of flowing freeform critical poetry.' Uncut
'A formidable body of work collectively generating some fascinating insights into the evolution of cinema.' Times Higher Education Supplement
'The series is a landmark in film criticism.' Quarterly Review of Film and Video
'Possibly the most bountiful book series in the history of film criticism.' Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment
I'm finding it hard to find books about the subject. I'm thinking of using Requiem for a Dream, Schindler's List, American Beauty for some of the case studies because of their use of the colour red but once again i can't find anything written on them.
I find books on painting to be quite relevant, since many of the greatest cinematographers themselves took were influenced by the great painters. Jack Cardiff got his start with Technicolor because of his knowledge of painting, and frequently referenced the style of the Dutch Renaissance, as well as the impressionists and post-impressionists (Van Gogh especially)
But if you can get hold of a copy of Chris Doyle's book called "R34G38B25" (it's the printer light he had his colour tests printed at!) you should. It's written around the work he did on Zhang Yimou's "Hero", in which colour is used as a fundamental indicator to separate several different viewpoints of the same narrative events. You can also link them to cultural significance in ancient Chinese culture, but that road is fraught with difficulty: does Red mean death, stop, life, royalty, war, or what?
I love the title! I remember Gordon Willis talking about the yellow he used in the Godfather in Visions of Light and how after that EVERYONE used yellow for period pieces for years after that. I always worry about "rules" though and color theory seem to come dangerously close to formula which becomes a rule.
i would go to the library and look for books on the psychology and physiology of color.. film books are great.. but you are getting into the human reaction to color.. and I would start at the source.. psychology books..
The Mountain Between Us, It, Murder on the Orient Express, Wonder, My Cousin Rachel. These films released in 2017 have one thing in common, and you may have guessed it already: They were all books that were later adapted into movies.
As an avid reader, I am always excited at the news that a book is being adapted as a feature film. My mind is occupied by thoughts of who the actors/actresses are going to be (and if I approve), if the film will stay true to the book, and most importantly, if the movie will be just as good as the book. The thought of finally being able to visualize what has only previously been limited to my imagination is always an exciting prospect.
However, I am usually underwhelmed after watching a certain film based on a book, and if you asked me a year ago which one I would prefer: the movie or the book, I would have immediately chosen the book.
However, watching the same story unfold on the big screen is a different experience. While reading spurs your imagination, a movie helps you visualize all the elements of the books that were previously confined to your imagination. It immerses you into the story in a different way than a book.
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