Search: Good, nay essential, books about film

Also the Projections series is ace and easy to read.

Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews

(I'll second 'Men, Women and Chainsaws')

You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again by Julia Phillips (the first woman to win the Best Picture Oscar as a co-producer of "The Sting")

The Unkindest Cut by Joe Queenan (making a film on a budget less than that of Rodriguez' Il Mariachi - which was a fallacy to begin with)

I also took classes w/Kaja Silverman's ex, a bulbous Yoda-man with a bear-trap memory and the class to continue teaching her book (much which, the gossip had it, had come from him in the first place)

* "Thinking in Pictures" by John Sayles

* "Audio/Vision" by Michel Chion

i'm sorry i was a prick to everybody i was a prick to on friday :(

Movie Books

1. Necronomicon: The Journal of Horror & Erotic Cinema (1996) Andy Black [1 book, Amazon US]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1871592372.01.TZZZZZZZ.jpg
   

   Necronomicon: Book one continues the singular, thought-provoking exploration of transgressive cinema begun by the much-respected and acclaimed magazine of the same name. The transition to annual book format has allowed for even greater depth and diversity within the journal's trademarks of progressive critique and striking photographic content. Includes:
   
   * Jean Rollin: The surreal and the sapphic
   
   * Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Exploitation or modern fairytale?
   
   * Barbara Steele: Icon of S/M horror
   
   * Frightmare: Peter Walker's psycho-delirium classic
   
   * Marco Ferreri: Sadean cinema of excess
   
   * Deep Throat: Pornography as primitive spectacle
   
   * Dario Argento: Tortured looks and visual displeasure
   
   * Last Tango in Paris: Circles of sex and death
   
   * H P Lovecraft: Visions of crawling chaos
   
   * Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves' classic of visceral violence
   
   * Herschell G. Lewis: Compulsive tales and cannibal feasts
   
   * Evil Dead: From slapstick to splatshtick [...]
   

2. Incredibly Strange Films [1 book, Amazon US]

   http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1889307017.01.TZZZZZZZ.jpg align="right">
   [Bought this book in Miami in the early nineties, part of a series, by Atomic Books]
   
   Re/Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films is a functional guide to important territory neglected by the film-criticism establishment, spotlighting unhailed directors--Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer, Larry Cohen and others--who have been critically consigned to the ghettos of gore and sexploitation films. In-depth interviews focus on philosophy, while anecdotes entertain as well as illuminate theory, Includes biographies, genre overviews, filmographies, bibliography, and A-Z of film...

   http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0306808749.01.TZZZZZZZ.jpg align="right">
   

3. How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime [1book, Amazon US] A terrific book, loaded with great stories and anecdotes about the world of low-budget film making-- from its heyday in the 50's and 60's, to the 1980's, when the industry kind of petered out because the major studios began making the types of visceral horror, science fiction, and exploitation movies previously reserved for "quickie" independent producers like Mr. Corman. It was fun to read this book and rent some of the films as they were being discussed. Another plus: the book is peppered with informative and revealing guest essays by the likes of Francis Coppola, Joe Dante, Martin Scorcese, Jack Nicholson, and various other directors, actors, and producers who worked with and/or got their start with Roger Corman. Though most of the comments about Mr. Corman in these essays are predictably laudatory, we are also allowed to read the occasional critical or negative observation, which permits the reader to get a nicely balanced view of the subject. The book is rounded out by a great selection of photos from the dozens of movies covered. -- Joseph P. Menta, Jr [Life and times of Roger Corman according to Roger Corman]

4. Cult Movies Stars - Danny Peary [Amazon US] Book that got me started in being interested in offbeat cinema: About movie stars and their films who developed a cult audience. Riveting read. Limited availability. [...]

Also really enjoyed reading Making Movies by Sydney Lumet. Gives a really interesting run down on the physical act of making films by a director with a very direct and effective technique.

I took a film theory course many years ago and we covered a lot of the people Spencer mentioned... enjoyed the theory but it's a bit dry for pleasure reading, in my very humble opine.

i have heard great things about "making movies" by sidney lumet, but i havent started it yet

Gossip: Hollywood Babylon and Flesh and Fantasy

a Pauline Kael collection is essential. Try "For Keeps" it's huge but it covers a huge period oftime so you can see how her tasttes changed (or did not)

I really enjoyed "Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes" by John Pierson. Pierson is a producer's rep for independent filmmakers and was linked to "She's Gotta Have It" "Slackers" "Roger & Me" "Go Fish" (all from the title) as well as "Hoop Dreams" "Clerka" and oters. Fun, interesting look at how independent cinema in the US developed.

There is also that new book out by Peter Biskind called EASY RIDERS RAGING BULLS: HOW THE SEX-DRUGS-AND ROCK 'N ROLL GENERATION SAVED HOLLYWOOD which I haven't read but sounds good.

Those and probably a Pauline Kael book and you are set.

You can find it over here:

http://www.jahsonic.com/Criticism.html

I added the Tohill book to my Movies page and my recently made http://www.jahsonic.com/JeanRollin.html page

Yours
Jan

If I were to list just one Pauline Kael book: which one would you recommend me (haven't read anything by her)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-keywords=kael&search-type=ss&bq=1/ref=aps_more_bdgw_b_1/103-1048534-4542220

Sight and Sound polled writers and critics to arrive at the "most inspirational five books about film ever written":

The Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson (the winner)
The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris
Notes on the Cinematographer by Robert Bresson
What is Cinema Vols 1 and 2 by Andre Bazin
Hitchcock/Truffaut

Armond White selected one his own books. History Mayne, I believe, picked the oldest book.

Shopping list:

http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.de/2012/11/a-bookish-cinephile-christmas.html

Think I misplaced my copy of City of Nets. Would read Peter Lorre bio.

best cinema sudies books this year? I was unaware of ALL of these...

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2013/20/the-10-best-film-studies-books-of-2013

Consider the American Cinematographer's Handbook ($100.00 and the only tech manual you'll ever need)
Also the Projections series is ace and easy to read.

Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews

― j✧✧✧@nom✧✧✧.c✧✧, Monday, August 4, 2003 2:21 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is this "American Cinematographer Manual"? Are the newer versions worth paying more for?

I was a lot younger when I read it, but I liked Midnight Movies, by Hoberman and Rosenbaum.

Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool, by George and Mike Kuchar.

new Mark Harris book about 5 Hollywood directors' service in WWII:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mark-harris/five-came-back/

He's a great enough writer that I'm still interested in that.

Is there a good book about the history of technological innovation in cinema? One that focuses on sound recording, or at least has a strong section on sound recording, would be great.

not the kinda thing I would read at book length, so dunno

there's this site, tho

http://filmsound.org/film-sound-history/

leo enticknap's 'moving image technology: from zoetrope to digital' is dry but v thorough (and has a whole chapter about sound) - no idea if it's in print or not but probably it is

Michael Ondaatje's book of conversations with Walter Murch? I read it a few years ago and liked it. It's primarily about editing, but Murch being as famous as a sound guy, there must be some talk of sound in there.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Conversations-Walter-Murch-Editing/dp/0375709827

wm, check out michel chion, who tracer mentioned lo those many years ago

only looked at 'the voice in cinema', but probably 'audio-vision' is the one you want.

Oh dang, 4 booming recs and all I had to do was go to sleep and wake back up. Thank you all!

I should be specific about what I want to learn: how and why dialogue recording got better, and how and why it didn't get always get better. There are so many films with bafflingly poor ADR, including shots that I can't see why they couldn't have been recorded live. But the history of filmmaking tech improvements as a whole interests me. Some of my favorite tidbits in the McGilligan bio of Hitchcock were him figuring out workarounds to technical problems.

about 100 pages into Five Came Back, v gripping and a fast read. Harris on the Cinephiliacs podcast:

http://www.thecinephiliacs.net/2014/03/episode-35-mark-harris-best-years-of.html

Just got it from the library and hoping to carve out big chunks of the next few weekends for it.

never gave a damn about Maltin's star ratings, but it was fun to thumb through pre-web especially

http://deadline.com/2014/08/r-i-p-leonard-maltins-movie-guide-internet-kills-iconic-print-paperback-after-45-years-821849/

might pick up a Classic Movie Guide, maybe when new ed comes out next year. easier to navigate and easier on hands than an hour of clicking.

One ref book that I've kept long after IMDB, et al, made it obsolete is Michael Gebert's Encyclopedia of Movie Awards.

Even when I find his own star ratings frustrating to say the least.

when he died a couple months ago, i mentioned that Steven Scheuer had the more successful movie guide at first. (And it was Movies on TV bcz once they were gone from theaters, that was usu yr only option.)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-ts7m4AsL._SY300_.jpg

how'd you like the Harris book? Capra, what an asshole, huh?

I had to return it to the library before finishing. But I did read the last chapter and felt bad for Capra.

some historical Maltin guide nuggets

This was long before personal computers came along, and we did everything by hand. My wife and I cut out every one of the 8,000 reviews in the first book and glued them onto individual sheets of paper. (I remember Alice repeatedly running out to Woolworth’s on Broadway and 79th Street to buy more glue sticks—we kept using them up.) Then I used a ball-point pen to mark additions and changes in the margins, adding an actor’s name, correcting a spelling, changing a running time, etc. Believe it or not, we never completely abandoned this technique: it may seem primitive but it’s simple and effective.

In those days before videocassettes and DVDs, I tried to develop contacts at each of the studios who understood my need for detailed information—not merely what was printed in the press handouts. I developed a network of contacts, sometimes a publicist, other times a person in the print traffic department. One time I asked a man at United Artists how he determined the running time of the titles in their library and he said, “Uh…we use your book.” It was flattering—but not useful.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/movie-guide-memories-20140902

Anybody here have the academic credentials to get the Century of Sound: The History of Sound in Motion Pictures sets — unavailable to the general public but “available free of charge to educational, archival and research institutions and to qualified individual educators, researchers and scholars as a not-for-profit educational resource" — and let me borrow them? I'll reimburse for shipping. It would be cool for ILE to have a set that we could pass around amongst ourselves.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2015/09/14/vertov-sound-technology-and-3d-recent-blu-ray-releases/

Oh, wow. I'm helping with doing this little program on filmic sound and space next spring, I kinda need that set. Wonder if we could just screen the entire 12 hours...

my friend's book Slapstick Divas made this list

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/best-film-books-of-2017_us_5a2ea585e4b0d7c3f26224e0

Finally got a decent price (under $20 with shipping from Abe) on Robin Wood's Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Been periodically checking for years.

"Cult Movie Stars" by Danny Peary was mentioned at the start of this thread 20 years ago, but even more so, his "Cult Movies" books volume 1, 2 & 3, and "Guide for the Film Fanatic." Vol. 1 came out when I was 19, and they all had an immeasurable influence on my filmgeekery.

Probably impossible to get ahold of any of them nowadays.

xpost Weird, I see it on eBay for $8, with shipping. Good book?

There's a revised edition of Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan - including post-Reagan material - that's probably more common the original book.

The real Wood collector's item is The American Nightmare booklet, although most or all of it is reprinted in the Robin Wood on the Horror film collection.

I saw both versions cheap on eBay , afaict.

(xpost) If it was just priced at $8 on eBay, there's a good chance the shipping was twice that...I think the one I bought last night has a red cover, meaning the original. I've had The American Nightmare since it came out; was actually the main text for a university course I took in 1983 on horror films.

The review implies this is more good than essential, but may be of interest: https://filmfreakcentral.net/2025/02/a-city-full-of-hawks-on-the-waterfront-seventy-years-later―still-the-great-american-contender-books/

Don't know if I'll ever get around to reading the book (though I'm a fan of the film), but Sinatra anecdote is tantalizing.

snappy title