Film Art: An Introduction

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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. This long-unfindable book (now revived in a new edition) brings together essays that can stand alongside those of Borges, Barthes and just about anyone who helped shape it. Another stretch of black introduces a brief, fuzzy shot of a man in a dark suit running across the shot in a strange corridor. In recent decades there has been no more cogent a rethinking of the physical and psychological experience of film as it evolved, both as a technology and as an artform.

An invitation to discovery on every page, and perhaps the best title for any film book yet published. The book that every young film snob carried around or even memorised in the early 70s – just in case you might catch a rare Edgar Ulmer B movie in a rep cinema (yes, that’s how we saw films maudits in those days). 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. When analyzing such films, we should restrain ourselves from trying to answer all of the film’s questions and to create neatly satisfying endings. Conceivably more ideas per page can be found here than in the work of any other English-language critic, and Durgnat’s grounding in surrealism and the school of Positif is merely one of the starting points for an exploratory critical intelligence that is nonetheless quintessentially English.Many films pose few difficulties for viewers who like their movies straightforward and easy to digest. They are at least reading copies, complete and in reasonable condition, but usually secondhand; frequently they are superior examples. Italian readers might be interested in a journalistic essay, “Senza Inibizioni: Introduzione al cinema di Hong Kong,” Segno cinema no. We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there is something for every literary palate. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps.

I’m focusing more on live action films in this list, but you can find more animated films in my collection of Disney artbooks and Pixar artbooks which are both animation-oriented. Two exemplary ways of making sense of a national film culture: the first is an encyclopedia that invites the seeker to find his or her own way through a labyrinth of myriad relationships; the second offers creative criss-cross readings of topoi and obsessions through various decades, genres and political systems. W. Pabst and Louise Brooks, since exceeded only by ‘Lulu and the Meter Man’ in Thomas Elsaesser’s Weimar Cinema and After. This shot and most of the rest of the film are accompanied by the clacking, rhythmic sound of a train.Eisenstein himself set out to create a poetics of cinema, particularly of film style, and so the book tries to delineate that and show how it still has value for us. Yet if we analyze the film’s form and style, we find that it still aims to achieve particular effects on the spectator, and it still suggests a specific range of meaning. I treat Eisenstein as seeking to synthesize many artistic traditions, both avant-garde and academic. I read this one until it fell apart, pre-viewing in my imagination films I had not yet seen and might never see. Some of these books are more recent while others date back a few years, but they all feature incredible concept pieces and inspiring behind-the-scenes resources.