Film Studies

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Film expert and author Andrew J. Rausch presents the 32 most pivotal moments in the history of the medium that changed the way movies were produced. Accompanied with insights from noted film historians and filmmakers, Rausch's essays analyze the significance of each influential event, industry pioneer, and technological breakthrough - from Thomas Edison's Kinescopes to computer-generated imagery.

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From its humble beginnings as a novelty in a handful of cities, cinema has risen to become a billion- dollar industry and the most spectacular and original contemporary art form. It has spread to all parts of the globe, and is enjoyed by audiences that cut across all sections of society.The Oxford History of World Cinema traces the history of this enduringly popular entertainment medium. Covering all aspects of its development, stars, studios, and cultural impact, the book celebrates and chronicles over one hundred years of diverse achievement from westerns to the New Wave, fromanimation to the Avant-Garde, and from Hollywood to Hong Kong. An international team of distinguished film historians tells the story of the major inventions and developments in the cinema business, its institutions, genres, and personnel; other chapters outline the evolution of national cinemasround the world - the varied and distinctive filmic traditions that have developed alongside Hollywood. A unique aspect of the book are the special inset features on the film-makers and personalities - Garbo and Godard, Keaton and Kurosawa, Bugs Bunny and Bergman - who have had an enduring impact inpopular memory and cinematic lore. With over 300 illustrations, a full bibliography, and an extensive index, this is the buff's ultimate guide to cinema worldwide.

With its beginnings rooted in the languages and cultures of the French and English, Canadian cinema has, over time, become more representative, reflecting the interests and aspirations of Canada's many diverse communities and identities. In One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema, George Melnyk offers a twenty-first-century perspective on a fascinating film tradition, the distinctness of which has attracted the attention of the global cinematic community. Melnyk's historical survey is comprehensive in its cinematic scope. He examines the achievement of dramatic, documentary, and experimental filmmaking from the earliest days until the present, giving due attention to the cinemas of Quebec and to the cultural, political, and theoretical trends that have shaped contemporary film in Canada. Following an interpretive approach, Melnyk explores the beginnings of a national cinema in the silent era at the end of the nineteenth century; the dynamics of the industry in the 1920s, which provide a model for the industry's overall development; the rise of the NFB; the birth of a successful feature-film industry in Quebec in the forties; the tax-shelter era of the seventies; Canada's achievements in animation; and the important contributions of key feature films and their directors in articulating insights into the cultural grammars found in Canadian society throughout the past century. Drawing on the insights of scholars, critics, and filmmakers to provide a coherent appraisal of the state of the film industry and Canada's cinematic art as it enters its second century, Melnyk weaves the history of English and French Canada together in an attempt to understand the achievements and, ultimately, the failures of a 'national cinema'. From Neighbours to Crash, Pour la suite du monde to Atanarjuat, and Goin' Down the Road to Maelström, Melnyk argues passionately that Canadian cinema has never been a singular entity, but has continued to speak in the languages and in the voices of Canada's diverse population. It is only through an ongoing and deepening exploration of diversity in Canadian film that its survival and evolution can be ensured.

This examniation of the cinematic style of film noir originals and their neo-noir remakes compares thirty-five films, beginning with Billy Wilder's classic Double Indemnity and concluding with Jim McBride's Breathless. In-depth analysis of the films explain the qualities and characteristics of film noir, while providing critical readings of both the originals and the remakes. The most significant films since 1944 are reviewed and reveal the ever-changing values in American society. As this study reveals, the noir style significantly impacted American film and neo-noir remakes attest to its continued popularity in cinematic art. This work will appeal to film scholars and to fans of film noir. Filmogrpahies and video information follow each chapter. Appendices briefly explain the roots of many noir films discussed in the text along with their subsequent remakes.

A magnificent history of Hollywood from the invention of film to the present day, by the everywhere acclaimed David Thomson, who has established himself as the “greatest living film critic and historian” (The Atlantic Monthly), “irreplaceable” (The New York Times), and simply “the best writer about the movies” (San Francisco Chronicle). Now we have his master work, The Whole Equation, which, in his own words, embraces “the murder and the majesty, the business statistics and millions of us being moved, the art and the awfulness.” It accommodates “the artistic careers, the lives of the pirates, the ebb and flow if business, the sociological impact–in short, the wonder in the dark, the calculation in the offices, and the staggering impact on America of moving pictures. Which is also the thunderous artillery of America unleashed on the world.” Thomson tells us how D. W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin created the first movies of mass appeal. He writes about Louis B. Mayer, who understood the whole equation and reaped the profits. He shows us how David O. Selznick exemplified the vanity and passion that gets memorable movies made; how the movies, offering a sense of common experience, helped Americans through the difficult years of the 1930s and ’40s; how and why the quest for the blockbuster changed the industry. He examines the films of Capra, Wilder, Hitchcock, Spielberg; of Gable, Cagney, Monroe, Crawford, Brando, Bogart, Nicholson, Kidman; of Irving Thalberg, Lew Wasserman, Harvey Weinstein–and scores more. He considers noir films, the blacklist, agents, method acting. He tells us the stories behind The Godfather, Chinatown, and Jaws. And he follows the money–a trip essential to understanding Hollywood at its most thrilling and most disappointing. David Thomson has given us a one-volume history of Hollywood that is as well one of the most brilliant, most insightful, entertaining, and illuminating books ever written on American film.

On December 8, 1967 Time magazine put Bonnie and Clyde on its cover and announced, "The New Cinema: Violence ... Sex ... Art." The following decade has long been celebrated as a golden age in American film history. In this innovative study, Peter Krämer offers a systematic discussion of the biggest hits of the period (including The Graduate [1967], The Exorcist [1973] and Jaws [1975]). He relates the distinctive features of these hits to changes in the film industry, in its audiences and in American society at large.

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Click on the title to locate copies of this book.