A Hidden History of Film Style

A Hidden History of Film Style PDF Author: Christopher Beach
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520284356
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
The image that appears on the movie screen is the direct and tangible result of the joint efforts of the director and the cinematographer. A Hidden History of Film Style is the first study to focus on the collaborations between directors and cinematographers, a partnership that has played a crucial role in American cinema since the early years of the silent era. Christopher Beach argues that an understanding of the complex director-cinematographer collaboration offers an important model that challenges the pervasive conventional concept of director as auteur. Drawing upon oral histories, early industry trade journals, and other primary materials, Beach examines key innovations like deep focus, color, and digital cinematography, and in doing so produces an exceptionally clear history of the craft. Through analysis of several key collaborations in American cinema from the silent era to the late twentieth century—such as those of D. W. Griffith and Billy Bitzer, William Wyler and Gregg Toland, and Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Burks—this pivotal book underlines the importance of cinematographers to both the development of cinematic technique and the expression of visual style in film.

A Hidden History of Film Style

A Hidden History of Film Style PDF Author: Christopher Beach
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520284356
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Get Book Here

Book Description
The image that appears on the movie screen is the direct and tangible result of the joint efforts of the director and the cinematographer. A Hidden History of Film Style is the first study to focus on the collaborations between directors and cinematographers, a partnership that has played a crucial role in American cinema since the early years of the silent era. Christopher Beach argues that an understanding of the complex director-cinematographer collaboration offers an important model that challenges the pervasive conventional concept of director as auteur. Drawing upon oral histories, early industry trade journals, and other primary materials, Beach examines key innovations like deep focus, color, and digital cinematography, and in doing so produces an exceptionally clear history of the craft. Through analysis of several key collaborations in American cinema from the silent era to the late twentieth century—such as those of D. W. Griffith and Billy Bitzer, William Wyler and Gregg Toland, and Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Burks—this pivotal book underlines the importance of cinematographers to both the development of cinematic technique and the expression of visual style in film.

An Auteurist History of Film

An Auteurist History of Film PDF Author: Charles Silver
Publisher: Museum of Modern Art, New York
ISBN: 9780870709777
Category : Auteur theory (Motion pictures)
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From 2009 to 2014, The Museum of Modern Art presented a weekly series of film screenings titled An Auteurist History of Film. Inspired by Andrew Sarris's seminal book The American Cinema, which elaborated on the "auteur theory" first developed by the critics of Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, the series presented works from MoMA's expansive film collection, with a particular focus on the role of the director as artistic author. Film curator Charles Silver wrote a blog post to accompany each screening, describing the place of each film in the oeuvre of is director as well as the work's significance in cinema history. Following the end of the series' five-year run, the Museum collected these texts for publication, and is now bringing together Silver's insightful and often humorous readings in a single volume. This publication is an invaluable guide to key directors and movies as well as an excellent introduction to auteur theory. -- from back cover.

Looking Past the Screen

Looking Past the Screen PDF Author: Jon Lewis
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822390132
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Film scholarship has long been dominated by textual interpretations of specific films. Looking Past the Screen advances a more expansive American film studies in which cinema is understood to be a social, political, and cultural phenomenon extending far beyond the screen. Presenting a model of film studies in which films themselves are only one source of information among many, this volume brings together film histories that draw on primary sources including collections of personal papers, popular and trade journalism, fan magazines, studio publications, and industry records. Focusing on Hollywood cinema from the teens to the 1970s, these case studies show the value of this extraordinary range of historical materials in developing interdisciplinary approaches to film stardom, regulation, reception, and production. The contributors examine State Department negotiations over the content of American films shown abroad; analyze the star image of Clara Smith Hamon, who was notorious for having murdered her lover; and consider film journalists’ understanding of the arrival of auteurist cinema in Hollywood as it was happening during the early 1970s. One contributor chronicles the development of film studies as a scholarly discipline; another offers a sociopolitical interpretation of the origins of film noir. Still another brings to light Depression-era film reviews and Production Code memos so sophisticated in their readings of representations of sexuality that they undermine the perception that queer interpretations of film are a recent development. Looking Past the Screen suggests methods of historical research, and it encourages further thought about the modes of inquiry that structure the discipline of film studies. Contributors. Mark Lynn Anderson, Janet Bergstrom, Richard deCordova, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, Sumiko Higashi, Jon Lewis, David M. Lugowski, Dana Polan, Eric Schaefer, Andrea Slane, Eric Smoodin, Shelley Stamp

Federico Fellini as Auteur

Federico Fellini as Auteur PDF Author: John C. Stubbs
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809334658
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Federico Fellini as Auteur: Seven Aspects of His Films offers a comprehensive auteurist study of the renowned Italian director. Film scholar John C. Stubbs dispenses with a traditional film-career review of the man, focusing instead on the key elements of the filmmaker’s style, the influence of Carl Jung and dreams, the autobiographical depiction of childhood and adolescence, the portrait of the artist, the filmmaker’s working relationship with his wife, Fellini’s comic strategies, and his adaptation of works by others. Each of the aspects is fully contextualized. This examination of the critical elements in Fellini films offers a better understanding of the artistry that is uniquely Fellini.

A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema

A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema PDF Author: Emilie Bickerton
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678318
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Cahiers du Cinéma was the single most influential project in the history of film. Founded in 1951, it was responsible for establishing film as the ‘seventh art,’ equal to literature, painting or music, and it revolutionized film-making and writing. Its contributors would put their words into action: the likes of Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer were to become some of the greatest directors of the age, their films part of the internationally celebrated nouvelle vague. In this authoritative new history, Emilie Bickerton explores the evolution and impact of Cahiers du Cinéma, from its early years, to its late-sixties radicalization, its internationalization, and its response to the television age of the seventies and eighties. Showing how the story of Cahiers continues to resonate with critics, practitioners and the film-going public, A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma is a testimony to the extraordinary legacy and archive these ‘collected pages of a notebook’ have provided for the world of cinema.

The Elusive Auteur

The Elusive Auteur PDF Author: Barrett Hodsdon
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476627886
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
The director's authorial role in filmmaking--the extent to which a film reflects his or her individual style and creative vision--has been much debated among film critics and scholars for decades. Drawing on generations of criticism, this study describes how the designation "auteur" has gone from stylistic criterion to product label--in what has always been an essentially collaborative industry. Examining the controversy in regard to Hollywood directors, the author compares directors and would-be auteurs of the classic studio system with those of contemporary Hollywood and its new climate of cultural entrepreneurship.

The Film Genre Book

The Film Genre Book PDF Author: John Sanders
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9781903663905
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A comprehensive introduction to film history, The Film Genre Book allows the reader to create their own narrative of film through history by focusing on seven genres, highlighting a key film from each genre over a ninety-year period--sixty-three films discussed in detail. The reader can trace the developments in a particular genre over time or compare films in a particular decade from the different genres. Each case-study considers issues of historical context, representation and the close textual analysis of significant scenes. Analysing films as diverse as Bambi and Pan's Labyrinth, the book immerses its reader into the full range of film experience. Its breadth of study, and the way in which it bridges the gap between commercial film guides and academic studies, makes it invaluable to teacher, student, and cineaste alike.

A Light in the Dark

A Light in the Dark PDF Author: David Thomson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0593318153
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
From the celebrated film critic and author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film--an essential work on the preeminent, indispensable movie directors and the ways in which their work has forged, and continues to forge, the landscape of modern film. Directors operate behind the scenes, managing actors, establishing a cohesive creative vision, at times literally guiding our eyes with the eye of the camera. But we are often so dazzled by the visions on-screen that it is easy to forget the individual who is off-screen orchestrating the entire production--to say nothing of their having marshaled a script, a studio, and other people's money. David Thomson, in his usual brilliantly insightful way, shines a light on the visionary directors who have shaped modern cinema and, through their work, studies the very nature of film direction. With his customary candor about his own delights and disappointments, Thomson analyzes both landmark works and forgotten films from classic directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, and Jean-Luc Godard, as well as contemporary powerhouses such as Jane Campion, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino. He shrewdly interrogates their professional legacies and influence in the industry, while simultaneously assessing the critical impact of an artist's personal life on his or her work. He explores the male directors' dominance of the past, and describes how diversity can change the landscape. Judicious, vivid, and witty, A Light in the Dark is yet another required Thomson text for every movie lover's shelf.

Ride, Boldly Ride

Ride, Boldly Ride PDF Author: Mary Lea Bandy
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520258665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
"This book is a survey of the movie Western that covers its history from the early silent era to recent spins on the genre in films such as No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, True Grit, and Cowboys & Aliens. The authors provide fresh perspectives on landmark films such Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Wild Bunch, and they also pay tribute to many underappreciated Westerns including 3 Bad Men, The Wind, The Big Trail, Ruggles of Red Gap, Northwest Passage, The Westerner, The Furies, Jubal, and Comanche Station. The book explores major phases of the Western's development--silent era oaters, A-production classics of the 1930s and early 1940s, and the more psychologically complex presentations of the Westerner that emerged in the post-World War II period.. They examine various forms of genre-revival and genre-revisionism that have recurred over the past half-century, culminating especially in the masterworks of Clint Eastwood. Central themes of the book include the inner life of the Western hero, the importance of the natural landscape, the tension between myth and history, the depiction of the Native American, and the juxtaposing of comedy and tragedy"--Provided by publisher.

You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet

You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet PDF Author: Andrew Sarris
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
One of America's most celebrated film critics, author of the seminal work "The American Cinema", offers this definitive statement on film in a masterwork that has been 25 years in the making. From Chaplin to Garbo to Welles, from gangster films to screwball comedies to musicals--this is the history movie buffs have been waiting for.