Category Archive for: ‘Issue 19 – Reviews’

Steve Lannin and Matthew Caley (eds), Pop Fiction: The Song in Cinema. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2005. ISBN: 1 84150 078 X 173 pp £14.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Intellect Books) As more than one of the contributors to this volume notes, it is easy to regard the use of well-known pop songs in commercial cinema with a certain cynicism. …

Geoffrey Cocks, The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History & the Holocaust. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004. ISBN: 0 8204 7115 1 338 pp US$29.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Peter Lang Publishing Inc.) The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History & the Holocaust is the ambitious attempt by author Geoffrey Cocks, a Professor of History, to …

Charles O’Brien, Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 253 34463 8 (hb) US$45.00 ISBN: 0 253 21720 2 (pb) US$19.95 168pp (Review copy supplied by Indiana University Press) This ambitious book aims, by focussing on the years 1930-34, to identify certain characteristics of the …

Johannes Ehrat, Cinema and Semiotic: Peirce and Film Aesthetics, Narration, and Representation. Toronto studies in semiotics and communication. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 8020 3912 x 682pp US$95.00 (hardcover) (Review copy supplied by the University of Toronto Press) This large book serves many purposes: to introduce readers to the pragmatic and semiotic writings of …

Francis Guerin, A Culture of Light. Cinema and Technology in 1920s Germany. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 8166 4286 9 314 pp US$24.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) As Thomas Elsaesser notes in his book on German cinema, Weimar Cinema and After (2000), the historiography of German cinema in the 1920s was dominated for decades …

Steven Jay Schneider (general editor), 1001 Movies you must see before you die. Quintet Publishing Limited, 2005. ISBN: 0 7641 5701 9 960pp US$35.00 (hb) (Review copy supplied by Barron’s Educational Series) Many years ago, a friend of mine, then about twenty-five, wrote to me that he had embarked on Clifton Fadiman’s Lifetime reading plan, a list of over a hundred …

Mark Sinker, If…. London: British Film Institute, 2004. ISBN: 1 84457 040 1 88 pp £8.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by the British Film Institute) In his review of new Godard books in Screening the Past Issue 10 (2000) Adrian Martin discusses “scanning”, an approach to writing about film which involves “‘running through’ a movie in writing, from start to end.” Departing …

Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour (eds.), Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film. An Alphabet City Media Book. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 262 05078 1 544pp US$35.00 (hb) (Review copy supplied by MIT Press) Reading Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour’s fascinating new book, Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film, I was reminded of my own solitary experience of the …

David Bordwell, Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. University of California Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 520 24197 5 330pp US$24.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) David Bordwell is a model of efficient scholarship. His writings on directors such as Dreyer (1981), Ozu (1988), and Eisenstein (1993), for example, are stylistically attentive, structurally coherent, and theoretically …

Haidee Wasson, Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 520 24131 2 (pb) US$24.95 ISBN: 0 520 22777 8 (hb) US$60.00 314 pp (Review copy supplied by University of California Press) In 1988 London’s Museum of the Moving Image was unveiled amid fanfares celebrating its interactive …

Robert Bird, Andrei Rublev. London: BFI Publishing, 2004. ISBN: 1 84457 038 X 87pp £9.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by BFI publishing) THE BURNING NARRATIVE: ICON AND AXE IN TARKOVSKY’S ANDREI RUBLEV Tarkovsky’s work, which includes only seven films made between 1962 and 1986, is surrounded by a growing body of critical texts, testifying to the fact that this director’s films …

Eric Smoodin, Regarding Frank Capra: Audience, Celebrity, and American Film Studies, 1930-1960. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 8223 3384 8 (hb) US$79.95 ISBN: 0 8223 3394 5 (pb) US$22.95 301pp (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) Film scholars have seen Eric Smoodin’s Capra book on the horizon for a decade now – versions of several chapters have …

Roz Kaveney, From Alien to The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film. London & New York: I.B.Tauris, 2005. ISBN: 1 85043 806 4 208pp £9.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by I.B.Tauris) Roz Kaveney has written a very accessible and informative book that provides a useful discussion of many science fiction films over the past 25 years. She has a clear and engaging style and …

George Melnyk, One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 8020 8444 3 US$35 (pb) ISBN: 0 8020 3568 X US$70 (hb) 362 pp (Review copy supplied by University of Toronto Press) Defining “nation”, “nationality”, and “national” are not easy tasks, even when these concepts pertain to European countries where a …

Colin Gardner, Joseph Losey. British Film Makers, Manchester University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 7190 6782 0 (hb) £47.50 ISBN: 0 7190 6783 9 (pb) £15.99 328pp (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) When a series of critical studies announces its aim to “present in lively, authoritative volumes a guide to those film-makers who have made British cinema a rewarding …

Mike Wayne (ed.), Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives. London and Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pluto Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 7453 1993 9 (hb) US$85.00 ISBN: 0 7453 1992 0 (pb) US$29.95 253pp (Review copy supplied by Pluto Press) In his introduction to Understanding Film: Marxist Perspectives, the editor Mike Wayne sets out the contribution Marxism can offer to film studies: an emphasis on …

Peter William Evans, Carol Reed. Manchester University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 7190 6367 1 224 pp £14.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Carol Reed may be the best director in English-language cinema whose body of work is not widely known. Everyone has seen The Third Man (UK, 1949) his greatest work. Odd Man Out (UK, 1947) is reasonably well known. A …

Stanley Cavell, Philosophy the Day After Tomorrow. Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 674 01704 8 (hb) 328pp US$27.95 (Review copy supplied by Harvard University Press) This collection of interwoven essays guides the reader through the thoughts of Stanley Cavell since his retirement from regular teaching. The reader unfamiliar with his earlier work is fortunate …

Lisa Parks, Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual. Duke University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 8223 3461 5 US$79.95 (hb) ISBN: 0 8223 3497 6 US$22.95 (pb) 256pp (Review copy supplied by Duke University Press) In “pre-reading” Cultures in Orbit, that inevitable anticipatory process in the imagination where one uses the title and synopsis to project the contents and arguments of …

Philip Brophy, 100 Modern Soundtracks. (BFI Screen Guides) London: BFI Publishing, 2004. ISBN: 1 84457 013 4 (hb) £45 ISBN: 1 84457 014 2 (pb) £13.99 204pp (Review copy supplied by BFI publishing) It seems that the world is finally waking up to sound. Or, in less hyperbolic terms, film and media studies appear at last to be acknowledging on …

Steven Jay Schneider (ed), New Hollywood Violence. Manchester University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 7190 6723 5 336pp £16.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Murray Pomerance begins his chapter in this essay collection with a portentous, literary gem from Henri Michaux: Any surface covered with characters turns into something crammed and seething . . . full of lives …

Richard Schickel, Elia Kazan: A Biography. HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN: 0 06 019579 7 544pp US$29.95 (hb) (Review copy supplied by HarperCollins) What most distinguishes Elia Kazan from other directors occupying a major place in the American movie pantheon is that, at his peak, he was innovative and highly successful in both theater and film simultaneously. In his heyday, he produced Death …

Trisha Dunleavy, Ourselves in Primetime: A History of New Zealand Television Drama. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005. ISBN: 1 86940 339 8 300pp NZ$49.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Auckland University Press) The knowing is in the telling. At the heart of this study is a belief that a nation, any nation, to call itself that needs to see itself …

Lindsay Shelton, The Selling of New Zealand Movies. Wellington: Awa Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 9582 5384 6 239pp NZ$39.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Awa Press) The cover of Lindsay Shelton’s The Selling of New Zealand Movies describes it as “the inside story of the deal-making, shrewd moves and sheer luck that took New Zealand films from obscurity to the top of …

Brian McFarlane, Lance Comfort. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0 7190 5484 2 225pp £9.99 (pb) Neil Sinyard, Jack Clayton. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0 7190 5505 9 289pp £14.99 (pb) (Review copies supplied by Manchester University Press) Both of these titles are from the Manchester University Press series British Film Makers, which will eventually include not only …

DVD review: Edison: The Invention of the Movies. Kino Video and the Museum of Modern Art in cooperation with the Library of Congress present 140 Edison Company films, 1891-1918. Curated by Steve Higgins and Charles Musser; film notes by Musser. Interviews with and commentary by Higgins (Film Curator, Museum of Modern Art), Musser (Professor of Film and American Studies, Yale University), …

Chi-Yun Shin and Julian Stringer (eds.), New Korean Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. ISBN: 0 7486 1851 1 (hb) £45.00 ISBN: 0 7486 1852 X (pb) £16.99 234pp (Review copy supplied by Edinburgh University Press) South Korean cinema is the latest in a line of national cinemas which have come to international prominence in the past decade. Unlike national …

Andrew Moor, Powell & Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces. London & New York, I.B Tauris, 2005. ISBN: 1 8504 3947 8 288pp £25.00 (hb) (Review copy supplied by I.B Tauris) In his discussion of A Canterbury Tale (UK, 1944), Andrew Moor locates the film’s “magical” sensibility within the tradition of the English pastoral drama. A Canterbury Tale, much like the Shakespearean comedy …

Thomas Caldwell, Film Analysis Handbook: Essential Guide to Understanding, Analysing and Writing on Film. Victoria, Australia: Insight publications, 2005. ISBN: 1 920693 77 7 (pb) 228pp Au$39.95 (Review copy supplied by Insight Publications) This text seems designed for secondary pupils and those of their teachers who have had limited experience with film analysis or who seek teaching activities reinforcing basic …

Geoff Mayer, Roy Ward Baker. British Film Makers Series, Manchester University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 7190 6354 X 224pp £45.00 (hb) (Review copy supplied by Manchester University Press) Roy Ward Baker (or Roy Baker, he added the middle name when he returned to directing in 1967), was one of a number of talented directors working in the post-war British film …