How the Movies Got a Past

How the Movies Got a Past
Author: Dimitrios Latsis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2023
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0197689272

How the Movies Got a Past presents a comprehensive survey of the rise of historiographical discourse on cinema in North America as it is reflected in publications, exhibitions, lectures, and films about the cinema as a technology, artform, and source of entertainment, from its inception up to 1930. With a wealth of case studies and illustrations, this book will appeal to media historians, silent movie buffs, film archivists, and students alike.

Hollywood: Social dimensions: technology, regulation and the audience

Hollywood: Social dimensions: technology, regulation and the audience
Author: Thomas Schatz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2004
Genre: Motion picture industry
ISBN: 9780415281348

'Hollywood' as a concept applies variously to a particular film style, a factory-based mode of film production, a cartel of powerful media institutions and a national (and increasingly global) 'way of seeing'. It is a complex social, cultural and industrial phenomenon and is arguably the single most important site of cultural production over the past century.This collection brings together journal articles, published essays, book chapters and excerpts which explore Hollywood as a social, economic, industrial, aesthetic and political force, and as a complex historical entity.

Popular Fads and Crazes through American History [2 volumes]

Popular Fads and Crazes through American History [2 volumes]
Author: Nancy Hendricks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 897
Release: 2018-08-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1440851832

This informative two-volume set provides readers with an understanding of the fads and crazes that have taken America by storm from colonial times to the present. Entries cover a range of topics, including food, entertainment, fashion, music, and language. Why could hula hoops and TV westerns only have been found in every household in the 1950s? What murdered Russian princess can be seen in one of the first documented selfies, taken in 1914? This book answers those questions and more in its documentation of all of the most captivating trends that have defined American popular culture since before the country began. Entries are well-researched and alphabetized by decade. At the start of every section is an insightful historical overview of the decade, and the set uniquely illustrates what today's readers have in common with the past. It also contains a Glossary of Slang for each decade as well as a bibliography, plus suggestions for further reading for each entry. Students and readers interested in history will enjoy discovering trends through the years in such areas as fashion, movies, music, and sports.

Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction

Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Patricia Aufderheide
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2007-11-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0199720398

Documentary film can encompass anything from Robert Flaherty's pioneering ethnography Nanook of the North to Michael Moore's anti-Iraq War polemic Fahrenheit 9/11, from Dziga Vertov's artful Soviet propaganda piece Man with a Movie Camera to Luc Jacquet's heart-tugging wildlife epic March of the Penguins. In this concise, crisply written guide, Patricia Aufderheide takes readers along the diverse paths of documentary history and charts the lively, often fierce debates among filmmakers and scholars about the best ways to represent reality and to tell the truths worth telling. Beginning with an overview of the central issues of documentary filmmaking--its definitions and purposes, its forms and founders--Aufderheide focuses on several of its key subgenres, including public affairs films, government propaganda (particularly the works produced during World War II), historical documentaries, and nature films. Her thematic approach allows readers to enter the subject matter through the kinds of films that first attracted them to documentaries, and it permits her to make connections between eras, as well as revealing the ongoing nature of documentary's core controversies involving objectivity, advocacy, and bias. Interwoven throughout are discussions of the ethical and practical considerations that arise with every aspect of documentary production. A particularly useful feature of the book is an appended list of "100 great documentaries" that anyone with a serious interest in the genre should see. Drawing on the author's four decades of experience as a film scholar and critic, this book is the perfect introduction not just for teachers and students but also for all thoughtful filmgoers and for those who aspire to make documentaries themselves. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

MOVIES ARE A CONSPIRACY Selected Essays on Cinema

MOVIES ARE A CONSPIRACY Selected Essays on Cinema
Author: Matthew Coniam
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2019-03-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0244466904

Matthew Coniam, author of 'The Annotated Marx Brothers' and 'Egyptomania Goes To The Movies' would dearly love to dedicate his energies to the higher things in life. But alas, cinephilia infected him at a young age and, as yet, there is no cure. In this collection of essays on movies and moviemakers culled from several years' worth of blog posts, magazine articles and book chapters, he shares some of the symptoms in the hope of spreading it further.

140 All-Time Must-See Movies for Film Lovers Now Available On DVD

140 All-Time Must-See Movies for Film Lovers Now Available On DVD
Author: John Howard Reid
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 110575295X

John Howard Reid's books are not only noted for the wealth of essential information he provides on each film he discusses, but for the insight and clarity of his reviews. Reid has been reviewing films professionally since 1955, and has contributed an enormous amount of material to newspapers and magazines in England, France, Australia and the USA. In the course of his work, Reid has come into contact with many famous stars and directors, and is often able to provide quotes and information that no other sources can duplicate. As a reviewer for one of Reid's previous books rightly pointed out, "Nobody does it better than John Howard Reid." In fact, Reid often provides far more information than the titles of his books suggest. "140 All-Time Must-See Movies" is a typical case. The book actually provides full details and reviews for 160 feature films plus brief comments on over 30 shorts.

Colorization

Colorization
Author: Wil Haygood
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0525656871

A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE • ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown. Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing

American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing
Author: Tom Stempel
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 081318875X

A unique perspective on half a century of American cinema—from the audience's point of view. Tom Stempel goes beyond the comments of professional reviewers, concentrating on the opinions of ordinary people. He traces shifting trends in genre and taste, examining and questioning the power films have in American society. Stempel blends audience response with his own observations and analyzes box office results that identify the movies people actually went to see, not just those praised by the critics. Avoiding statistical summary, he presents the results of a survey on movies and moviegoing in the respondents' own words—words that surprise, amuse, and irritate. The moviegoers respond: "Big bad plane, big bad motorcycle, and big bad Kelly McGillis."—On Top Gun "All I can recall were the slave girls and the Golden Calf sequence and how it got me excited. My parents must have been very pleased with my enthusiasm for the Bible."—On why a seven-year-old boy stayed up to watch The Ten Commandments "I learned the fine art of seduction by watching Faye Dunaway smolder."—A woman's reaction to seeing Bonnie and Clyde "At age fifteen Jesus said he would be back, he just didn't say what he would look like."—On E.T. "Quasimodo is every seventh grader."—On why The Hunchback of Notre Dame should play well with middle-schoolers "A moronic, very 'Hollywoody' script, and a bunch of dancing teddy bears."—On Return of the Jedi "I couldn't help but think how Mad magazine would lampoon this." —On The Exorcist

One Got Past the Keeper

One Got Past the Keeper
Author: Fertile FC
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2011-07-26
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0733628044

The men of Fertile FC, a six-a-side football team, came together to get fit, played for fun and then stayed up far too late after every game having a good time. But before they had the chance to kick a ball for their second season, they'd all, bar one, scored a goal of a different kind. They'd become expectant fathers and were looking at entirely new goals of responsibility and commitment. Jim, Yari, Ross, Rick, Neil and Nick tell of their journeys into fatherhood - how they dealt with the good bits (more sex before pregnancy); the bad bits (less sex after pregancy); the sticky bits (the birth); and finally bringing home the trophy - a shiny new baby. These men aren't experts at childbirth (or football) but their stories will appeal to new fathers (and mothers) as they prepare the game of their lives.

A Light in the Dark

A Light in the Dark
Author: David Thomson
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-03-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0593318153

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.