Film is the world's most popular artistic medium. What began as a novelty at country fairs rapidly became the consummate art form of the twentieth century, spanning both popular culture and high art.
The Film Book enables you to identify different cinematic genres, appreciate the style of celebrated directors, see how a film is made, and understand why the greatest movies deserve their reputation. The book is unique in encompassing each of these key aspects and, as such, outspans the many other guides and film companions on the market. The guide is split into seven distinct sections, each of which deals with a particular aspect of film.
The first of these chapters is a detailed history of the art form over the last 120 years, charting its evolution from a musical event accompanied by pictures, through its numerous developments and innovations-talking pictures; color film; video and DVD; online films; computer-generated special effects; and the modern 3D experience.
The second shows how these techniques are applied in practice, taking the reader behind the camera to explore the film-making process and find out who's who on set, offering a useful insight into how movies are brought to life.
Sections 3 to 6 look at the films themselves. Providing an overview of cinematic styles and genres, the third section covers everything from westerns, musicals, and sci-fi to arthouse cinema, the avant-garde, and the cult movie, whilst the fourth compares and contrasts the major styles of international cinema, with key schools, movements, directors, and films.
The fifth section profiles 100 of the film industry's greatest and most influential directors, listing their key works and assessing their cinematic legacy, whilst the sixth section discusses 100 key cinematic works which invented, extended, or reinvented the art form.
The closing section of the book is an interesting, and often provocative, range of lists compiled by a variety of film associations, publications, and institutions.
Comprehensive, authoritative, and written with passion and verve, The Film Book is a unique treasure-trove of a guide that will appeal to anyone who loves movies.
Table of Contents
Prelims (5pp)
Introduction (4pp)
The story of film (56pp)
1896-1919: The Birth of Cinema 1920-1929: Silence is Golden 1930-1939: The Cinema Comes of Age 1940-1949: The Cinema Goes to War 1950-1959: The Cinema Fights Back 1970-1979: Independence Days 1980-1989: The International Years 1990-: Celluloid to Digital
How movies are made (20pp)
Pre-production
Production
Post-production
World cinema (52pp)
Africa The Middle East Iran Eastern Europe (including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) The Balkans (including Yugoslavia, Bugaria, Romania, Greece, and Turkey) Russian The Nordic countries (including Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark) Germany France Italy United Kingdom Spain Portugal Canada Central America South America (including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile) Australian and New Zealand China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Japan Korea India
Movie genres (52pp)
Action-adventure Animation Avant-garde Biopic Comedy Costume drama Cult Disaster Documentary Epic Film Noir Gangster Horror Martial Arts Melodrama Musicals Propaganda Science Fiction and Fantasy Serials Series Teen Thrillers War Westerns
100 Key directors (92pp)
Woody Allen Pedro Almodo ´var Robert Altman Michelangelo Antonioni Ingmar Bergman Bernado Bertolucci Tod Browning Luis Bun~uel Tim Burton Jane Campion Frank Capra Marcel Carne ´ Charlie Chaplin Chen Kaige Joel and Ethan Coen Francis Ford Coppola David Cronenburg George Cukor Michael...