Special Collections: Peter Scarlet Film Studies

In an aside that reads like a declaration of intent, Anthony Lane writes that he “never quite thrilled to the battle pitched between mainstream and art cinema”—which is to say that he glories in highbrow and lowbrow alike, and respectfully suggests that “the ideal literary diet consists of trash and classics . . . books you can read without thinking, and books you have to read if you want to think at all.” In almost ten years as a critic for The New Yorker, Lane has not only written an indispensable column on the latest movie releases, great and small. He has also turned his gaze upon subjects as various as Evelyn Waugh, Shakespeare, the glory of cookbooks, and the fine art of the obituary. Whether he is examining Alfred Hitchcock or astronauts, to read him is to be carried along on a current of urgent inquiry (“What is the point of Demi Moore?”), wry reflection, and penetrating wit. An essay on The Sound of Music leads him to consider not only singing nuns but the comedy of our cultural memories (“For all our searchings and suppressings, the past comes unbidden or not at all”); his now infamous pieces on the best-seller lists both celebrate the exultantly bad prose of Judith Krantz and deride the “marshes of the middlebrow, where serious novelists lumber around with too many ideas on their back.” His writings on the poetry of Matthew Arnold, A. E. Housman, and especially T. S. Eliot showcase his erudition, dispensed with a piercing insight into human folly. In his survey of events as disparate as Oscar night, a Walker Evans retrospective, and the craziness of a Chanel show in Paris, the acuity of Lane’s intellect is matched by a quality of heart that is his alone, and by a willingness to be carried away. His writings remind us of what criticism can achieve at its best. Arguably the most gifted reviewer at work today, Anthony Lane sets the standard—as a reader, as a critic, and as an observer of life. Nobody's Perfect is a must for fans old and new.

The American Film Institute Catalog easily surpasses all other reference works in its field for comprehensiveness, reliability, and utility. Its decade-by-decade, exhaustive, detailed, and carefully descriptive coverage is simply not approached by any other source. In a field bedevilled by quickly assembled and slipshod reference books, the AFI Catalog volumes are the one essential purchase for every library's film reference shelves, and individual researchers will also find them indispensable. Following the recently published set of volumes on the teen decade, the AFI research staff has now completed this far more massive set on the thirties?reaching into a period where many films have survived, many of them easily available and much beloved by film enthusiasts. For the thirties, the improved methodology developed for the teens is deployed in three vast volumes. Hundreds of films never before identified are included, on the basis of new preservation efforts. Extensive coverage is given to Spanish- and other foreign-language films, to foreign versions produced in the U.S., and to coproductions. Surprisingly, independent films figure largely; in some years, out of 500 films produced, 150-200 were independents?works of special social and cultural significance.

First published in 1977, this popular book has become the source on film and media. Now, James Monaco offers a revised and rewritten third edition incorporating every major aspect of this dynamic medium right up to the present.Looking at film from many vantage points, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia explores the medium as both art and craft, sensibility and science, tradition and technology. After examining film's close relation to such other narrative media as the novel, painting, photography, television,and even music, Monaco discusses those elements necessary to understand how films convey meaning and, more importantly, how we can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate.In a key departure from the book's previous editions, the new and still-evolving digital context of film is now emphasized throughout How to Read a Film. A new chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the twenty-first century with a thorough discussion of topics like virtual reality,cyberspace, and the proximity of both to film. Monaco has likewise doubled the size and scope of his "Film and Media: A Chronology" appendix. The book also features a new introduction, an expanded bibliography, and hundreds of illustrative black-and-white film stills and diagrams. It is a must forall film students, media buffs, and movie fans.

A sweeping and dramatic history of the last half century of conflict in the Middle East from an award-winning journalist who has covered the region for over forty years, The Great War for Civilisation unflinchingly chronicles the tragedy of the region from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution; from the American hostage crisis in Beirut to the Iran-Iraq War; from the 1991 Gulf War to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A book of searing drama as well as lucid, incisive analysis, The Great War for Civilisation is a work of major importance for today's world.

Friedrich's acclaimed social and cultural history is the story of Hollywood during its most turbulent and successful decade. With lively anecdotes and a compelling cast, he fashions the brilliant landscape of an unreal world that became America's reality. Illustrated.

"David O. Selznick, the legendary producer and maker of Gone With the Wind, is brilliantly portrayed in this full-scale biography by the first writer to be given complete access to Selznick's voluminous and revealing papers - everything from script notes, production reports, and contract memos, to letters rich in intrigue, gambling accounts, and financial records. No other Hollywood giant ever had so much to say; no other was brave and reckless enough to leave so much on the record." "Selznick was the most charming, best-read, most insanely workaholic (and most easily diverted), most talented, arrogant, hopeful, amorous, insecure, and self-destructive of all the geniuses of American moviemaking. His story is the history of the picture business, from immigrant nerve to cafe society. It is, as well, the story of the chronic romantic who married first the princess of the kingdom (Irene, daughter of Louis B. Mayer) and then a young beauty - Jennifer Jones - whom he made a princess." "Around him was a cast of vivid supporting players: his father, Lewis J., who made and lost fortunes in silent films; his two brothers - Myron, a pioneering (and boozing) agent, and Howard, whose mental condition overshadowed the rest of the family; Irene, David's scourge and his last comfort, as well as the person who taught him about power in Hollywood; Jock Whitney, fabulously rich, a great friend to David, and crazy about the movies; George Cukor; Alfred Hitchcock; Orson Welles; Vivien Leigh; Alexander Korda; William Paley; Ben Hecht; and John Huston." "We see Selznick making such films as What Price Hollywood?, King Kong, David Copperfield, A Star is Born, Rebecca, Since You Went Away, Spellbound, Duel in the Sun, Portrait of Jennie, The Third Man, and A Farewell to Arms. And we are given the fullest possible account of the chaos, good fortune, folly, and glory of the making of Gone With the Wind." "This superb biography uncovers the private lives and business maneuverings of Hollywood as no other book has done. It chronicles the Golden Age as seen from deep inside the gold mine and from behind locked doors where the spoils were divided, filched, or gambled away. In its rich sense of the wonders, ironies, and delusions inherent in "showmanship," this is a book about America in this century, turning from reality toward the glamour, the legend - the fantasy - of the movies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved