Book Description
Shaped by Richard Barsam's more than twenty years of classroom experience, Looking at Movies uses students' natural enthusiasm for the subject as a foundation for going beyond enjoyment toward intelligent, analytical understanding of movies. Professor Barsam's clear writing, thorough presentation of fundamental film principles, and unique pedagogical additions to the traditional introductory text—including an entire chapter devoted to analytical writing—ensure that students approach screenings and writing assignments equipped with the analytical tools necessary to be active, insightful interpreters of movies. Looking at Movies is accompanied by two outstanding multimedia resources, the Student website and CD-ROM, both of which are integrated directly with the text.
Customer Reviews:
ontime and in good shape.......2007-01-10
It was in good shape, and I received it ontime.
Easily worth a look.......2004-01-03
Barsam's is a welcome addition to the field of introductory film texts, superior in many respects to similar entries (Giannatti, Phillips, etc.). The style is reader-friendly but in no way condescending; the examples are generous and representative of classic as well as current developments; the coverage is comprehensive. Indeed, with the accompanying CD-Rom and Website, the text is a virtual encyclopedia of information about the cinema, thereby justifying its slightly higher price. Moreover, this is the first text that begins to realize many of the media-specific qualities of the subject it attempts to illuminate.
This is a first edition, and understandably there are problems, some admittedly attributable to individual preferences. A few things I've noticed:
1. The website can be "buggy," at least to a Macintosh operating system. Numerous "Java Script" messages are appearing along with failures to play visual and audio files. Even with the misfires, the website is the most impressive I've ever used in conjunction with a text. Because of it, an instructor need have no apologies about using a text that includes discussions of numerous films unknown to students and impossible to screen in class.
2. The accompanying VCD contains valuable film examples but unfortunately doesn't include any clips from "Citizen Kane." I would hope that a future edition includes a DVD with Kane and other useful illustrative and instructive materials. Website information and quizzes often have too many technical glitches to make them effective time-savers for a teacher, who now must solve each student's difficulties with the website (the required 8-digit password doesn't help).
3. Barsam uses much personal and arbitrary descriptive language that subsequently becomes "reified" in the quizzes about the components of film. As a result, the quiz becomes as much about remembering the specific language of the author and textbook as about the properties of a filmic element (equally true of the book's competitors).
4. The order of topics will not appeal to every instructor. For example, the most basic element of film--the shot--isn't addressed until the discussion of photography in Chapter 4. Also, the attention to previously marginalized films and filmmakers can be quite uneven. African-American issues receive considerable space in several chapters in the book and on the website whereas feminist issues receive a couple of paragraphs. Moreover, there is very little consideration of "auteurism," the enabling and prevailing approach of academic cinema studies.
5. The author's lack of experience with literary and composition issues is frequently apparent, though to the book's credit ample space is given to student writing. Still, the treatment of point of view in cinema becomes problematic, especially when the author refers to the camera's perspective as "omniscient." Also, the inclusion of an exemplary student essay, while extremely welcome, represents an unfortunate choice, in my opinion, since the essay is somewhat sophomoric, exhibits clumsy writing and omits a thesis(!).
All in all, a promising production by Barsam and Norton. I look forward to giving it a test drive.
a very good and comprehensive introductory book.......2003-09-18
Just got this book and found it to be very well structured, with a comprehensive yet easy to understand language that made the material very compelling. It comes with a cd rom with film clips and it also offers website interactivity that supports and expands on the material covered by the book. The layout is very sleek and although a bit pricey ($ 70), this is what college textbooks go for now, so even at this price this book compares more than favorably to what's out there.
Book Description
Since 1930, when the museum accessioned its first photograph, a vast and unique archive of pictures has been assembled for study, preservation, and exhibition. Among the photographers whose work is reproduced and discussed here are Hill and Adamson, Cameron, OSullivan, Stieglitz, Strand, Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Lange, Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Robert Frank. Some of these photos are classics, familiar and well-loved favourites; many others are surprising, little-known works by the masters of the art, and a number are hitherto unpublished works by unknown photographers of the past.
Customer Reviews:
Learning to Look at Photographs.......2007-07-23
When John Szarkowski recently passed away at the age of 81, the world lost one of photography's most important figures. He was the "Stieglitz" of the 1960s and 70s, changing the way audiences look at photographic images and he shaped the way future audiences will come to appreciate the pioneering work of Arbus, Eggleston, Friedlander and Winogrand. When he took over the reins of curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from Edward Steichen, photography's early twentieth century grand master, Szarkowski promoted a "new" photography that incorporated the everyday moment as it was unfolding on the streets around cities and towns across America.
His great gift to all of us who love photography besides his championing of new talent, was his incredible skill at writing texts, essays, criticism, books on photography. With his talent as a writer, and his background as a photographer, he was able to open a window onto this two-dimensional world of form and tone, shape, texture and composition, explaining the ins and outs, the subtleties, and the intuitions of image makers, their techniques and their medium in all its finesse.
Having simply tried to take a good photograph all his life, he simply knew a good photograph when he saw one. It is what made him such a great curator. His own best known books of photographs, "The Idea of Louis Sullivan" published in 1956, contains photographs of the architecture of Chicago, and his other, "The Face of Minnesota" published in 1958, contains haunting landscape images of his home state. He wrote the way he carefully crafted his own images. He framed each paragraph paying close attention to his ear, to diction and all the elements of style. It is why I love to read him and why I think he was the greatest writer to take on this visual art form.
Two books of his about photography that in my opinion are indispensable are "The Photographer's Eye" first published in 1966, and "Looking at Photographs" first published in 1973. With these two collections, the reader will gain an historic appreciation of photography from its earliest innovators beginning in the 1830s to the period of high modernism in the 1970s. With Szarkowski as your guide, readers will appreciate how the medium advanced, yet they will also understand how it has remained fundamentally the same picture-making process when it comes to handling two-dimensional space.
In The Photographer's Eye, Szarkowski covers what a viewer needs to take in from a photograph, how it was framed, cropped, what the subject is, what the detail is, the focus and the vantage point. In each of these wide areas, he supplies important photographs from the Museum of Modern Art's vast collection that illustrate these points. He begins with "The Thing Itself" the "what" of photography, the landscape or still life, or portrait that the photographer has aimed his camera at. From there he moves on to how photographers fix on detail, the synechdocal "parts" that make up the "whole" and that produce visual metaphor: the close up of the hands, the side of a face, a rifle, a window, a headlight of a car, a door latch.
He then illustrates how photographers carefully frame their images, how they crop, how they envision the image from its interior picture plane to what is left out, alluded to, outside the frame. And finally, he shows how photographers measure time; freeze moments, single out the present for the past of some distant future. Added to this element of time is vantage, that trick of where to place the picture plane in terms of its perspective, foreground to background, its recession to a vanishing point or points, whether it is head-on and flat, or deep and endless, looming up or slanting down, the world from above, or the world from below.
In Looking at Photographs which is subtitled--"100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art," Szarkowski leads the reader across time, from the earliest best works of the 19th century masters: Timothy O'Sullivan, Fredrick Evans, Lewis Hine, and Jacob Riis, all the way to Robert Frank, Roy DeCarava, Paul Caponigro, and Joel Meyerowitz.
The book is printed so that there is a one-page essay facing each of the 100 photographs it describes. Within that compact structure, Szarkowski is able to move from one idea to another across the history of photography as the reader turns the pages, and he is able to pinpoint for the reader, the attributes that each photographer brings to his medium. In this way the reader learns to read images for their wealth of craft, form and subject matter. It is like having the curator take you on a personal guided tour of the museum's photography galleries.
I learned from reading this book that Timothy O'Sullivan's "white skies" were a result of the wet plate's over-sensitivity to blue light and that "sky areas were thus automatically overexposed, and rendered as blank white." I also learned that O'Sullivan "...accepted the white sky and used it as a shape, enclosed in tension between the picture's visual horizon and the edges of the plate." Knowing this, I can never look at O'Sullivan's work again without understanding how much this 19th century photographic pioneer wanted the figure-ground relationship of sky to land to feature in his compositions. And this is only one example from the book. There are 99 more.
Owning this book is like having your own private collection of the world's most famous photographs. The way you look at photographs will be enriched. On your next visit to a gallery or a museum, you will be able to see so much more thanks to the intelligent and thoughtful writing of John Szarkowski. His precise, clear and uncluttered prose style will make your reading experience a pleasure in itself.
A Collection, New Yorker style.......2002-01-30
A Collection, New Yorker style
It is difficult to make a collection of photographs by different people and not make it haphazard, unless there is an underlying theme. The book consists of 100 pictures by 100 photographers in bw, taken in the 100 years or so up to 1960's, accompanied by a page of text each. The writing is insightful and while is not meant to be a systematic introduction to the history of photography, nonetheless is quite educational if you are interested in the subject. While the photographs range from the concrete to the abstract, the book is coherent helped largely by text. I enjoyed reading the text and looking at the photographs.
The book's strength and its weakness is that it strives to be stylish and original; the writing is 'sophisticated' and snobbish, a la New Yorker. Some of the 'deep' comments I did not much care for. Perhaps more importantly, a majority of the photos chosen for the photographer are not the ones that are usually considered the photographers' most representative works.
You should not read the book to study the history of photography nor to find the standard representative works of the famous photographers. I think people who are familiar with the rough history of photography and the more famous photographers will enjoy looking through the book - perhaps checked out from a library.
Wonderful Images; Beautifully Written Commentary.......2001-11-18
John Szarkowski has selected 100 worthwhile images and has crafted exceptionally well written commentary about each image. The value of the collection far exceeds the sum of the parts. The book is an education about photography. It doesn't matter how much you like an image or agree with the commentary because by seeing the image and reading the commentary you will learn about photography and about life.
See More . . . Through Photographs.......2000-11-19
Although this book has much less female nudity than many photographic books, there are two such pages in the book. If this type of representation is offensive to you, either skip this book or avoid those pages.
This book has modest purposes. "This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation." Beyond that, it is "a visual interim report [as of 1973] on the results of collecting photographs at The Museum of Modern Art." These purposes are magnificently fulfilled, and your eyes and mind will be filled with many useful new perspectives and thoughts as a result of your delectations here. Your life will be expanded by seeing much more, both in photographs and in life, as a result.
Mr. Szarkowski, head of the photography collection at MOMA, points at that photography "has received little serious study." As a result, a language and analytical framework for considering photography are not yet developed. To overcome that limitation. Mr. Szarkowski has provided a number of perspectives in the one-page essays that accompany each page of photography. These perspectives include the utilitarian purpose of the image, the style of the photographer, the technology of the methods used, and the significance of the subjects or subject. He also draws your attention to detail or information that expand your knowledge. It is like having the best docent's photography tour of your life, as you go through the images.
These essays are modestly described as simply "an attempt to describe photography from a somewhat more liberal and exploratory perspective." Well, they are much more than that. They are like turning the light on to see the photographs for the first time, unless you are a talented photographer already.
In creating this book, a great decision was made to limit each photographer to one page of work. In this way, you get to see more types of images and styles. I think this added greatly to the knowledge and enjoyment that can be gained from this wonderful book. A great benefit of this approach was to allow selecting photographs that would reproduce well in this page size format. I heartily approve of that approach!
In the book you will find portraits, sketches for painters, ways of recording far away places, Civil War reporting, aerial reconnaisance, methods of encouraging connections, insights into the physics of life, and efforts to be a successor to painting. As the author says, "Photography has remained . . . radical, instructive, disruptive, influential, problematic, and [an] astonishing phenomenon of the modern epoch."
Here are my favorite images:
D.O. Hill and W.B. Johnston, David Octavius Hill, Celotype, c. 1845
Baron Isadore Taylor, Nadar, Woodbury type, 1872
Madonna with Children, Julia Margaret Cameron, Albumen print, c. 1866
Sugar Bowl with Rowboat, Wisconsin Dells, Henry Hamilton Bennett, 1911
Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, Jacques Henri Lartigue
Georgia Engelhard, Alfred Stieglitz, 1921
Torso of Neil, Edward Weston, 1925
Babe Ruth, Nikolas Muray, c. 1927
James Joyce, Berenice Abbott, 1928
Wes Fesler Kicking a Football, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton, c. 1935
A Boy with a Straw Hat with Flag Waiting to March in a Pro-War Parade, New York City, Diane Arbus, 1967
The Museum of Modern Art added a photograph to its collection as only the 23rd object acquired in April 1930. From the beginning, the museum has been committed to photography and was the first museum to establish its own independent department of photography. Invariably, there are copious hangings from the collection available for viewing whenever you visit MOMA. The museum should be proud of creating and now reproducing an improved version of this wonderful set of selections from its extensive collection. Perhaps it is time to create a larger version of this book that is more representative of the whole collection.
After you finish expanding your vision through these marvelous essays and photographs, I urge you to do some photography of your own to express yourself. You will appreciate what you see even more when you create your own images. A good way to begin is to find a subject that is covered in this book and create your own version of that subject. In that way, you can get "inside of the camera" with the photographer. After your photographs can be seen, compare them with the book. Go back and try again. Repeat the process . . . until you have captured the image you were seeking. Like truth, images can be fleeting and transparent.
See more and be more through your improved vision!
The book I was REALLY hoping for !.......2000-04-09
This book fills the reader with emotion and knowledge about photography and photographs. I will never look at a photograph the same way after having read it. The language is beautiful and inspiring and photographs wonderfully reproduced. Anyone who loves the subject or art in general will find excitement on every page. NOW I can begin to know which photographers to study first and how to approach an enormous subject.
Book Description
Slavoj Zizek, a leading intellectual in the new social movements in Eastern Europe, provides a virtuoso reading of the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan through the works of contemporary popular culture, from horror fiction and detective thrillers to popular romances and Hitchcock films.
Slavoj Zizek is a Researcher in the Institute of Sociology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He ran as a proreform candidate for the presidency of the republic of Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia, in 1990.
Customer Reviews:
Lacanian heresy inside! Beware of being tainted!.......2004-10-05
I am struck by the negative reviews that caution readers: "Zizek is not an orthodox Lacanian! Read him only if you have already understood Lacan!" This is, of course, the typically cultish--really Catholic--approach to Lacan that treats him as a holy text, pre-supposes a series of high priests who have been properly anoited and through whom one must receive the officially sanctioned interpretation. I don't read Zizek for Lacan--I read him for Zizek, and I encourage others to do likewise. *Looking Awry* and *Enjoy Your Symptom* are prehaps the easiest approaches to Zizek and his brand of cultural criticism, as they rely almost entirely on popular culture, especially film. Zizek's perverse (and often dirty) sense of humor and tendency to read against the grain at all costs are apparent on nearly every page, which makes this a very engaging read, indeed. Intellectually, there are some problems with his approach, of course--but Zizek's voice is such a refreshing change of pace, and his constant turn to a reading that you thought was impossible (but turns out to be preversely appealing) makes them all worthwhile.
Perfect - if that's what you want........2004-05-15
That's what I wanted, at least: An illustration of the key Lacanian concepts. What Zizek'bokk gives you, in fact, is the key to reading Lacan.
Lacan's seminar is an unreadable text - if that's your first/second/third etc. time. Lacan, you see, does not make conclusions. To illustrate that:
- You are writing a paper on, let's say, "Gaze". You would like to know what's Lacan's take on gaze. You open "On Gaze as Object a" chapter from "Four Fundamentals".
- you read a paragraph. You do not quite understand what you have read.
- you read the following paragraph. Now, understanding this one is even more difficult, because Lacan is assuming that you have fully understood the previous one. Ok, third paragragh ... Should I continue?
- You either think that this book is non-sense or that you are stupid. Both conclusions are wrong.
As soon as you get the background - Lacan's non-sense makes perfect sense. Zizek give this background in a highly entertaining manner (his writing is a jewel - keeps you thinking "If only I could write like that!"). I am currently doing a PhD in literature, and I have to go through plenty of academic rubbish - dry and actually, useless critical books, that make use of Lacan, Foucault and others to get published and never be read. Zizec is a breath of fresh air.
Please believe me - do not give up on Lacan, do not call him bad names, (like "idiotic nonsense, nobody ever understood him, they were all pretending to understand him because they were afraid to look stupid in the 60s") - before you read Zizec.
This book is great; those below who don't like it are clowns.......2002-09-22
Jacques Lacan's theories are completely, utterly undecipherable. The only way to begin to understand the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory is to read somebody else writing on Lacan. And thank God Zizek does that for us. To understand Lacan, I've always had to turn to film theory critism--Laura Mulvey--but none of that ever goes beyond theories of the gaze, neglecting to dispell the mystery around some of the most basic concepts of Lacan. Zizek rolls through these various terms and ideas, always providing an exemplification of the idea in popular culture, usually in Hitchcock or within Sci-Fi genres, and then a clear-to-understand definition. So if you're confused as to what desire, drive, lack, objet a, other, Other, the Real, or the Thing are in terms of Lacanian jargon, this might be your book.
Titling awry.......2001-07-08
This book is very interesting but I think it would have been better to call it "An Introduction to Popular Culture trhough Jaques Lacan". This would be a proper title because Zizek dedicates more space to tell us what some products of popular culture are about (i.e. Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary"; Robert Sheckley's short story "The Store of the Worlds") than to explain, or even outline, the theories of Jaques Lacan. This in itself is not a critique, I just want to say that the title can be misleading. You will not find here an explanation or an introduction to Lacan, but rather a Lacanian reading or interpretation of some products of popular culture (novels, short stories and films.) If you are looking for an easy or brief rendering of Lacan, this book will not be of much help. Moreover, I would say that the readers who will profit the most are those who are already familiar with, or at least know something about, Lacanian thought. This said, I think that Zizek's Lacanian reading of popular works is very good in some cases, and somewhat poor in others. For example, he recalls the novel "Pet Sematary" but he explains almost nothing about it. The good cases, however, make it worth the effort to read the book (Zizek's writing is complicated, but so is Lacan's), and even if you do not agree with some of his points, they are still useful to encourage thought and discussion. If you are interested in the study of popular culture, the interpretation of film and literature, or in the application of Lacanian theory to social analysis, this book will certainly be of use.
Looking Awry This Book.......2000-06-01
This book consists of three parts each of which treats so wide range of topics that there seems to be no logical consistency except Lacanian theory. In the first part, Zizek applys Lacanian theory on reality to various topics such as Zenofs paradox, Shakespearefs gHamleth, Stephen Kingfs gPet Semataryh, and Steven Spielbergfs gEmpire of the Sunh. Then, the second part focuses on Hitchcockfs works and the third part discusses gFantasy, Bureaucracy, Democracyh, however, both parts treat various works in popular culture, too. Actually, Zizek treats Lacanian theory on reality in the first part, on psychoanalysis in the second part, and on gthe Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Realh in the third part, and the third part arranges the preceding parts. But I feel that this book is about how to analyze popular culture rather than about Lacan. As an introduction to Jacques Lacan, I think this book is too difficult. However, this bookfs style which does not have a logical consistency like an ordinary thesis might be more easy to know Lacanian theory than compactly explaining book with many diagrams.
Book Description
When one enters this beautiful book from the cluttered streets of everyday life, one is fed by the artist's eye, the poet's voice, and the insight of the mystics. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Customer Reviews:
grounding, settling, and comforting.......2007-08-16
I was lucky enough to be introduced to this book by a friend who gifted it to me. Now I keep a stock of these books to give whenever the moment is right. The juxtaposition of quotations and images is perfection. Whatever I'm feeling, I know that a read through "The Quiet Eye" will make me feel better.
A quiet book for quiet times.......2006-11-10
This is one of my favorite books and I often give it to friends. Each page depicts a work of art together with a famous quotation. The peace and quiet atmosphere of the book is attributable perhaps to its Quaker origins. A lovely and elegant work of art in itself.
The most beautiful book.......2005-12-04
This small book is so beautiful that it passes into the word "sacred." It doesn't do it justice to describe it briefly as a small book with photos of works of art (painting, sculpture, etc) on one side of the page, and a small quote from scripture or poetry, etc on the facing page. Each pair of art/quote is placed before us so that it may be a portal to meditation and conversation with God. In a way, it is an experiential course in lectio divina. This book is presented from a Quaker perspective, but is, of course, relevant to all Christian (and, really, other) faiths. A collection of this sort could easily have been banal; this one is not. It is a very deep and beautiful collection. I highly recommend it to anyone. It also makes a great gift.
A gem of a book, for yourself or as a gift..........2004-12-28
I have had this book for many years and still return to it for the peace and gentle guidance that come from the carefully chosen quotations. The images complement the quotations in interesting ways and are lovely in and of themselves. This book makes a warm and thoughtful gift for someone whose happiness you truly care about--without spending a fortune, you'll be giving something very much worth keeping.
A Quaker view of Art.......1998-01-13
This small, short book is great to have around for odd moments when you need a little tranquillity and beauty. Emphasizes the peaceful and meditative in Western and a little bit of Eastern Art.
Book Description
Shaped by Richard Barsam's more than twenty years of classroom experience, Looking at Movies uses students' natural enthusiasm for the subject as a foundation for going beyond enjoyment toward intelligent, analytical understanding of movies. Professor Barsam's clear writing, thorough presentation of fundamental film principles, and unique pedagogical additions to the traditional introductory text—including an entire chapter devoted to analytical writing—ensure that students approach screenings and writing assignments equipped with the analytical tools necessary to be active, insightful interpreters of movies. Looking at Movies is accompanied by two outstanding multimedia resources, the Student website and CD-ROM, both of which are integrated directly with the text.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent for a Student.......2007-07-12
I bought this book my sophomore year in college. I was enrolled in a class that had the most boring professor who didn't give any insight into film at all. He just sat back and popped in a movie and left the room. To purchase the text was optionial, and since I am very into film I decided to purchase it. Currently I am a junior at UB in Buffalo, and earning my BA in Film Studies and theory, with hopes of one day teaching a much more interesting college level course then my previous professor. I found this book very enlightening for catching up on what many professors left out or never mentioned. It is pretty much for starters and film fans that are just starting out getting serious. It makes references to classics, foreign, and more culturally "brain dead" college flicks such as Something About Mary. Thats what drew me to this book, it doesn't single out film to be an artsy serious look at film when it doesn't need to be. It pays respect to all types and genres of film, giving credit for what they all brought to the big screen.
The book sums up basic termonology, jobs and history all related to cinema since the start. It can be critized as being to plain and simple at times, but good to be the first book to start your collection of film references and texts. I used to bring this book and long car drives, plane trips and just when I was sitting on my couch during commercials, while using post-its and a highlighter on nearly every page. I would highly recommend this book for someone who wants to familiarize themselves with film technique and study on a basic, yet enlightening level.
Excellent Effort . . . Excellent Price.......2007-02-11
If you teach at a university, you may know the anxiety of selecting a new text. Can you justify the exorbitant cost? Does the text competently address the basics? Will you be forced to hover over the photocopy machine, creating supplements to a less than adequate text? Here is the scoop on "Looking at Movies" . . .
The Good:
1.) It is inexpensive. Students will appreciate the price-break.
2.) It is, overall, aesthetically pleasing (which will make students more amenable to your class).
3.) It incorporates often over-looked films (like Fincher's "Fight Club")
4.) It strives to both acknowledge film history while examining contemporary works (contemporary works engage students . . . films from the 1980's, not so much!)
The Bad:
1.) The examples are slightly too small and a bit washed-out (I think as a result of the paper-stock of the actual text). The publishing company (Norton) should have allowed the examples a larger, lusher format and charged a little more . . . especially when a textbook is dedicated to a VISUAL art!!
2.) Though just released, this text references out-of-print films. For example: Jane Campion's "Portrait of a Lady" has been out-of-print for a while . . . it is currently $79.00 here (in mint condition). None of my students have ever seen this film . . . they cannot relate. This is a problem that should have been caught in editing.
3.) My copy arrived with advertisement postcards stuck in the text. Can you imagine asking your students to pay $50.00 for a text and then have advertisements spill from the pages as though it were Cosmopolitan magazine?! Tacky. (Again, not the author's fault).
The Not-Quite-Ugly but Not-Pretty-Either:
1.)The "Critical Approaches" and "Applied Readings" sections would have to be excised with an X-acto knife. While some of the approaches are interesting (to me), they are a bit odd for an introductory text (ex. cognitive psychology). I would be uncomfortable with a student thinking that these are the most common/valued approaches to film.
2.)The text is accompanied by two DVDs AND a "Writing about Movies" mini-text. I've never been a fan of the "more is more" idea, but what perplexes me is how all of these components are separate from the text (again, not the fault of the author). Why wasn't the mini-text (53 pages) incorporated into the actual text? "Removed," this mini-text carries little weight . . . it's authority is strangely compromised. Concerning the DVDs: what would have been fantastic is two little sleeves inside the text for them. Instead, here are two DVDs, packaged separately, just rolling around in space (and under dorm beds). Again, psychologically there is a sense of "is this a part of the text or was it some promotional product?" There is a disconnect. It would have been spectacular had these elements been integrated into the text itself: one unified product.
If you are seeking a newer text for your class (or even your own private study), consider Maria T. Pramaggiore's "Film: A Critical Introduction." While your bookstore will charge $80.00 for it, Amazon asks only $68.00 . . . so have your students buy it here!! The examples are lavish, the text informative and concise, and the critical approaches are a bit more relevant to the casual student (gender, class, sexuality, race, national identity etc...).
Some schools impose (or suggest) a textbook-expense cap. If this is your predicament, this text is a good choice. If not, examine Pramaggiore's text and then decide.
Customer Reviews:
art for youth.......2000-06-19
I checked out this book from the library because, as an adult, I felt I didn't know enough about paintings to appreciate them fully when I visited an art gallery. This book briefly covers a large number of aspects of art including color, perspective, portraits, and landscape. The paintings used as examples are many and varied and they are beautifully reproduced. I learned many things but as I read, I came up with many more questions the book did not answer. However, I am a 36-year-old college graduate. I believe that the book is quite informative for its recommended age group: 9-12. I am getting a copy for my artistic nephew's tenth birthday.
Average customer rating:
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Looking Down
Steve Jenkins
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
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ASIN: 0618310983 |
Book Description
If you were an astronaut traveling far out in space and you looked at the earth, what would you see? A small ball in the huge black universe. That's where these pictures begin. Then they move closer and closer to the earth, each view revealing new details. Until finally . . . See for yourself. In this wordless picture book with stunning cut-paper illustrations, Steve Jenkins masterfully depicts the many levels of the universe, from the farthest reaches of space to the most familiar corner of your backyard.
Customer Reviews:
looking down.......2000-05-18
As an elementary school librarian, i have found this book to be a great hit with students of all ages. It gives a bird's eye view of the earth from first space and eventually down to a magnifing glass in a child's hand. On the way, it introduces kids to VITAL map skills, earth features and how they might be portreyed on a map. This book is a must for all elementary school teachers interested in teaching map skills
Average customer rating:
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The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art: Looking at Pictures in Place
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Archaeology of Rock-Art (New Directions in Archaeology Series)
ASIN: 0521818796 |
Book Description
A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge, 1998), this new collection addresses the most important component of the rock-art panel: its landscape. The book draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world known for rock-art and rock-art research. It provides insight into the location and structure of rock-art and its role within the landscapes of ancient worlds.
Book Description
An ear-tickling, eye-teasing romp for little listeners, led by an award-winning author and illustrator
Do you really, really want to see a moose — a long-leggy moose — a branchy-antler, dinner-diving, bulgy-nose moose? Spurred by Phyllis Root's sing-songy text and Randy Cecil's buoyant illustrations, this hunt for an elusive moose through woods, swamps, bushes, and hills is just as fun as the final surprise discovery of moose en masse. Children will laugh at the running visual joke — what is that little dog looking at? — and ask for repeated reads of this satisfying tale.
Customer Reviews:
Charming Moose Tale.......2007-06-21
My 3-year-old son loves this book, which makes it suitable for a positive review. :) It is a charming story about several children (and a dog) who are on a search for a moose. Full of funny words like 'squeech, squooch' and 'fuzzy, muzzy' my son loves to hear it read aloud. I liked the book, too, although it can be a mouthful, however the illustraions are a bit too cartoony for my taste, thus my 4 stars.
A Very Singular (and Plural) Moose.......2007-02-10
All right, I confess, I have a personal interest in this book. The little dog who goes with the children on their joyful moose hunt ("Franny, who always knows where the moose is," as illustrator Randy Cecil puts it in his dedication) once lived in my house. Franny was rescued from a shelter by Second Chance Poms, Inc., a local rescue group, and I fostered her.
As a mother, grandmother, and former teacher, I appreciate the "table of contents" on the first page, as the first child asks the other children (and the dog) if they have "ever seen a moose--a long-leggy moose--a branchy-antler, dinner-diving, bulgy-nose moose." Each of these categories becomes an enjoyable page turn as the children prepare to look for a "long-leggy moose"; enter the woods and look all around at the tree trunks while Franny stares at the four moose legs in among the trunks; and then express their disappointment. "We look and we look, but it's just no use. We don't see any long-leggy moose." It becomes a game for children reading the book to count the number of moose the children are missing (and which Randy Cecil hides so cleverly in the scenery), one long-leggy moose, two dinner-diving moose, three branchy-antler moose. (Franny, of course, always sees them.)
Finally, the children do see the moose, and with a twist of humor, they see "a moose and a moose and a moose" as well as "so many moose." Yes, Johnny, the plural of moose is moose.
Book Description
"There's a new boy at school called Louis. Louis sits next to me and I look out for him. He's not quite like the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder what he's thinking about. He often just sits and stares at the wall. If I ask him what he's looking at, he says, `Looking at,' and keeps on looking."
Louis has autism, but through imagination, kindness, and a special game of soccer, his classmates find a way to join him in his world. Then they can include Louis in theirs.
Customer Reviews:
Read Aloud to your class.......2007-04-07
This is an excellent book to read to your class at the beginning of the school year. It's a story about recognizing and accepting classmates with "differences". Our principal loved this book as well.
Good book as an into for kids.......2007-03-10
I just used this book with 24 different classes to introdcue the idea of autism and the idea that these students are mainstreamed into their classes. No, it does not mention "autism" though as an adult reading this book to children that explanation can begin with you. Frankly, it is a very true picture of inclusion and the feelings other chdren often have about having a child who is different from them in the classroom. The children I read this to understood that the purpose of Louis being in their classroom was not to learn academics necesssarily, but to begin to understand how to function in the regular classroom. People annoyed that Louis is not "learning anything" are wrong. His position in a regular ed classroom is to learn to socialize since his level of functioning is obviously below those of the peers. The kids I read this too really connected with the book and came away understanding a little more about why the rules may be different for other children with special needs.
Wrong message about education.......2006-09-25
I have a child with autism and his kindergarten year was much like Louis's. He was in a classroom learning nothing. Like Louis, the other students viewed him as more of a pet than a peer.
In first grade, he was taught in a way that he can learn (much like in the book "Taking Autism to School") and his teachers focused on what our child COULD do, and how we all have things we are good and bad at when talking to my son's classmates. The kids understood Sam was different, but still a peer, with his own strengths.
I bought "Looking after Louis" and read it to my typical daughter (6 years old). I asked her what she thought. She immediately picked up on the fact that Louis had autism, like her brother. I asked if she thought it was ok that Louis wasn't learning anything or expected to do work like the other kids. She said yes because he's different--which is the message the author is sending. At that point, I told her I thought it was a stupid book because all children need to learn when they're at school. Then we had a talk about her brother's education and abilities.
I think this book sends the message that children with autism don't need to learn. I would hate for my son's classmates to "learn" about autism from this book. I would be very concerned if my son's teachers felt it sent the right message.
Great book for Kids.......2006-03-15
This book is a wonderful example of teaching children acceptance of children that have differing abilities. We purchased it for our Autism chapter library and I know it will be a hit.Children need to learn tolerance and acceptance in order to survive in this world of differing talents and abilities.
Excellent Title for Library and School Shelves.......2005-09-29
This is an excellent book for any library or school that is looking for books about inclusion and children with autism that DOESN'T LOOK OR FEEL OUTDATED!! One of the only books our public library has found that is both sympathetic and empowering for anyone that has an autistic friend. Definately get this one, an excellent resource for families and educators.
Books:
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- Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist
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