Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood's Darkest and Best Kept Secrets
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • a very interesting book to page through
  • Thumbs down on the (myth-ridden) text, thumbs up on (some of) the pictures
  • Juicy delicious!
  • great book and wonderful gossip
  • VERY ENTERTAINING
Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood's Darkest and Best Kept Secrets
Kenneth Anger
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0440153255
Release Date: 1981-11-15

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars a very interesting book to page through.......2007-07-18

Kenneth Anger's hollywood babylon is the kind of book you can pick up and put down at any time.. I find it interesting to page through before or after I watch one of the older movies of hollywood's golden age.. I can't get enough of this sort of look into the dumpster of tinseltown.. the scandals and episodes that have been brushed under the carpet or just are no longer known about.. The list of characters that populate these pages are as colorful as they were glamorous.. and also at times hideous..
This is not very heavy reading but it is endlessly fascinating..

2 out of 5 stars Thumbs down on the (myth-ridden) text, thumbs up on (some of) the pictures.......2007-07-12

What saves the sensationalistic - not to say trashy and in many places inaccurate - _Hollywood Babylon_ from being a total failure is the huge number of pictures, many shocking and some downright grisly (as in the picture of poor Thelma Todd lying done to death in her car), but mostly fascinating if sometimes nauseating (I'll talk about one of the worst offenders shortly). Which is a good thing, because frankly I want to take a bath every time I read the text to wash off the grime. We all know that Hollywood in its "Golden Age" was a long way removed from the image of saintly morality painted by its self-appointed guardians, the studio moguls - very many of whom had guilty secrets among them - chief among them, but Kenneth Anger seems to take a little too much delight in the sordidity and scandal for my own taste. What makes it worse is that he passes on a number of urban legends rather than do the boring work of get at the truth.

One of the most objectionable myths he fosters in this book, in my view, is the story that Jayne Mansfield was decapitated in the auto accident that took her life in 1967. This is simply not true. There is a ghastly photo in circulation on the web - I won't link to it but those who really want to know can Google for it - that makes it clear that her injuries, while fatal, did not result in the removal of her head. What you see on the car's crumpled hood in that photo (that Anger claims was Mansfield's noggin) is actually her wig. (And did we really need to see that photo of her dead Chihuahua? Ugh.)

If people want a really good book on Hollywood scandals, I strongly suggest they go find James Robert Parish's well-researched, evenhanded, brightly-written _The Hollywood Book of Scandal_ instead. (And that book doesn't contain any photos likely to make you lose your lunch, either!)

5 out of 5 stars Juicy delicious!.......2007-05-19

If you think today's stars are misbehaved, wait til you read this! I couldn't put it down and read it in few days. Anger's style of writing is witty, sarcastic, and will compltely put you back into another era. The book focuses mainly on early, pre-code Hollywood up until Jayne Mansfield's death in 1967. There are so many juicy stories and even morbid details in this book, and tons of awesome pictures. (Although be warned- picture of Jayne Mansfield's car crash and dead dog are depressing and bloody). Includes everyone who was ever anyone- Clara Bow, Carole Landis, Carole Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, Valentino, Novarro, Judy Garland (who died on the toilet), Gary Cooper, William Randolph Hurst, Jayne Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, etc. etc. etc. All the old legends are in here. Completely worth the price. I just wish there was a newer version.

5 out of 5 stars great book and wonderful gossip.......2007-02-18

if your the type that is intrigued by anna nichole , michael jackson, brittney spears and paris hilton then get this book these people were the real hollywood deal the stars from the 20s 30s and 40s make todays stars seem like cub scouts. this book has it all sex , glamor , drugs all the stuff that will make you not put this book down . you couldnt make this stuff up if you tried .

5 out of 5 stars VERY ENTERTAINING.......2007-01-12

I love reading the trash & gossip about the stars and this book provided it all. It was hard to put down and I was sorry when I finished it.
Great reading!
The Art of Howl's Moving Castle
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Don't Let The Cover Sketch Scare You Away
  • A Visual Feast !
  • The Art of Howl's Moving Castle
  • Excellent book
  • A great book
The Art of Howl's Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki
Manufacturer: VIZ Media LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1421500493

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Don't Let The Cover Sketch Scare You Away.......2007-09-27

This book opens a world of anime art like none other. Primary characters & secondary characters are carefully drawn out and walk through a world & story created for them. As a professional artist, I found great interest in the prelimiary drawings straight through the setting concepts. This is also a great book for fans of the movie. If you loved the movie, you will love this book.

5 out of 5 stars A Visual Feast !.......2007-06-16

I totally enjoyed the layout and discussion in this book. I have been a Miyazaki fan ever since, "My Neighbor Totoro" which I saw when I lived in Japan. If you relish animation and all the details of this art form, you'll like the format and attention this book gives.

Janine Bolon, Financial Coach, Radio Talk Show Host, author of "Money...It's Not Just for Rich People!" available on amazon. Money...It's Not Just for Rich People!

5 out of 5 stars The Art of Howl's Moving Castle.......2007-04-06

If you loved the movie, you will love this book, The Art of Howl's Moving Castle it's hard cover, with original sketches, storyboards and the final screenplay!

The book explains every step of the complex story, from the original book adaptation to the final movie. Also have quotes and articles from creators of each process (designers, art directors, supervising animators, etc.) It's like seeing the movie scene by scene with artist commentaries.

5 out of 5 stars Excellent book.......2007-03-24

Being a great Miyazaki fan I really love this book. Even though majority of the books is filled with movie stills, I love it. I revisit those pictures in the books and get myself lost in the beauty of colors. Also being a student of animation, I really get to learn a lot of things. Character concepts and other drawings are really helpful. I highly recommend this book for anybody who likes stories, animation and colors.

5 out of 5 stars A great book.......2007-03-09

Hayao Miyazaki is a genious. This book is simply a must for all of the director's fans. The book is full of drawings, sketches and images from the actual movie.
Film Form: Essays in Film Theory
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theories on Cinema
  • Film Form: Marxism, Montage and the Hegelian Dialectic
  • Montage, Marxism and the Hegelian Dialectic
  • THIS BOOK WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR FILMMAKING
  • The montage explained
Film Form: Essays in Film Theory
Sergei Eisenstein
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156309203

Amazon.com

After D.W. Griffith, the most important figure in the history of the international cinema is Sergei Eisenstein. Both men died in 1948, but Eisenstein left a double legacy: not only was he one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but he was also a magnificent film theorist, perhaps the most important one ever. This book of his essays, superbly translated and edited by Jay Leyda, reprints some of his most vital writings on the art of the cinema, including articles on the language and structure of the movies, the differences between theater and film, and the author's efforts to adapt Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy for the screen. In "The Cinematic Principle and the Ideogram," Eisenstein analyzes the written symbols of the Japanese language as a model for film editing. "Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today," one of the author's most famous pieces, speaks of Griffith as a Dickensian director and then argues for a kind of filmmaking that transcends Griffith's literal style in order to touch its audience on an ideological and metaphorical level. This volume also includes the notorious "statement" on sound movies, which argues against the use of synchronous sound and in favor of jarring, contrapuntal audio that Eisenstein believed would add new dimensions to the talking picture. Idiosyncratic, engrossing, and brilliant, Eisenstein's essays will inspire you to reevaluate everything you thought you knew about the movies.

Book Description

Twelve essays written between 1928 and 1945 that demonstrate key points in the development of Eisenstein’s film theory and in particular his analysis of the sound-film medium. Edited, translated, and with an Introduction by Jay Leyda; Index; photographs and diagrams.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Theories on Cinema.......2006-04-10

This is not a how to for wannabe movie directors, the essays revolve around the cinematic medium and its creation, and not so much on its content. Not unlike McLuhan, Eisenstein proposes to understand cinema as an extension of our senses ( hence, his following book, Film Sense ), and retraces the evolution from theather to cinema to sound cinema with a focus on Japanese influence ( Kabuki ) and a revolutionary ( for its time ) approach to montage. Cryptic at times, but a goldmine of insights into the nature of the silver screen.

4 out of 5 stars Film Form: Marxism, Montage and the Hegelian Dialectic.......2002-07-10

As many of the early film theorists, Eisenstein has a tendency to propose as universals the principles of a specific school. The Soviet school of montage, whose heyday was in the late 20s, finds its most brilliant auteur here expounding not only upon its philosophy of cinema, but on ways in which this philosophy is in fitting with Marxism, the Hegelian dialectic and science. As such, it is a brilliant manifesto, a seminal work of greater value than any of those by Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Vertov, Dovzhenko or other montagists.

Nonetheless, it is problematic in several ways, and an understanding of the nature of its idiosyncrasies is extremely valuable. First, in an effort to "prove" his hypotheses, Eisenstein often attempts to reconcile film and physics in ways that are inappropriate and pseudo-scientific. He presents himself, in that sense, as both Eisenstein and amateur Einstein. Further, case studies are often chosen from his own work, in effect limiting the reader's freedom to disagree with his conclusions. Finally, the manner in which he expresses his thoughts is beyond elliptical. At times, it appears that one would have had to have been living in Russia at the time that these essays were written and to have been thinking about the same issues that Eisenstein was to comprehend what he is getting at. [On the other hand, for those who have had the joy of reading Wittgenstein, for example, this should be a good book to take to the beach.]

As indicated above, these problems can be explained. Communists have always had a complex relationship with the Social Darwinists. On one hand, Marxism was born out of progressive, evolutionary thinking; on the other hand, Marxists dismiss the idea of "survival of the fittest" as primitive and untenable. Soviet biologists often found themselves in the unique position of having to reconcile their theories with the party line, supported by hand selected data. In the end, of course, the value of art and science were measured by the rigid slide rule of the Communist Party. Science that did not promote its agenda was considered "anti-revolutionary."

Eisenstein is the Comrade Lysenko of cinema. He hoists high the myth of science (i.e., the systematic study of physical Truth), reduced essentially to propaganda, and borne along on the shoulders of dubious examples. The most convenient (and most incontrovertible) of these are taken from his own films, the full meanings of which belong to his own demesne. The language Eisenstein uses to construct his arguments is wisely selected: The more clearly one understands his propagandist averments and the less clearly the logic upon which they are based, the more likely one is to accept them as fact. Somewhat hypocritically, then, Eisenstein selects the voice of the intellectual elite to speak to the masses, hiding his true political intentions behind a veil of empty esotericism. Like the soothsayer, the illusionist and the ringleader, "Film Form" operates in the realm of baseless belief in which arguments gain validity relative not to WHAT they say but the WAY in which they say it. For this very reason, it is an important read... the very dogma of Bolshevik art.

4 out of 5 stars Montage, Marxism and the Hegelian Dialectic.......2002-07-09

As many of the early film theorists, Eisenstein has a tendency to propose as universals the principles of a specific school. The Soviet school of montage, whose heyday was in the late 20s, finds its most brilliant auteur here expounding not only upon its philosophy of cinema, but on ways in which this philosophy is in fitting with Marxism, the Hegelian dialectic and science. As such, it is a brilliant manifesto, a seminal work of greater value than any of those by Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Vertov, Dovzhenko or other montagists.

Nonetheless, it is problematic in several ways, and an understanding of the nature of its idiosyncrasies is extremely valuable. First, in an effort to "prove" his hypotheses, Eisenstein often attempts to reconcile film and physics in ways that are inappropriate and pseudo-scientific. He presents himself, in that sense, as both Eisenstein and amateur Einstein. Further, case studies are often chosen from his own work, in effect limiting the reader's freedom to disagree with his conclusions. Finally, the manner in which he expresses his thoughts is beyond elliptical. At times, it appears that one would have had to have been living in Russia at the time that these essays were written and to have been thinking about the same issues that Eisenstein was to comprehend what he is getting at. [On the other hand, for those who have had the joy of reading Wittgenstein, for example, this should be a good book to take to the beach.]

As indicated above, these problems can be explained. Communists have always had a complex relationship with the Social Darwinists. On one hand, Marxism was born out of progressive, evolutionary thinking; on the other hand, Marxists dismiss the idea of "survival of the fittest" as primitive and untenable. Soviet biologists often found themselves in the unique position of having to reconcile their theories with the party line, supported by hand selected data. In the end, of course, the value of art and science were measured by the rigid slide rule of the Communist Party. Science that did not promote its agenda was considered "anti-revolutionary."

Eisenstein is the very Comrade Lysenko of cinema. He hoists high the myth of science (i.e., the systematic study of physical Truth), reduced essentially to propaganda, and borne along on the shoulders of dubious examples. The most convenient (most incontrovertible) of these are those taken from his own films, the full meaning of which belongs to his own demesne. The language Eisenstein uses to construct his arguments is wisely selected: The more clearly one understands his propagandist averments and the less clearly the logic upon which they are based, the more likely one is to accept them as fact. Somewhat hypocritically, then, Eisenstein selects the voice of the intellectual elite to speak to the masses, hiding his true political intentions behind a veil of empty esotericism. Like the soothsayer, the illusionist and the ringleader, "Film Form" operates in the realm of baseless belief in which arguments gain validity relative not to WHAT they say but the WAY in which they say it. For this very reason, it is an important read... the very dogma of Bolshevik art.

3 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR FILMMAKING.......2000-02-28

This book will not improve your skills as a filmmaker (I doubt that any book would). If you can actually figure out what Eisenstein is trying to say, you will only find very vague and obscure theories. His ideas are interesting in what they reveal about his films and himself, but you cannot apply them to your filmmaking.

5 out of 5 stars The montage explained.......1999-07-24

While it can be tough to read Film Form it is ultimately a more then worth while book to read. Eisenstein's theory of montage is a must read. Very inspiring and insightful
Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • uptodate
Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image
Laura Mulvey
Manufacturer: Reaktion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1861892632

Book Description

Death 24x a Second is a fascinating exploration of the role new media technologies play in our experience of film. Addressing some of the key questions of film theory, spectatorship, and narrative, Laura Mulvey here argues that such technologies, including home DVD players, have fundamentally altered our relationship to the movies.

According to Mulvey, new media technologies give viewers the ability to control both image and story, so that movies meant to be seen collectively and followed in a linear fashion may be manipulated to contain unexpected and even unintended pleasures. The individual frame, the projected film’s best-kept secret, can now be revealed by anyone who hits pause. Easy access to repetition, slow motion, and the freeze-frame, Mulvey argues, may shift the spectator’s pleasure to a fetishistic rather than a voyeuristic investment in film.

By exploring how technology can give new life to old cinema, Death 24x a Second offers an original reevaluation of film’s history and its historical usefulness.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars uptodate.......2007-01-10

its a very good book on films. its uptodate, integrating lots of knowledge of the new technologies that have affected - good and bad - the film media. the articles however could have been more integrated with one another.
Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Phenomenology and film
Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture
Vivian Sobchack , and Univ of California Pr
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520241290

Book Description

In these innovative essays, Vivian Sobchack considers the key role our bodies play in making sense of today's image-saturated culture. Emphasizing our corporeal rather than our intellectual engagements with film and other media, Carnal Thoughts shows how our experience always emerges through our senses and how our bodies are not just visible objects but also sense-making, visual subjects. Sobchack draws on both phenomenological philosophy and a broad range of popular sources to explore bodily experience in contemporary, moving-image culture. She examines how, through the conflation of cinema and surgery, we've all "had our eyes done"; why we are "moved" by the movies; and the different ways in which we inhabit photographic, cinematic, and electronic space. Carnal Thoughts provides a lively and engaging challenge to the mind/body split by demonstrating that the process of "making sense" requires an irreducible collaboration between our thoughts and our senses.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Phenomenology and film.......2007-08-14

This book is part of the author's long theoretical project during which Vivian Sobchack tries to apply the assumptions and approach of philosophical phenomenology to film theory. Sobchack's theory is based mainly on the work of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty - for more details regarding Sobchack's theory, see her earlier book entitled "The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience".
Beside it's marvulous theoretical performance this book is very intelligently written, full of creative language-use. However it could raise only the interest of film scholars interested deeply in film theory, and trained a little bit in philosophy.
What Is Cinema? (Vol 1) (What is Cinema?)
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • A must for any lover cinema!
  • Significant work - atrocious translation
  • What Is Cinema?
What Is Cinema? (Vol 1) (What is Cinema?)
Andre Bazin
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520000927

Amazon.com

André Bazin is a great film critic and essayist, arguably the best France ever produced. His impact on the international cinema was monumental and continues to be felt today. He popularized the auteur theory, the idea that directors were the authors of their films. He was one of the first to take American "B"" movie genres, such as Westerns and films noir, seriously. He waxed eloquently on the Italian neorealist movement of the late '40s and '50s and inspired the "New Wave" of French directors, many of whom wrote for the journal he founded and edited, the legendary Cahiers du Cinema. François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to him.

Bazin had a keen eye for cinematic detail and technique, but was also one of the cinema's great sociologists, psychologists, and historians. Volume two of What Is Cinema? collects some of his most characteristic writings. It contains essays on the aesthetic of neorealism; individual neorealist films by Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Federico Fellini; the brilliance of Charlie Chaplin; and the mythmaking qualities of the Western. The volume ends with an appreciation of the great Jean Gabin and three essays on sex in the movies, including the delightful "Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl." Bazin's essays are short, smoothly written, revelatory, and filled with remarkable insights and a profound love for his subject.

Book Description

André Bazin's What Is Cinema? (volumes I and II) have been classics of film studies for as long as they've been available and are considered the gold standard in the field of film criticism. Although Bazin made no films, his name has been one of the most important in French cinema since World War II. He was co-founder of the influential Cahiers du Cinéma, which under his leadership became one of the world's most distinguished publications. Championing the films of Jean Renoir (who contributed a short foreword to Volume I), Orson Welles, and Roberto Rossellini, he became the protégé of François Truffaut, who honors him touchingly in his forword to Volume II. This new edition includes graceful forewords to each volume by Bazin scholar and biographer Dudley Andrew, who reconsiders Bazin and his place in contemporary film study. The essays themselves are erudite but always accessible, intellectual, and stimulating. As Renoir puts it, the essays of Bazin "will survive even if the cinema does not."

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars A must for any lover cinema!.......2004-08-25

Andre Bazin was the most powerful mind and one of the deepest thinkers , creator of the famous Cahiers du cinema , these were passionate and interesting digest who meet to famous and youth film makers and very valuable people related with this art.
Bazin goes to the origins of the cinema his meaning and implications in the psiquis and its mythical roots , Bazin death (40) was a painful loss for the raising french directors in 1957 .
When you get The 400 blows of Francois Truffaut (The quintessential New Wave film) in the initial titles you will watch the special hommage to Bazin in memoriam .
You may consider several mistakes in the traduction , when this happens remember the chinese statement: All traduction is a betray.
Try to get a spanish edition . I have both of them since I have not been able to get the french edition.

1 out of 5 stars Significant work - atrocious translation.......2000-12-04

André Bazin was one of the most important writers on film. His views have been influential worldwide. The term Bazinian realism has become one of the major theoretical categories in film studies. The impact of Bazin's work on English-language film studies has been generated, to a large degree, by this two-volume collection of essays. A number of major debates that have been going round for years now (decades actually) in English language works center on issues arising from these essays; e.g. the relation between objects and their photographs. However it must be stressed that these English language essays are re-workings by their "translator" rather than faithful renderings of the originals. Hugh Gray, the translator, not only chose some of the essays from the original French editions but also treated them with great liberty. Sentences and footnotes are missing, others are combined without reason; expressions are made more "flowery"; and meanings are changed. I cannot tell whether the translator was not up to the task of doing this job properly or he decided to mistreat his subject to such a degree consciously. In any case it is a great pity that Bazin's work is available in English only in this unfortunate form.

The original woks deserve 5 stars; it is impossible to decide how to rate this particular version.

5 out of 5 stars What Is Cinema?.......2000-06-29

What is Cinema? Volume One and What is Cinema Volume 2 are English translations drawn from the original French four-volume work. They are not the entire four-volume work, but include some of the more important essays. In France itself, the four-volume work was later boiled to a one-volume set of selections. This French version was later used for the selections in the Spanish and Portuguese versions. The Italian version is different from the others, but also drawn from the four-volume work. Much of the four-volume original French work that has been omitted from the English What is Cinema? volumes I and II can be found in Cardullo's more recent collection "Bazin at Work."

Since Bazin's passing, film theory ventured more deeply into such things as semiotics, Freudian and Lacanian analyses, and sociological/Marxist perspectives. However, Bazin was one of the first and arguably most important writers to take film discourse beyond the "funny" "sexy" "scary" level. Some of the places film discourse has gone since the time of Bazin would be difficult or impossible for an unitiated person to comprehend. This is not so with Bazin, a man who also did such things as take Charlie Chaplin films to show at factories during lunch hour.

Although Bazin passed away more than 40 years ago, he remains relevant even if his writings have been subject to some critical analysis from writers like Brian Henderson and Noel Carroll. Moreover, in reading Bazin, one often has moments of recognition that are applicable to more recent things in the theatres; for example, a remark Bazin makes about Marilyn Monroe's skirt flying up is pertinent to discussion of the Austin Powers films, Bazin's remarks about such things as films about arctic expeditions, bullfighting documentaries, or films of Chinese executions may have a certain relevance in talking about the phenomenon of "The Blair Witch Project" . . .
The Film Sense
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Tough but interesting...
  • THIS BOOK WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR FILMS!
  • A must read for all filmmakers, The basis of all great films
The Film Sense
Sergei M. Eisenstein , and Jay Leyda
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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  2. What Is Cinema? Vol. 1 What Is Cinema? Vol. 1
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  5. Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema

ASIN: 0156309351

Amazon.com

The theory of "montage" or editing, developed by early Soviet filmmakers, reached its deepest expression in the writings of Sergeii Eisenstein, undeniably the most profound theorist of film art. This book contains the clearest and most accessible introduction to his ideas about the cinema. Eisenstein, who directed "The Battleship Potemkin" and "Alexander Nevsky," was a master propagandist as well as a superb filmmaker. In this book, he argues passionately that these two crafts are closely related.

Book Description

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, born in Riga in 1898, first achieved world fame with his silent film, Potemkin in 1925. Although he only completed six films in his lifetime, he is considered one of the most influential film-makers and film theoreticians of all time.

The Film Sense draws upon Eisenstein's experience in the creation of Strike, Potemkin, Ten Days That Shook the World, Old and New and Alexander Nevsky to discuss films as a medium that would appeal to all the senses, not just the emotions and the intellect. The book also includes a complete list of his work and a bibliography.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Tough but interesting..........2000-11-14

Though no book will make you a filmmaker, some will help you refine your vision. This book, for me, added some poetry and texture to the imagery already in my mind. Pretty much the only thing that will improve your film skills, is making them.

3 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR FILMS!.......2000-02-28

If you want to improve your own films, this book will not help you (I doubt that any book would). If you can actually figure out what Eisenstien is trying to say (which would probably take 3 readings, but who has the time?) you will find only obscure and vague theories. They are interesting in what they reveal about Eisenstein and his films, but they will not help you as a filmmaker!

5 out of 5 stars A must read for all filmmakers, The basis of all great films.......1997-11-10

Eisenstein thoughts on montage and how the mind interpets film is invaluable when creating films of one's own. Read the book 3 times to learn it for the first.
Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (Culture and the Moving Image)
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (Culture and the Moving Image)
    Paula J. Massood
    Manufacturer: Temple University Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 1592130038

    Book Description

    In Black City Cinema, Paula Massood shows how popular films reflected the massive social changes that resulted from the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North, West, and Mid-West during the first three decades of the twentieth century. By the onset of the Depression, the Black population had become primarily urban, transforming individual lives as well as urban experience and culture.

    Massood probes into the relationship of place and time, showing how urban settings became an intrinsic element of African American film as Black people became more firmly rooted in urban spaces and more visible as historical and political subjects. Illuminating the intersections of film, history, politics, and urban discourse, she considers the chief genres of African American and Hollywood narrative film: the black cast musicals of the 1920s and the "race" films of the early sound era to blaxploitation and hood films, as well as the work of Spike Lee toward the end of the century. As it examines such a wide range of films over much of the twentieth century, this book offers a unique map of Black representations in film.
    Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • An admirable sum of devotion and constancy!
    Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film
    Jay Leyda
    Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0691003467

    Amazon.com

    "The Battleship Potemkin," "By the Law," "Mother," "Earth," "Man With a Movie Camera," "Alexander Nevsky": Russia and the Soviet Union produced some of the greatest films the world has ever seen. Leyda has written a riveting history of the pioneers and artists who made these films. His acclaimed book tells the story of the industry that spawned them and the revolution that both inspired and crushed them.

    Book Description

    This history of the turbulent destiny of Kino ("film" in Russian) documents the artistic development of the Russian and Soviet cinema and traces its growth from 1896 to the death of Sergei Eisenstein in 1948. The new Postscript surveys the directions taken by Soviet cinema since the end of World War II. Beginning with the Lumiere filming of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, Jay Leyda links Russia's pre-Revolutionary past with its Communist present through the observation of a major cultural phenomenon: the evolution of the Soviet film as an artistic and political instrument. The book contains 150 drawings and photographs and five appendices, including a list of selected Russian and Soviet films from 1907 to the present.

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars An admirable sum of devotion and constancy!.......2005-12-16

    Yesterday evening I received by mail a long and unexpected gift. A golden friend sent me a reproduction of this treasured book. And that 's why I just slept few hours tonight, reading here and there the invaluable and remarkable information around the development of the Russian Cinema.

    Jay Leda -his author- worked untiringly during three years around the Schools and Cinematographic Soviet Studies. His tour de force allowed him to explore all the impressive amount of material, never released overseas, and obviously known works in the Western World. He made a vivid and authorized portrait of the artistic trajectory of different filmmakers and their works.

    Kino is dedicated to any interested reader about the theme as well the specialist, it has been documented with statements of creators, critics and valuable illustrations, some of them never posted previously. It includes besides, a selected catalogue of premiered films between 1908 and 1958, with interesting details about directors, screenwriters, interpreters
    and scenographers.

    It is a must buy.
    Moving Into Pictures
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Moving Into Pictures
      Barry Salt
      Manufacturer: Starword
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: 0950906646

      Book Description

      Articles on early film history, the style of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Cecil B. DeMille, Josef von Sternberg, and Ernst Lubitsch. Also pieces on the analysis of film style, on cartoon animation style, television drama over the last 50 years, film style and technology in the 'nineties, and much more.

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