Books on Cinema

Cinema is an art form with more than 120 years. And yet, it seems that today its appreciation has arrived to a cul-de-sac . Looking at American criticism, we see that the evaluation of a film turns out to be essentially focused on its narrative merits, that is, on the screenplay, rather in the mise en scène , editing and all the audiovisual merits that make cinema a such unique art form. On the other hand, in Europe and other parts, it seems that the theory that is more frequently discussed is the auteur theory. As such, a book like Film Theory and Criticism is each time more and more relevant to remind us of how complex a film can be, and how many different analyses it can arouse in very different levels. This book is an anthology of the most important cinematographic studies and theories created about cinema, throughout all these decades. From Eisenstein's montage theories, to studies of digital technology and use of the vertical axis on blockbusters, with a look on Christian...

John Ford (1894-1973) was, as François Truffaut wrote, "an artist who never said the word 'art,' a poet who never mentioned 'poetry.'" [1] His work is constructed on a personal and singularly lyrical vision, particularly incisive on the mythology of the Old West. His films, based on ideals of tradition, homeland, family and community, are mostly filmed in long and medium long shots, with a remarkable pictorial composition where the camera is essentially immobile. Films as  My Darling Clementine  (1946),  Stagecoach  (1939) and  The Searchers  (1956) have acquired the classic status and served as references for acclaimed filmmakers like Orson Welles (who saw  Stagecoah  forty times, while in preparation for  Citizen Kane ), Ingmar Bergman or Pedro Costa. His westerns, with cavalry figures in line, solitary heroes riding across Monument Valley, female characters waiting inside their homes for the return of their loved ones, and stretched-leg...

John Ford (1894-1973) was, as François Truffaut wrote, "an artist who never said the word 'art,' a poet who never mentioned 'poetry.'" [1] His work is constructed on a personal and singularly lyrical vision, particularly incisive on the mythology of the Old West. His films, based on ideals of tradition, homeland, family and community, are mostly filmed in long and medium long shots, with a remarkable pictorial composition where the camera is essentially immobile. Films as My Darling Clementine  (1946), Stagecoach  (1939) and The Searchers  (1956) have acquired the classic status and served as references for acclaimed filmmakers like Orson Welles (who saw Stagecoah forty times, while in preparation for Citizen Kane ), Ingmar Bergman or Pedro Costa. His westerns, with cavalry figures in line, solitary heroes riding across Monument Valley, female characters waiting inside their homes for the return of their loved ones, and stretched-legged sheriffs sitting o...

Abel Ferrara (1951) is an independent American filmmaker, known for his violent films with psychologically disturbed protagonists looking for redemption. With its claustrophobic urban environments,  hallucinatory sequences, schizoid characters and plastic excesses, his films have encountered difficulties in being accessed by more mainstream audiences, although they are very appreciated by European film critics. Like Martin Scorsese, Ferrara sets his films on the streets of New York, as a depiction of the capitalist suffocation and chaotic climate that lead his imperfect protagonists to go through a paranoid and self-destructive journey. But Ferrara never culminates his films with a Bressonian grace (as, for example, Paul Schrader, another director who approaches Ferrara in characterization), but with ambiguous and sacrificial endings. Revenge ( Ms. 45 , 1981), collective historical guilt ( The Addiction , 1995), the Apocalypse ( Body Snatchers , 1993; 4:44 Last Day on Earth , 20...

François Truffaut (1931-1984) was the passionate film critic whose love for cinema was so strong that it could only lead him to eventually exchange the pen for the camera. A protégée of the influential film theorist André Bazin (1918-1958), in his writings for Cahiers du Cinéma he changed forever the way of seeing films, namely in his review of Jacques Becker's  Ali Baba et les Quarante Vouleurs ( Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves , 1954) where he presented the known la politique des auteurs (translated later by Andrew Sarris as “the auteur theory”). In it, Truffaut invoked the Giraudoux’s aphorism “there are no works, only auteurs” and applied that statement into cinematic terms, that is, a failed film from a great director will always be better than a successful one by a mediocre director (“the worst Hawks is more interesting than Huston’s best”, as he once stated), due to a personal vision of the world that is consistent along the auteur ’s oeuvre , mainly expressed through...