Books on Cinema

Walter Murch is one of the most respected film editors and sound designers, one of New Hollywod's central figures, having worked with Francis Ford Coppola in The Rain People (1969), The Godfather  (1972), The Conversation (1974)   and  Apocalypse Now (1979) and George Lucas in THX 1138   (1971) and American Graffiti (1973), in addition to having taken part in the restoration of Orson Welles's Touch of Evil from the notes that he had sent to Universal. His book In the Blink of the Eye is both pertinent to pen and camera artists, to readers and audiences. In it, Murch exposes his philosophy of editing, his set of thoughts on how to find the identity of a film from a series of chaotic excerpts when the screenplay does not provide all the answers, how small details (one shot before another) can change the direction of the scene and, consequently, the audience's response to it. Full of analogies that show what kind of editing problems can arise and what are...

John Alton (1901-1996) was a true master of light, one of the most respected cinematographers, having left marks that characterized the cinema noir , notably through his collaborations with Anthony Mann [ T-Men  (1947), Raw Deal (1948)] and Joseph H. Lewis [ The Big Combo (1955)]. Alton also worked with Allan Dwan, Vincent Minnelli, Richard Brooks, among others. His films are characterized by a high contrast black-and-white, an astounding use of darkness in real locations, low angles with oblique lines delineated in their compositions, suffocating fogs and intimidating silhouettes. His book Painting Light was the first written by a major Hollywood cameraman. In it, Alton explains how to get some lighting effects, shooting techniques in different locations (exteriors or interiors) and climates, and the emotions that can arouse in the viewer through them. Even though the technical materials of that time have suffered developments, the theory in how to use them, that is,...

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are a couple of film historians and film theorists who have written two widely used film textbooks, Film Art: An Introduction and Film History.  They keep updating their blog  Observations on Film Art  with outstanding analysis that discuss “film techniques, formal strategies, stylistic choices, norms and transformations of them, and genre conventions” that serve as a complement to their book  Film Art .  Film History: An Introduction is a detailed history of world cinema, from the invention of the first pre-film optical toys to the digital era. Bordwell and Thompson discuss the development of each genre, possibly all film movements, the changes in movie theaters since nickelodeons, various types of censorship, studios policies in the formal constructions of films (cinematography, editing, screenplays' narrative structure) and marketing strategies. A very ambitious book that does not look at the cinema as something indiv...