The Best Books About Film

[Maltic]

Thanks everyone, I think I'll start with RV's rec and the Paglia because they seem the most interesting, and I'll grab the Truffaut just to have, as well as Wood's since I really love his analyses of Marnie and Rear Window and would love to reread them around viewings.

As I recall, the Marnie reading is one that has later been challenged (including by Wood himself in the revised edition) because he doesn't consider Marnie to have been raped by Connery in the cabin (the robe scene) nor by Bruce Dern in the flashback scene.

Robin Wood even wrote a chapter about North By Northwest in his book, which I had to read because it seemed like a superfluous analytical effort - and while a lot of it is obvious and skippable, he mentions a few insights that I hadn't considered and somehow made me appreciate one of my favorite films even more, including the progression Grant is tasked with selling.

I like the epigraph for that chapter. Something like:

"There are no symbols in North by Northwest. Except the last shot, the train entering the tunnel - that's a phallic symbol" - Alfred Hitchcock

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah I only read the revised edition - that seems to be the only edition available, including at my lib

[Maltic]

In the revised edition from the 1980s, the original text from the 1960s is simply reprinted and forms the first half of the book, including the chapter on Marnie. The film is only mentioned here and there in the appendix of texts from the 1970s and 1980s (second half of the book), though he does seem to contradict his earlier reading.

According to that reading, Connery is basically a hero who cures Marnie (rather than a creep who tames her) and Bruce Dern in the flashback is genuinely trying to comfort (not molest) girl Marnie, who rejects him because she's already been traumatized. Sorry, I'm obviously oversimplifying by a lot. It's quite a long analysis, and as I recall, an insightful one. And for the record, I tend to prefer auteurist/leavisite Wood to the later incarnations.

Anyway, Ian and others will know much more than I do.

[therewillbeblus]

In the revised edition from the 1980s, the original text from the 1960s is simply reprinted and forms the first half of the book, including the chapter on Marnie. The film is only mentioned here and there in the appendix of texts from the 1970s and 1980s (second half of the book), though he does seem to contradict his earlier reading.

According to that reading, Connery is basically a hero who cures Marnie (rather than a creep who tames her) and Bruce Dern in the flashback is genuinely trying to comfort (not molest) girl Marnie, who rejects him because she's already been traumatized. Sorry, I'm obviously oversimplifying by a lot. It's quite a long analysis, and as I recall, an insightful one. And for the record, I tend to prefer auteurist/leavisite Wood to the later incarnations.

Interesting, I have the 1989 printing right in front of me, and while there's a long introduction, it doesn't cover explicit chapters on films/reprinted sections from the previous edition, and he doesn't reference them in the individual chapters.

That's a pretty accurate (yet as you stated, oversimplified) reading of Marnie, though I think Wood sells his interpretation well - He repeatedly acknowledges that Connery's Mark is not altruistic or "heroic" but the incarnation of moral relativity that's necessary for engaging with the world on its terms; at least the world Hitchcock sees. His actions are partly selfish and partly selfless, and yet he's fully self-actualized and "aware" of his actions, compared to other men in Hitchcock's films. And while Wood never makes a case that explicitly rationalizes the sexual assault, he does approach it from the position of moral gray space - where to Mark's perspective this is an act of selfish love and sacrifice intending to 'help', and to Marnie it is undoubtedly a rape - and chooses to externalize this extreme example to the nature of messy relationships in general, which is interesting if one can separate the broader point from the trigger. I definitely think Wood could've spent more time going over the tragic elements of this/where Mark's behavior is problematic, especially since immediately after this part of the chapter, Wood goes back to Marnie basically saying it's "her" film, without delving into the harmful side of the rape for her. That might be worth naming if you're going to attempt to align with the character, since not doing so is a bit like coming at the piece from Mark's position instead of objectively.

So I don't wholly subscribe to where he goes there, but I do think there's something to the broader point - at least in terms of how Hitchcock sees the world and the only effective way to engage with it, given his own handicaps of obsessions and compulsions skewing that worldview of course. Overall it's a really strong reading and made me appreciate the film a whole lot more.

[yoloswegmaster]

Does anyone know if Kevin Brownlow's book "The Parade's Gone By..." contains more information that isn't covered in his 11 hour documentary about silent Hollywood?

[Walter Kurtz]

I donated Parade along with several hundred books to the LAPL several years ago but seem to recall Rex Ingram and also The Big Parade contained within. You can download (borrow) this book from the Internet Archive and compare it yourself. It's been a couple decades since I saw Hollywood (released in 1980) on public tv somewhere but enjoyed it immensely.

BTW most people do not seem to know this for some reason but Documentary Now's Kunuk parody was also a parody of Hollywood (1980) as well as Nanook of the North.

[ianthemovie]

Fireflies Press has announced a new batch of titles in Decadent Editions, their series of ten monographs on ten films from 2000-2010, to be published starting in March 2024:

- Christine Smallwood on Chantal Akerman's La Captive
- K. Austin Collins on Frederick Wiseman's Domestic Violence
- Anwen Crawford on Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar
- Ed Halter on Peter Hutton's At Sea
- J. Hoberman on Huang Weikai's Disorder

I've only read one previous title in this series (Melissa Anderson's take on Inland Empire) but I greatly enjoyed it and these new titles have me curious, especially Disorder which is a film I had never heard of before. On the subject of Hoberman he is apparently also working on another book at the moment about New York City in the 1960s, which I would hope will be out next year.

The Decadent Editions books are also beautifully designed, sleek and compact (roughly the dimensions of an index card), affordably priced and easy to order from directly. They have my recommendation.

[furbicide]

Will definitely be keeping an eye out for the book on La captive! Enjoyed Pinkerton's book on Goodbye Dragon Inn, and the Inland Empire one sounds great too.

[senseabove]

Le Cinéma Club asked various notable folks for their favorite film books, apparently for the third time.

[bottlesofsmoke]

I read Stephen M. Silverman's Stanley Donen bio Dancing on the Ceiling and it was very much a mixed bag. First and foremost, Donen seems to have been really involved in the book, giving a lot of access and in-depth interviews. Silverman also got to talk to a lot of people involved (it was published in '96 so a lot of people were still alive) That's good because it provides a lot of insight, and when the book is talking about things that are really personal to Donen, like Two for the Road it shines. One of the chapters on Singin' in the Rain takes the form of an oral history with new and archival contributions from lots of people involved in making the film, which is a interesting way of covering it.

The trade off is any of Donen's bad films are mostly ignored, handwaved away, or written about in such a way that makes it seem like anyone but Donen's fault. Saturn 3 is literally covered in a short footnote that is mostly an anecdote about some clever thing Donen said to an actor. Silverman also takes up Donen's ax to grind with Gene Kelly, essentially crediting Donen with almost everything good in their collaboration and blaming anything bad on Kelly. Worst of all though, Silverman seems to believe that in order to boost Donen he has to take shots at Vincente Minnelli, including negatively comparing his musical films to Donen's using biased language and unsubstantiated claims: Minnelli is "slobbered over" by auteurists while "the consensus among cineasts is that Donen is the undisputed master of the movie musical" and that "Analysts of the musical genre" prefer Donen over Minnelli. It sounds like a toothpaste commercial: "nine of ten cineasts and analysts prefer Donen to Minnelli." Who these cineasts and analysts are, he doesn't say. I'm not even saying one is better than the other, just taking issue with the way it is presented.

It's obvious that Donen felt slighted compared to Minnelli and Kelly and that bleeds through in this book, as Silverman keeps bringing it up, including saying that Minnelli was "illiterate" with CinemaScope, which is one the crazier things I've read. (He also takes several shots at Busby Berkeley and as well as Bob Fosse, calling Sweet Charity "moribund.") The "tear down this to build up that" approach to criticism is one of my least favorite, and this book is absolutely guilty of that, even worse, because you get the sense that a lot of it is coming from Donen. Much of the book is still worth reading with lots of good insight, again mostly coming straight from Donen.
Hopefully, we'll get another critical bio of Donen sometime; his works deserves it and so do movie fans.

I'm also reading Shawn Levy's Jerry Lewis bio King of Comedy, which definitely does not shy away from its subject's faults and missteps, though his movies strangely get short shrift for such a long book - it mostly focuses on his personal life and off-screen business. Generally, Lewis-directed films get more discussion and analysis, especially The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, and The Nutty Professor, but the Tashlin-directed films get a few lines about the start and end of production but little to no analysis - even his television work gets far more coverage. Part of the problem seems to be that Levy doesn't think most of Lewis' movies are very good, he says that The Nutty Professor is so far and away the best thing he's ever done and that everything else pales in comparison, which may be why they don't get much discussion.
The most interesting thing about Lewis off-screen - besides just how crazy and mercurial he was - is that he was apparently obsessed with making a film version of The Catcher in the Rye in the late 50s, early 60s, starring himself as Holden Caulfield. he even went so far as trying to befriend Salinger's sister in order to use her influence to get Salinger to sell him the rights.

[domino harvey]

Interesting thoughts. One thing that has become apparent from reading Cahiers, Movie, and Sight and Sound issues from the early 60s is that Minnelli is unexpectedly the most well-liked and considered of Hollywood auteurs behind only Hitchcock and Hawks. I feel like he’s not singled out as much as Ray, Fuller, Preminger, Welles, et al when people talk now about what the Young Turks and their kinfolk were into, but it’s actually something I’ve been struck by lately while going back through these sources. So I’m assuming the author remembers this, even if Minnelli’s legacy has waned somewhat in relation to critics of the time

[beamish14]

The most interesting thing about Lewis off-screen - besides just how crazy and mercurial he was - is that he was apparently obsessed with making a film version of The Catcher in the Rye in the late 50s, early 60s, starring himself as Holden Caulfield. he even went so far as trying to befriend Salinger's sister in order to use her influence to get Salinger to sell him the rights.

I knew about Lewis trying to develop that, but him actually trying to ingratiate himself into Salinger’s life is insane, and sounds like a good premise for a film.

He could have done with Disney tried in the 80’s: just adapt it with different names and make it a musical with German shepherds

[bottlesofsmoke]

Interesting thoughts. One thing that has become apparent from reading Cahiers, Movie, and Sight and Sound issues from the early 60s is that Minnelli is unexpectedly the most well-liked and considered of Hollywood auteurs behind only Hitchcock and Hawks. I feel like he’s not singled out as much as Ray, Fuller, Preminger, Welles, et al when people talk now about what the Young Turks and their kinfolk were into, but it’s actually something I’ve been struck by lately while going back through these sources. So I’m assuming the author remembers this, even if Minnelli’s legacy has waned somewhat in relation to critics of the time

I agree with you there, and there's no disputing that Minnelli received more acclaim than Donen from that crowd (though I think Godard liked him and loved The Pajama Game?) and he certainly received more awards and acclaim during his lifetime in America as well (though not always for his best work). Why do you think Minnelli was so beloved compared to those others? (I love Minnelli so I'm not necessarily disagreeing) but I'm struggling to think of what there is about his films that would lend themselves to that much support, especially in comparison to those others - Ray had stinkers, but so did Minnelli, and Minnelli wasn't nearly as political or brash in his themes as those others, nor do many of his films seem particularly personal, comparatively. You'd know better than me, but I remember reading something Rivette wrote much later on in life that basically said he watched Some Came Running again and found it disappointing, I believe in the same article he talked about Funny Games and All About Eve too.

What bothered me in the Donen bio was the way that Silverman paints any acclaim going to Minnelli as coming from auteurists, while those who really know about musicals prefer Donen, as if 1) they couldn't be the same thing and there is some sort of purity to musical fans and analysts, 2) liking Minnelli is some sort of blind, rabid fanboyism ("slobbering") while those who are reasonable and unbiased can obviously see that Donen is better.

[domino harvey]

I think it’s two-fold: for all of the journals, he was widely lauded for how he framed and used the camera (which makes the dig on him in ‘Scope even funnier and probably intentional). “Pure Cinema” drives a lot of effusive responses in this era. This came to an absurd epoch with Four Horsemen, an objectively not good movie that got caught up in the rush to rave that ultimately left auteurism with some indefensible positions. More compellingly, for Cahiers, I recall a review (I do not remember for which film) in the journal that identified Minnelli as a director concerned with artists. I think this kind of projection/veneration of the artist is a driving force behind much of auteurism for the Young Turks, and you see it in a lot of the one-off films they praise as well. I’ve always remembered this because it’s not a connection I ever made with Minnelli beforehand and it helped me see how, for instance, someone writing for Cahiers could possibly call Bells Are Ringing one of the 10 best sound films ever to come from Hollywood

Worth noting that Cahiers loved It’s Always Fair Weather, off the top of my head, so there may be some selective memory at play here on the author’s end as well

[bottlesofsmoke]

That's really interesting and great insight. You should really write a book about that period of film criticism.
The "Pure Cinema" thing makes a lot of sense, and it actually explains why Minnelli could be so revered despite not having the normal obvious personal / political aspects of his movies that some others do, since it shows he can take any material and elevated it through his style, sort of the same reason Joseph H. Lewis is revered by some (though with vastly different budgets).
Outside of Lust for Life I hadn't really thought of Minnelli as being particularly concerned with artists either, but I know that art was very important to his process, selecting artwork as reference points for the look of his movies, which are littered with references to artists, so it makes sense that someone could make that connection and that the artist would be important to Minnelli who I do think, unlike some of his contemporaries, thought of himself as an artist.

[Maltic]

The Death of Classical Cinema: Hitchcock, Lang, Minnelli by Joe McElhaney I found fascinating. It's about the "response" to Euro-modernism by those three studio classicists, specifically with The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, Marnie (ping @therewillbeblus), and Two Weeks in Another Town. In the Minnelli chapter, he goes into the reception Two Weeks had in France, its relationship with La Dolce Vita and Le Mepris and so on.

[domino harvey]

Thanks bottleofsmoke!

And thanks for reminding me of that book, Maltic. I still need to read my copy!

[colinr0380]

I would also hazard a guess that Minnelli's two seminal 'films about filmmaking' that defined their respective decades - The Bad and the Beautiful and Two Weeks In Another Town - probably helped in securing their reputation with the Cahiers critics. I sometimes wonder if Contempt was a kind of response to Two Weeks In Another Town's view of continental co-productions.

[bottlesofsmoke]

Thanks for the recommendation Maltic, I was able to find a used copy for a decent price. That sounds right up my alley - That era of the 60s to early 70s for the old studio directors is a fascinating one to me: who tried to change with the times and who didn’t, how they reacted to the New Waves, how young critics reacted to them. One thing I know from reading lots of interviews with old directors from that time, they all loved Fellini and either loved or hated (more hated) Antonioni.

[domino harvey]

I sometimes wonder if Contempt was a kind of response to Two Weeks In Another Town's view of continental co-productions.

Maybe, if he saw it in the states, but it came out in June 1963 in France and Le mepris ended filming in June

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Two Weeks in Another Town opened in London only a few days ahead of the 1962 London Film Festival, which Godard attended alongside Vivre sa vie. It's very plausible he saw it then.

[colinr0380]

And then threw in a healthy dash of Robert Aldrich's The Big Knife, including Jack Palance! Plus it would have probably been quite a current subject to tackle for both the Minnelli and Godard, what with that lengthy shoot for Cleopatra taking place during the same period.

[reaky]

Thanks for the recommendation Maltic, I was able to find a used copy for a decent price. That sounds right up my alley - That era of the 60s to early 70s for the old studio directors is a fascinating one to me: who tried to change with the times and who didn’t, how they reacted to the New Waves, how young critics reacted to them. One thing I know from reading lots of interviews with old directors from that time, they all loved Fellini and either loved or hated (more hated) Antonioni.

Welles was certainly in the Hating Antonioni camp, but he didn’t care much for Fellini either.

[colinr0380]

Watching that Orson Welles Story documentary from 1982 shown on the television last week, there was an interesting moment where Welles talks about not watching any other films because it stifles his own creativity and individuality as a filmmaker. Though that is the section where he is discussing F For Fake, and his surprise that his discovery of an entirely new form of cinema in the 'essay film', using bought in documentary footage and putting his own spin on it, turned out to be a commercial and critical failure. Although it kind of anticipates Chris Marker, Adam Curtis and the whole trend of internet essay pieces now, so it may just have been another case of Welles being decades ahead of time!

[Maltic]

Of course, not all directors approve of critical analysis of their own works, but in Filming Othello, you get Welles quoting favourably from Jack Jorgens' book-chapter "Welles' Othello"

There's also the famous examples of Stagecoach (Citizen Kane) and Alexander Nevsky (Chimes at Midnight), but you might argue those were just early influences, not attempts to follow new trends late in his own career.

On the contrary, the film-within-the-film in The Other Side of the Wind seems like a parody of Zabriskie Point.