The estimable MovieMan0283 of the blog The Dancing Image tags me with a meme, or whatever it is they call it, and honestly, I don’t mind at all, as the topic is both dear to my heart and, to be honest, an easy one for me. The request is to name the ten movie books that had the biggest impact on me. I’ve already spoken at length, here and elsewhere, about a bunch of them, and I’ll be dipping into those past thoughts as I go along. Of course at the end I’ll be tagging five other bloggers, for their sins—kidding! I hope my picks will enjoy the exercise as much as I intend to.(UPDATE: This turns out not to be the case, as will be explained below.) So, here goes.
2):
The first film book I ever bought, as opposed to stole from Allen Siegel. I saw this on a trip to MOMA with my Aunt Peggy, and I believe my acquisition of the book was made into a lesson in delayed gratification—I was compelled to save my allowance and buy it via mail order. I hadn’t seen any Vigo films at that time (1971), but the front cover image—a photo illustration melding a portrait of the director with an image of Dita Parlo from L’Atalante—was thoroughly arresting, and the story on the inner dust jacket—“Son of a militant anarchist who was murdered in a French prison in 1917, himself born out of wedlock in a Paris garret full of cats and haunted by the injustice done to his father, Jean Vigo spent most of his working life battling against authorities wary of his political background, against censors suspicious of the subversive nature of his films, and against a tubercular condition which finally killed him in 1934 at the age of twenty-nine”—seemed so, well, romantic, that I became a fan immediately. And then bugged the shit out of my dad whenever a local film society or college screening of Zero For Conduct popped up. And I must admit, as controversial as the 1990 Gaumont “restoration” of L’Atalante is, I felt spiritually lifted by being able to see it at its opening theatrical run in Paris itself.
Salles Gomes’ book is fantastic, still the definitive Vigo biography by my lights, and as film director bios go, right up there with Kevin Brownlow’s massive Lean book.
3):
My Bible, from the mid-’70s to the ’80s. DId you know that Bruce Springsteen and manager/producer Jon Landau pored through this book’s “Directorial Index” in search of a title to lift for an album they had just completed, and hence Born in the U.S.A. was very nearly called History Is Made At Night instead?
4):
This collection of writings and interviews is still the most perversely entertaining book of its kind, brimming with aphorisms, rude pronouncements, passionate proclamations of love, gnomic defenses, prophecy, prophecy, prophecy.
5):
Not the most galvanic or influential writing Bazin had his name put to—that would probably by What Is Cinema, Vol. 1—but this unfinished work, lovingly assembled and completed by the critic’s protegé Truffaut, with a loving tribute to Bazin by the maestro himself at the beginning, wins for this list’s purposes by power of sheer sentimental value. Not that it’s to be dismissed as a critical work—far from it.
6):
The great director, abetted by long-time collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere, takes us into his confidence right off the bat, establishing himself as the best kind of unreliable narrator: “Our imagination, and our dreams, are forever invading our memories; and since we are all apt to believe in the reality of our fantasies, we end up transforming our lies into truths. Of course, fantasy and reality are equally personal, and equally felt, so their confusion is a matter of only relative importance.”
(It occurs to me that James Frey could have saved himself a lot of hassle if he had the balls to admit that himself…)
Sigh is a wonderful, hilarious, often moving and tender book.
7):
As someone whose first gleamings of a sensibilty were set into motion via exposure to genre films, as an adult and aspiring critic I was always eager to find critical texts that could…not “rationalize” or “legitimize” or any such thing, but rather, illuminate the genuine aesthetic that potentially informed such fare. This book, by two of my favorite contemporary film critics and tackling some films I revered (Eraserhead, Night of the Living Dead) and at least one I didn’t (Rocky Horror), filled that bill admirably.
8):
“We hope that The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film will introduce you to new realms of cinematic enjoyment,” the introduction to this tome drily states. New realms, and how. An epic expansion of Michael Weldon’s groundbreaking ‘zine, this 1983 paperback was a joyous corrective to the Medveds’ philistine Worst Movies volumes, and prescient of so much cultdom to come. (Check out the entry, for instance, for Carnival of Souls.) And it asked all the right questions, e.g., “Would you trust Bruce Dern?”
9):
Collector/critic Weinberg could be a bit of a crank—he had a tendency to inquire as to the location of the snows of Antan a bit more than is probably healthy—
but he also had an adventurous streak, championing the likes of Hallelujah The Hills. The essays and appreciations here are a testament to a largely exquisite sensibility, but the real jewels here are the many “Coffee, Brandy & Cigars” columns, cinematic aperçus and gossip of the highest order, impossible to reproduce in this day and age. Weinberg was film’s one-man Goncourt brothers.
10):
It’s difficult to go with just one Robin Wood book—his studies on Hawks and Hitchcock are of course indispensable—but I settle on this one because it’s his most galvanic, the one that’s most densely packed with provocative arguments and game changers. When he kicks off an evisceration of “The Lucas-Spielberg Syndrome” by admitting “[The films] work” and continuing, “because their workings correspond to the workings of our own social construction. I claim no exemption from this: I enjoy being reconstructed as a child, surrendering to the reactivation of a set of values and structures my adult self has long since repudiated, I am not immune to the blandishments of reassurance,” well, one understands that one is not in the realm of any kind of ordinary film criticism. And so he dazzles, from his merciless takedown of Roger Ebert’s writings on Last House on the Left and the whole notion of the guilty pleasure in art, to his examination of the two faces of Altman (“Smart-ass and cutie pie”) to a dissection of Raging Bull as a document of homosexual panic whose thesis was shamelessly lifted years later (with no credit to Wood) by David Thomson. Of course.
And that’s ten. In the spirit of Movieman’s original post, I append five:
I know: duh. The only reason this didn’t make the master list is that it’s just too obvious.
Hmmm. Maybe I ought to call this “the obvious five.”
Wait, I’ve got a non-obvious one—so non-obvious I can’t find an image of it’s cover on-line. It’s Alfred Appel, Jr.‘s fascinating and sui generis Nabokov’s Dark Cinema, which I discussed a bit here.
This next one isn’t particularly obvious, either—in fact, it’s too little known.
Gilbert Adair’s Flickers is a history of film done one film, one still, one year at a time, spanning 1895 to 1995. Adair’s wit and erudition and taste are all extraordinary and at times prickly. David Foster Wallace fell immediately in love with this book when he saw it in my Première office, and made it a condition of the terms for his next piece for us that I procure for him a copy. Which I did.
And finally, because quite a few people would expect her name not to come up in this context…
What can I tell you? For what it’s worth, it’s my favorite Kael book.
Here was supposed to be the part where I went “Pikachu! I pick you!” and tagged five more bloggers. Which, sorry Movieman, I’m not gonna do. I actually did, in a version of this post that I worked on from seven to nine this morning, only to have it get eated by Typepad when I selected “publish now.” This has led me to a disinclination to compel others to work. So instead let me invite any of my readers who blog to take up this theme at their leisure and inclination, and give me or Movieman a holler when/if they do so.
Outside of Movieman’s original post, every time I’ve encountered this meme, the writer ends with “Anyone reading this can consider themselves tagged”. So I’ve been tagged, like, three times for this thing. I guess I’d better do it.
That Clarens book is an enormous gap in my film reading (and I have a whole shitload of those kind of gaps). I need to finally buckle down and buy it. Still, when I was a kid, we did have, in my house, a book about horror and SF films that had a picture of the “Night of the Demon” demon on it, and I was obviously transfixed. It would be many, many years before I finally got a chance to see the movie. Now it’s one of my favorites, AND I like the demon. I don’t care who knows it.
Glenn, have you ever listened to the audio-book for “This is Orson Welles”? It’s just the recorded interviews between Welles and Bogdanovich – not ALL of them, but some, and I think it includes a little material not in the book itself. Either way, it’s fascinating. You can really hear Welles get worked up just talking about “Make Way for Tomorrow” (I think that’s the film, anyway).
Great choices. Most of these would be on my own list. The Vigo book and circumstances of its purchase reminded me of the first film book I ever purchased, the old Praeger volume on Georges Franju, purchased from a remainder table. Not only had I not seen any of the films in it, I’d never even heard of Franju. I was just so enthralled at the whole books-about-movies concept that I had to pick it up.
Will hunt down the Clarens…checked my library and they didn’t have it, though they’ve got “Crime Movies – from Griffith to the Godfather and Beyond.” Any good?
I’m going to consider myself tagged, though I might have some difficulty coming up with ten. At the top of the list, regardless: Encountering Directors, Charles Thomas Samuels. THE book.
What a great list – I’d break it down into the ones I own and love, the ones I used to own and deeply regret parting with/having stolen from me, and the ones I’m off to investigate RIGHT NOW on Abebooks. The Adair went under my radar, and I’m agnostic on his slightly-too-precious tone most of the time, but given the company you’ve put it in…!
If I had to augment your list I’d include another great book by Carriére – The Secret Language of Cinema, Dave Pirie’s A Heritage of Horror, Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By, David Thompson’s America in the Dark (first book of movie criticism I ever read, courtesy of my local library when I was in my early teens), and – of course – Manny Farber’s Negative Space.
Thanks for mentioning FLICKERS– it’s a tremendous book, very fun to teach, and I agree with your observation that it’s too little known.
Wait, wait. There’s a This is Orson Welles audio book? How did I not know this?
There is indeed, Krauthammer. Or was, anyway. Apparently, it has yet to make it to CD, but…
http://www.amazon.com/This-Orson-Welles/dp/1559946806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244053268&sr=8–1
Glenn,
I feel very sheepish admitting I haven’t read the Sarris book (the one – I know – that any auteurist should have in their collection). And as Paul mentions in the comments, Manny Farber is one to get also (per Ed Howard, all of Farber’s writings on film are being collected in one omnibus for publication later this year).
From your list, the Robin Wood book and Flickers look like the ones I’d be most interested in.
BTW, here’s my list:
http://www.cinemaviewfinder.com/2009/05/writings-on-cinema.html
One question for you: What do you think of Watching by Harlan Ellison? I’ve heard it bounced around on a number of these lists, and find him to be a fascinating crank.
The extent to which this list resembles my own possible list scares me. Even if I wouldn’t pick all the same books, I’d have entries indicating many of the same type (e.g. William K. Everson’s Classics of the Horror Film replacing the Clarens book in the Horror Film History, Coffee Table Book division). Great, great meme by the way. I think it’s fair to say that at a formative age I fell in love with writing about movies as much as the movies themselves. Robert Christgau once wrote that a music critic’s main audience consists of music criticism buffs rather than music fans in general, and that rings true of my own movie love, which is intrinsically tied to what interesting writers have said about movies over the years.
To all above: Yes, “Negative Space” should have been on my master list, but it’s one of those things that I take so much as a given that I sometimes forget, if you know what I mean.
@Tony: Never read Ellison’s “Watching,” but recall being engaged by his collected writings on television, “The Glass Teat,” even if it was a little de trop (always a potential condition with H.E.).
Does obssessive reading of Criterion essays and written supplemental material count?
I will say that I’m eternally grateful that a recent course I had to take in Remedial Film Theory required us to read Barthes’ “Mythologies”. Also the miserable “Life: The Movie”, which finally made me put to work the several courses of theater history I had to take a few years back, mostly to refute everything the author said in a pretty lengthy handwritten fuck-you I wrote on the flyleaf.
I was a quasi-devotee of Ellison’s in my mid-to-late teens. As Gary Groth of Fantagraphics Books (who had quite a falling out with him) said, Ellison’s one of those types who if you encounter him at a certain time in your life can be pretty enthralling – piss and vinegar and a great many (often contradictory) ideas flooding out all over the place. But after a certain point the large amounts of bullshit and self-aggrandizement that lard his outpourings become all too readily apparent.
Thanks for jumping in – and for delivering it so quickly, especially given your tragic loss at the hands off WordPress. Lately, I’ve been trying to get myself to write in Microsoft Word first and then cut and paste it on my blog – oddly enough, I tend to write better in this format, aside from any practicality issues.
One thing I love about all the lists so far is that there is very little overlap. There are one or two books which keep popping up on every list but for the most part, the results are extremely personalized and I’m both gratified and galvanized by the number of titles I have not read.
For those of you planning to respond to Glenn’s (and my) invitation, you should definitely link up to your list either here or on my blog so I can see it, because I’m planning to collect the titles of all the books listed and post them on my blog in a few weeks.
Glenn, of all the books on your list (and I’ve only read 2 – the Sarris and the Kael) I am most intrigued by the penultimate title, Flickers. It rings a bell and I must have seen it on bookshelves in the past but I don’t recall ever flipping through it. Now I am very intrigued.
Dan, I’m also intrigued by this ostensibly horrible Life: The Movie. I don’t know it – why shouldn’t I (though now you’ve, perversely, made me want to…)?
And Paul, I definitely agree with your sentiments. Particularly in the early years (no, actually today as well, with the up-to-the-moment blogosphere and my 70s-saturated local library playing yin/yang roles), writing about movies has played as much a part in shaping my sensibilities and tastes and enjoyment and appreciation of films as the films themselves.
Glenn, that picture of the Clarens book just makes me smile.
We’re the same age, and I got it just when you did. And apart from the other pleasures that book contained for a 10-year-old boy (wow, what IS ‘Alphaville’ and who is that naked woman in high heels?) the book opened all the doors you say it did. (Particularly German silent expressionism – you could tell the kids who read Clarens, because they were the 5th graders who actually knew who Murnau was, and who stayed up to watch “Caligari” on Ch. 13).
For me, after that book, it was then a short trip to Hitchcock –courtesy of the great Robin Wood (and his first edition of “Hitchcock’s Films,” before he came out) and then, of course, Truffaut. And then I wanted to see HIS movies. And then I started rummaging through my parents’ copy of “I Lost It At the Movies” and by then I was lost.
But – nostalgia time – remember Cinemabilia, on (I think) West 13th Street? A whole store dedicated to nothing but movie books? That’s where I bought my own “American Cinema,” and “Talking Pictures” and many others. (At first I used to beg a parent to take me; later I sneaked down to the city myself.)
And remember the posters and postcards on sale at the Bleecker St. Cinema? Or that basement store on W 44th St. I think – was it Movie Star News? – that sold old 8‑by-10 stills for $1 apiece?
I understand and appreciate that the web has given so many film lovers a community, a sense of belonging, blah blah blah. But there’s still something to be said for an era when loving classic films was a minority taste, and finding someone who shared it was the charmed result of circumstance (hey, did that guy just check out Films In Review?) and lucky guesses.
I never had the pleasure of taking a film class, so books that may not stand up to scrutiny after all these years have a lot of sentimental value for me. These authors were my first teachers. Some of the ideas here I’ve grown beyond; some of them I’ve hardened into a kind of belief system. All said and done, I find the contradictions on this list pretty interesting. Anyways.…
Here’s ten books that set me adrift:
“Cinema, or the Imaginary Man,” by Edgar Morin
For his comparison of cinema and the airplane at the turn of the century, but also for the revelation that cinema was not cinema until it was projected on the wall.
“From the Atelier Tovar,” by Guy Maddin
For exuberance and love.
“Documentary: A History of Nonfiction Film,” by Erik Barnouw
For scope and an immensely readability, whatever its shortcomings.
“American Silent Film,” by William K. Everson
For a vanishing perspective.
“Underground Film,” by Parker Tyler
For glimpses of films I may never see, as well as better looks at films that I have seen.
“The Parade’s Gone By,” by Kevin Brownlow
For saving all those stories that could have been left in silence.
“The Camera I,” by Joris Ivens
For a lively account of the birth of a form.
“The Silent Clowns,” by Walter Kerr
For being like a book-length “Comedy’s Greatest Era.”
“Figures Traced in Light,” by David Bordwell
For explaining how the narrative strategies of cinema are so very distinct from other forms.
“The Genius of the System,” by Thomas Schatz
For putting a new spin on what I thought I knew.
PLUS:
“Negative Space,” by Manny Farber
For rising above list-making to establish something of a taxonomy.
“Agee on Film”
For passion and plain (if beautiful) language.
The ten that had the biggest impact… Well, perhaps not the best or the finest works on the subject, but the ten books about cinema that left the deepest, most long-lasting impression over time upon me, in no particular order:
BEHIND THE SCREEN: The History and Techniques of the Motion Picture By Kenneth Macgowan
Back in the day, the standard reference work on film history was Arthur Knight’s THE LIVELIEST ART. It wasn’t bad at all, and Knight, a long-time critic for Saturday Review, wrote briskly and fairly well. But this lesser known 1965 book by Macgowan, a former producer for RKO and Fox as well as chair of the Dept. of Theatre Arts at UCLA (he’d partnered with O’Neill and Robert Edmond Jones as producer of The Provincetown Playhouse in the ’20s), was the real deal – a concise yet flavorful descriptive narrative of the history of the cinema from early experiments with persistence-of-vision to the early ’60s. Though the book greatly benefited from the author’s perspective and experience as a Hollywood professional (I still recall the book’s reproduced studio call sheets and production data from STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE), it also articulately discussed the development of cinema all over the world. The book filled my head with ideas about films and filmmaking, with visions of films I wouldn’t see for some years to come… I read this many times, and I learned an incalculable amount from it.
FROM REVERENCE TO RAPE: The Treatment of Women in the Movies By Molly Haskell
Tough, thoughtful, utterly informed and articulate – with a thesis difficult to refute in 1974 and even more so today. This book caused a lot of arguments and sparked at least one near brawl at a dinner party (over, of all things, LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN!); this was all worthwhile as far as I was concerned. A terribly smart book by a real lover of movies.
THE FILMS OF ORSON WELLES By Charles Higham
This 1970 book by Higham – long out of print, and despised by an astonishing number of Welles associates, acolytes and aficionados – was nonetheless a thrilling book to read back in the early ’70s. Even when I strongly disagreed with what he was saying, it was hard to deny that Higham wrote with eloquent gusto and, yes, enthusiasm, for Welles’ artistry. [Those familiar only with Higham’s later writings-for-hire and quickly-penned star biographies (including his own Welles bio) may find this difficult to believe.] I don’t know that I have ever accepted Higham’s central tenet – basically, that Welles was essentially incapable of finishing a picture after KANE – but he may have been the first one to make this case. Higham interviewed almost every surviving Welles associate and did an enormous amount of research; the book was profusely illustrated. He also described the films with loving accuracy and detail. Remember, this came out long before you had a disc of CITIZEN KANE on your shelf; if you wanted to see, say, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, you needed to live near an enlightened revival house, or hope that the local station had the right Columbia syndication package. [Until I finally saw THE IMMORTAL STORY in the late ’80s, most of what I knew about it came from Higham’s book.] I understand why many have such disdain for this work; nonetheless, years ago I found it incredibly useful as a detailed study of Welles’ pictures.
THE FILM DIRECTOR AS SUPERSTAR By Joseph Gelmis
Outstanding 1970 collection of interviews with sixteen directors of the late ’60s by Newsday film critic Gelmis; excellent, intelligent exchanges with Cassavetes, Anderson, Bertolucci, Kubrick, Penn, Coppola, McBride, Lester, Corman, DePalma… even Norman Mailer. [Tom Russell mentioned Samuels’ fine ENCOUNTERING DIRECTORS, which also meant a lot to me.]
FOUR BY TRUFFAUT By Francois Truffaut
This book, which included the treatment for THE 400 BLOWS and the screenplays for ANTOINE & COLETTE, STOLEN KISSES and BED AND BOARD, was significant to me not just because it documented the four terrific Antoine Doinel pictures Truffaut had then made with Jean-Pierre Leaud, but because it charmingly compiled the notes and bare sketches that the filmmaker and his collaborators assembled to create the off-hand script for STOLEN KISSES in a few weeks’ time. This fascinated me; it still fascinates me. While I admit that Truffaut was working on all cylinders at the time of the making of KISSES – few directors could pull off something so seemingly ephemeral with such winning élan – I’d love to see somebody today try to make a romantic comedy so simply. TRUFFAUT/HITCHCOCK was also an indispensable book, but in a different mode.
THE MAKING OF KUBRICK’S 2001 By Jerome Agel
This thick, wonderful “non-book” by occasional McLuhan collaborator Agel, now sadly out of print, remains the best reference book on Kubrick’s epic, with many witty diversions, asides and odd details in its pages and a great lengthy photo insert. A lot of 2001 fans wore out their copies of this. A title from Signet’s valuable early ’70s mass market film imprint – Signet also published Ed Pincus’ GUIDE TO FILMMAKING, the EASY RIDER and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP screenplays, and Rudolph Wurlitzer’s original PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID screenplay (quite different from the released film).
FRITZ LANG IN AMERICA By Peter Bogdanovich
Fine, slender book of interviews with Lang, concentrating on his American output. Bogdanovich is an attentive, knowledgable interviewer, the book is vividly illustrated with great stills… I’d only seen a few of these pictures when I first read this; afterwards, I couldn’t wait to see the rest of them.
TEX AVERY: KING OF CARTOONS By Joe Adamson
The first major American book, really, published about a cartoon director, and still one of the very best. When I walked into Larry Edmunds’ bookstore in the fall of ’75 and saw this (with its great Al Kilgore cover), I was dumbfounded – I couldn’t believe that anyone had actually written a book about Tex Avery! Leonard Maltin’s magisterial (and, moreover, still essential) OF MICE AND MAGIC, the best overview of the Hollywood cartoon, followed in 1980.
ON MAKING A MOVIE: BREWSTER McCLOUD By C. Kirk McClelland
A kind of guide to what a film could be, circa 1970. USC film student McClelland’s on-set account of the production of Robert Altman’s seriocomic fantasy is still one of the best published “making of” accounts, and an insightful study of the director at work. The book also includes Doran William Cannon’s very, very strange original script, “Brewster McLeod’s Flying Machine,” as well as the film’s almost entirely different final continuity script, still (contractually) credited to Cannon, but actually penned by Altman and Brian McKay with significant improv contributions from the cast. Another strong entry in the Signet film series.
THE FILM CRITICISM OF OTIS FERGUSON Edited by Robert Wilson
I greatly admire Agee and Farber, but I am deeply moved by Ferguson’s writing. I simply respond to his prose. I believe he was likely the finest reviewer/critic of his time, and he left us far too soon.
Okay, ten. If I made this list tomorrow, I might make seven or eight different choices. [For what it’s worth, a lot of the books cited above could easily have made this list.]
The 1970’s was a very good time for film books
1st movie books I read-
Fritz Lang In America, John Ford & Allan Dwan interview books by Peter Bogdanovich. Great design exciting stills & lively stories
B Movies by Don Miller- a survey of the B’s from 1933 to ’45 written by someone who saw them first run & remembered. From the sadly short lived Curtis film Series edited by Leonard Maltin
Bogie by Joe Hyams & the Films of Humphrey Bogart by Clifford Mccarthy. It was because of Bogart in All Through the Night that I fell in love with movies.
Each Man In His Time By Raoul Walsh. Inspired by the success of Frank Capra’s Name above the Title publishers rushed to get other golden age directors to tell their stories. This one is hilarious!
Men Who Made the Movies-the companion to the PBS series. Wellman , Vidor, Hitchcock, Walsh , Hawks in their own words.
Mother Goddamn- A Bette Davis bio annotated by the empress of Warners.
The Moon’s A Balloon & Bring On The Empty Horses By David Niven. He was there he knew them all & remembers them with affection. Great storytelling.
Val Lewton By Joel Siegel.
Memo From David O. Selznick
The Pyraimid Illustrated History of the Movies series.
The Great Movie Stars by David Shipman
Laurel and Hardy by Phil Hardy
Dames & The Heavies by Ian Cameron
Films in Review magazine
I forgot to mention Lillian Ross’s great Picture – still one of the best anatomies of, not just the gestation of one movie, but the entire, venal, indestructible industry itself. The final chapter is wonderfully chilling.
@ Alex: What a wonderful list! I had the privilege of getting to know Joel Siegel slightly in the years before he died (n.b., this is an entirely different Joel Siegel than the Eyewitness News movie reviewer, who also passed away recently) and he was a delightful fellow. His Lewton book is a ground-breaker.
I’d love to read Walsh’s story. Dude wore an eyepatch. And he killed Lincoln. Badass.
Correction on Laurel and Hardy the author was Charles Barr not Phil Hardy (who did a nice book on Sam Fuller). Sorry to hear about Joel Siegel’s passing-very thankful for his book. The copy I own of Val Lewton is the same one I bought at Larry Edmunds in 1974. Back in the pre VHS/Laser/DVD days I set my alarm clock to get up at 4AM to see The Seventh Victim‑a movie so dark & moody that it is best seen in the dead of night. The Val Lewton RKO’s along with a handful of Bogarts And the Sternberg/Dietrich movies are my movies for a desert island.
My one book list:
http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/meme-clearinghouse-part-two-one-book.html
Great stuff from the heyday of film books (altho we live in fortunate times today when I can pop into Barnes & Noble and pick up a giant illustrated bio of Eiji Tsubraya and a book of Soderbergh interviews).
Clarens book is widely considered the first great tome on the genre. I seem to recall even John Simon reviewed it with a condescending approval.
My Top 10:
CULT MOVIES 1–3: Danny Peary’s incredible survey of beloved odd film magnets is still insightful and his writing is often, simply dead-on. Does anybody know what happened to Peary? He’s a master.
THE FILM DIRECTOR AS SUPERSTAR: Where else can you get deep interviews with Richard Lester, Mike Nichols and Stanley Kubrick?
EASY RIDER – Lee Hill’s BFI monograph is perhaps the last word on this seminal and despite claims, still relevant masterpiece.
HARLAN ELLISON’S WATCHING – I’m glad somebody brought this up. Whatever you think of Harlan (and having spent time with him, found him to be a wise-ass pussycat who people might be taking too seriously when he goes on a verbal rampage) this guy knows film. And among his reviews he includes generous portions of inside-dish since he was part of the Hollywood scene. Ellison usually just plain GETS what makes a film work or not. He even recomends BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. A must read, folks.
SEX LIES & VIDEOTAPE – Soderbergh’s making-of diary for his first feature is simply the best book I’ve read on how a film gets made.
PSYCHOTRONIC GUIDE – What Glenn said. I miss Michael Weldon.
CUT TO THE CHASE – Master editor Sam O’Steen’s bracingly honest and fascinating look at his career. O’Steen reveals much about his groundbreaking work with Nichols. Biggest revelation? It was O’Steen who came up with the idea to go out of focus on Katherine Ross’s face in that indelible GRADUATE moment.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING: OTTO PREMINGER – Just because Foster Hirsch quoted me at generous length on SKIDOO is not why I put this here. Swear. This is an expertly researched and written look into one of cinema’s most misunderstood directors.
BORN TO BE WILD: THE 60’S GENERATION & HOLLYWOOD – A tough one to find, long out of print, but simply one of the most accurate, fair and tough appraisals of my favorite decade for film.
THE MAKING OF KING KONG – Orville Goldner’s warm and meticulous look at all the pieces that brought Kong to life from many of the principals.
10 is not enough.
I think we’re probably like the last group to get around to this after being literally one of the first five people tagged, but here is a link to the list that Brandon and I made for Out 1. Well, they’re separate lists since we got tagged separately, but unique I think. Seems like so many people have so many different things. Its been fun to see. Thanks for the list, Glenn! Great stuff, as always.
http://www.out1filmjournal.com/2009/06/reading-movies-meme.html
Robin Wood. I imagine that hanging out with him in a bar is like a game of Where’s Waldo. He’ll point out everything in the room that looks like a penis and will probably proceed to tell me why the items are shaped like penises and what the people that made said objects were thinking when they made them.
Robin… with British accent… “You see the phallic lever there for Amstel on tap? The spout at the bottom presents the image of a flaccid penis… When the beer is poured, it signifies urination. But why? Perhaps to subconsciously suggest the relief one may feel after a drink? Or perhaps to acknowledge that their beer tastes like piss?” (I’ll stop there because it will go on forever.)
I think a Robin Wood book is on par with Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time. You have to space it out.