The Big Screen

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The Big Screen Page 77

by David Thomson


  Vinterberg, Thomas

  violence

  Virginian, The (1914)

  Virgin Spring, The (1960)

  Viridiana (1961)

  Visconti, Luchino

  Vitti, Monica

  Viva

  Viva Villa! (1934)

  Viva Zapata! (1952)

  Vivre Sa Vie (1962)

  Vogel, Amos

  von Harbou, Thea

  von Sternberg, Josef

  von Stroheim, Erich

  von Sydow, Max

  von Trier, Lars

  Voyage to Cythera (1984)

  Wagon Train (TV series)

  Wai, Wong Kar

  Waiting for Lefty (1935)

  Waits, Tom

  Wajda, Andrzej

  Walbrook, Anton

  Waldon, Louis

  Walken, Christopher

  Walker, Robert

  Walk in the Sun, A (1945)

  Walküre, Die (opera), directed by Eisenstein

  Wallace, David Foster

  Wallach, Eli

  Wallis, Hal

  Walsh, Raoul

  Walters, Charles

  Walthall, Henry B.

  Walton, William

  Waltons, The (TV series)

  Wanda (1970)

  War and Peace (1956)

  War and Peace (Tolstoy)

  Ward, John

  Ward, Peter

  Warden, Jack

  War Game, The (1965)

  Warhol, Andy

  War Horse (2011)

  Warm, Hermann

  war movies

  Warner, Albert

  Warner, Harry

  Warner, Jack

  Warner, Sam

  Warner Bros.

  “War of the Worlds, The” (radio drama)

  Warren Commission

  Warrens of Virginia, The (1907)

  Wasserman, Lew

  Watergate scandal

  Waters, Ethel

  Watkins, Peter

  Watt, Harry

  Watts, Naomi

  Waugh, Evelyn

  Waxman, Franz

  Way Ahead, The (1944)

  Way Back, The (2010)

  Way Down East (1920)

  Wayne, David

  Wayne, John

  Way to the Stars, The (1945)

  Way We Were, The (1973)

  Weaver, Pat

  Webb, Paul

  We Can’t Go Home Again (1976)

  Wedekind, Frank

  Weeds (TV series)

  Weegee

  Week-End (1967)

  Wee Willie Winkie (1937)

  Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit (1925)

  Weimar Republic

  Weinstein brothers

  Weir, Peter

  Welch, Joseph N.

  Weld, Tuesday

  Welles, Orson

  Welles, Richard

  Wellman, William

  Wells, H. G.

  Wenders, Wim

  Went the Day Well? (1942)

  Werner, Oskar

  Wernicke, Otto

  Weschler, Lawrence

  West, Mae

  West, Nathanael

  Westerner, The (1940)

  Westerns

  Westfront 1918 (1930)

  Wharton, Edith

  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

  What Makes Sammy Run? (Schulberg, B.)

  What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963)

  What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

  Whisky Galore (1949)

  White Heat (1949)

  White Hell of Pitz Palu, The (1929)

  White Noise (DeLillo)

  White Rapture, The (1931)

  “white telephone movies”

  Whitman, Charles

  Whitman, Walt

  Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

  Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (TV series)

  Why Change Your Wife? (1920)

  Widmark, Richard

  Wiene, Robert

  Wild Bunch, The (1969)

  Wilde, Oscar

  Wilder, Billy

  Wilder, Gene

  Wild River (1960)

  Wild Strawberries (1957)

  Wilkerson, Billy

  Williams, Earl

  Williams, Esther

  Williams, John

  Williams, Michelle

  Williams, Tennessee

  Willis, Bruce

  Willis, Gordon

  Wilson, Donald

  Wilson, Dooley

  Wilson, Woodrow

  Winchell, Walter

  Winchester ’73 (1950)

  Wind, The (1928)

  Windt, Herbert

  Winger, Debra

  Wings (1927)

  Winsten, Archer

  Winter, Terence

  Winters, Shelley

  Winter’s Bone (2010)

  Wire, The (TV series)

  Wise, Ernie

  Wise, Robert

  Wiseman, Frederick

  Wister, Owen

  Wit (2001)

  Wizard of Oz, The (1939)

  Wlaschin, Ken

  Wolf of Wall Street, The (forthcoming)

  Woman in the Dunes (1964)

  Woman in the Moon (1929)

  Woman Under the Influence, A (1974)

  Woman in the Window, The (1944)

  Wood, Natalie

  Wood, Robin

  Wooden Horse, The (1950)

  Woodfall Film Productions

  Woodrell, Daniel

  Woods, James

  Woodward, Joanne

  Woolf, Virginia

  Woolrich, Cornell

  World at War, The (TV series)

  World War I

  World War II

  Wozniak, Steve

  Wray, Fay

  Wright, Basil

  Wright, Norton

  Writers Guild

  Written on the Wind (1956)

  Wrong Man, The (1956)

  Wuthering Heights (1939)

  Wyler, William

  Wyman, Jane

  X Factor, The (TV series)

  Yank at Oxford, A (1938)

  Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

  Yates, Peter

  Yellow Rolls-Royce, The (1964)

  Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)

  Yimou, Zhang

  You Bet Your Life (TV series)

  You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

  Youngkin, Stephen D.

  Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

  You’re a Big Boy Now (1966)

  YouTube

  Zabriskie Point (1970)

  Zaentz, Saul

  Zanuck, Darryl

  Zanuck, Richard

  Zapruder, Abraham

  Zavattini, Cesare

  Zelig (1983)

  Zemeckis, Robert

  Zéro de Conduite (1933)

  Zetterling, Mai

  Ziegfeld Follies

  Zinnemann, Fred

  Zinner, Peter

  Zinoviev, Grigory

  Zola, Emile

  Zolotow, Maurice

  Zona (Dyer)

  zoopraxiscope

  Zsigmond, Vilmos

  Zuckerberg, Mark

  Zukor, Adolph

  Zu Neuen Ufern (1937)

  Zweig, Stefan

  Zwei Krawatten (Kaiser)

  DAVID THOMSON

  THE BIG SCREEN

  David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson’s latest work is the acclaimed “Have You Seen…?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

  Also by David Thomson

  The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder

  Try to Tell the Story: A Memoir

  “Have You Seen…?”: A Pers
onal Introduction to 1,000 Films

  Nicole Kidman

  The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood

  The New Biographical Dictionary of Film

  In Nevada: The Land, the People, God, and Chance

  The Alien Quartet

  Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts

  Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles

  4–2

  Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick

  Silver Light

  Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes

  Suspects

  Overexposures

  Scott’s Men

  America in the Dark

  A Biographical Dictionary of Film

  Wild Excursions: The Life and Fiction of Laurence Sterne

  Hungry as Hunters

  A Bowl of Eggs

  Movie Man

  PRAISE FOR

  THE BIG SCREEN

  “[David Thomson’s] book works both as an engaging primer on film history and as a map for more numinous shifts in the path of popular art. Where many people see an industry now in decline, Thomson offers a nuanced portrait of a creative business always reaching toward, or away from, the mirage of its own public image … Thomson’s great achievement is to show how a century of creative aspiration took flight from our humblest thrills.”

  —Nathan Heller, The New York Times Book Review

  “In The Big Screen, British-American film critic and historian David Thomson attempts to answer some fundamental questions about the world’s favorite hobby. How do we relate to the movies? ‘The cinema is the embodiment of “let there be light,”’ he writes. But where does the light come from? Does it illuminate us or blind us? Of course, these are difficult and possibly even unanswerable questions. But Thomson—arguably the world’s most intelligent student of the cinema—proves remarkably up to the task. The Big Screen is beautiful and expansive.”

  —Michael Schaub, NPR.org

  “What David Thomson doesn’t know about movies probably isn’t worth knowing. But the latest project for the longtime film historian, author of numerous books including the essential Biographical Dictionary of Film, was daunting even for him. His new book, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies, is no less than a sweeping history of movies, from the earliest experiments to up-to-the minute streaming video and TV; seasoned liberally with Thomson’s often-salty opinions and delicious observations … A joy for movie buffs; you’ll feel as if you’re listening to a wise, witty friend who seems to have seen—and remembered—everything.”

  —Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times

  “It’s panoramic and obsessive and contains more interesting observations about Pretty Woman than you’d expect … I’m deep into it. It’s a work of celebration that’s suspicious of golden ages but shot through with a profound sense of loss, Thomson’s thinking about the movies’ inadvertent role in making us into who we are today, a whole culture constantly staring at various glowing rectangles.”

  —Alex Pappademas, Grantland.com

  “As unfettered and full-frontal an expression of movie lust as film criticism gets.”

  —Jan Stuart, San Francisco Chronicle

  “The Big Screen is a big book about a big subject—a big picture view of the big pictures … Thomson’s writing will make you want to go to the movies, even if it is richer, deeper, and smarter than any of the films that are likely to be playing at a theater near you. His passion for film, his ideas, and the books in which he expresses his passion and ideas are still big as ever. It’s the pictures that got small.”

  —Troy Jollimore, The Barnes and Noble Review

  “One of the most knowledgeable, enjoyably idiosyncratic, and prolific writers on the movies jumps back and forth in time and across media (TV, YouTube, smartphones, the silver screen) in this insightful study of how movies shape our consciousness, collective and otherwise.”

  —Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Copyright © 2012 by David Thomson

  All rights reserved

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following previously published material: Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, copyright © 1974, 1975 by E. L. Doctorow, used by permission of Random House, Inc.; Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard, copyright © 1984 by J. G. Ballard, used by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thomson, David, 1941–

  The big screen: the story of the movies / David Thomson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN: 978-1-4668-2771-4

  1. Motion pictures—Social aspects—United States. 2. Motion pictures—United States—History. I. Title.

  PN1993.5.U6 T463 2012

  791.430973—dc23

  2012009140

  www.fsgbooks.com

  A NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

  The Eadweard Muybridge series was provided by Lucy Gray and is used with her permission and that of Dover Publications. The Passion of Joan of Arc image of the photo insert is used by permission of the Corbis Collection. All other images are used by permission of the Kobal Collection.

  Title-page spread: William Holden and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd.

  eISBN 9781466827714

  *I shall be using the word “movie” in the singular, as an equivalent of “writing” or “music,” to indicate the widening range of moving film.

  *“Rentals” are the money returned to a distributor or producer by the theaters. The “gross” is the total sum taken in at theater for tickets.

 

 

 


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