ENTERTAiNMENT wEEKly
http://www.ew.com/ew
This is the website for the popular magazine Entertainment Weekly. In the movie section you will find reproduced much of the content of the print version of the magazine, including reviews, box office figures and a ‘coming soon’ section.
fIlmfeStIvalreSearchnetWork
http://www.filmfestivalresearch.org
This network brings together academics researching and
professionals working in the film festival industry. The website includes a detailed bibliography.
filM- philoSophy
http://www.film-philosophy.com
This website links you to the Film-Philosophy journal and discussion salon. It offers a philosophical review of cinema and film studies, and is notable for its large archive of informed and original book review articles, plus its lively e-mail discussion salon.
fIlmStuDIeSforfree
http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.co.uk/
A comprehensive web-archive that collects examples of and links to free film studies scholarship freely available on the web.
ThE hollywooD REpoRTER
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
Much of what I said about Daily Variety also applies to The Hollywood Reporter. This is another well-respected trade 202
newspaper, which you may want to read in conjunction with Daily Variety in order to read about the same stories from a slightly different angle.
theInternetmovIeDataBaSeltD
http://uk.imdb.com
http://www.imdb.com
This is a standard and authoritative reference site for finding out the basic information on almost every film made.
rogereBert.com
http://www.rogerebert.com
This site collects together Roger Ebert’s reviews from 1985 to his death in 2013. The site also features reviews of current films by a team of collaborators.
ScopE:anonlIneJournaloffIlmStuDIeS
http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk
This online journal, based at the University of Nottingham, Britain, publishes feature articles, book and film reviews, plus conference reports. It has a broad editorial policy, focusing on film history, theory and criticism, and publishes the work of new as well as established writers.
ScreenDaIly
http://www.screendaily.com
A comprehensive, online version of the weekly British trade magazine Screen International. This website offers global film industry news, reviews and an extensive list of events.
ScREENiNg ThE pAST
http://www.screeningthepast.com
A scholarly journal that investigates in depth the social and historical dimensions of film, photography, television and new media. It has several sections: feature articles, classics and reruns (republication of notable articles), and reviews of film, television, new media, books and conferences.
Taking it further 203
SENSES of ciNEMA
http://www.sensesofcinema.com
This Australian website describes itself ‘an online film journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema’. The quarterly journal lives up to this description, publishing a wide variety of writing styles (personal, academic, critical) on numerous topics: film, book and festival reviews, news and current events, feature articles, special dossiers, plus a critical database on great directors.
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Bibliography
This bibliography collects together all the books and essays cited at the end of each chapter.
Aitken, Ian, Film and Reform (London: Routledge, 1990).
A well-researched, in-depth study of the British documentary film movement.
Alloway, Lawrence, ‘Iconography of the Movies’, Movie 7
(1963), pp. 4–6
Altman, Charles [Rick], ‘Towards a Historiography of American Film’, Cinema Journal, 16, 2 (1977), pp. 1–25.
An invaluable outline of various approaches that have been adopted in film studies.
Altman, Charles [Rick], Film/Genre (London: British Film Institute, 1999).
An important book that has the virtue of being organized around a series of problems relating to the study of genre.
Moreover, these problems are stated in the title of each of the 12 chapters, for example, ‘Where do genres come from?’, ‘Are genres stable?’, ‘Why are genres sometimes mixed?’, ‘What role do genres play in the viewing process?’ and ‘What can genres teach us about nations?’
Andrew, J Dudley, The Major Film Theories (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
This book is still the most accessible introduction to the work of the formalists (Hugo Münsterberg, Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Bela Balazs), the realists (Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin) as well as the film theories of Jean Mitry, Christian Metz, Amédée Ayfre and Henri Agel.
Arnheim, Rudolf, Film as Art (London: Faber and Faber, 1958).
Arnheim’s formalist statement on film art.
Bazin, André, Orson Welles: A Critical View (California: Acrobat Books, 1991).
Bibliography 205
A concise and lucid analysis of Welles’s early films. For me, this book contains Bazin’s clearest defence of the techniques of the long take and deep focus.
Bazin, André, What is Cinema? , 2 volumes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, 1971).
Bazin’s seminal collection of essays that defends a realist film aesthetic.
Bordwell, David, Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989).
An in-depth study of how films are interpreted.
Bordwell, David, Narration in the Fiction Film (London: Routledge, 1985).
A long and wide-ranging book that discusses both how
spectators comprehend narrative films and various historical modes of narration (Hollywood cinema, Art cinema, Soviet cinema, the films of Jean-Luc Godard).
Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristin,
The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985).
The undisputed, authoritative heavyweight study of classical Hollywood cinema, covering the history of film style,
technology and mode of production.
Branigan, Edward, Narrative Comprehension and Film
(London: Routledge, 1992).
This book is similar in some respects to Bordwell’s Narration in the Fiction Film, in that it discusses how narrative is comprehended by film spectators. However, Branigan’s book focuses on more specific issues (such as ‘levels of narration’ and
‘focalization’), and discusses them in great detail; it is a very erudite, sophisticated and complex book.
Buckland, Warren, Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster (New York and London: Continuum, 2006).
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In this book I examine Spielberg’s film-making practices – the choices he makes in placing or moving his camera, framing a shot, blocking the action, editing a scene, designing the sound, and controlling the flow of story information via a multitude of narrational techniques.
Buckland, Warren (ed.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
This volume identifies and analyses contemporary cinema.
‘Puzzle Films’ – a popular cycle of films from the 1990s that rejects classical storytelling techniques and replaces them with a complex storytelling. Films include, Lost Highway, Memento, Charlie Kaufman’s screenplays, Run Lola Run, Infernal Affairs, 2046; Suzhou River, The Day a Pig Fell into a Well and Old Boy.
Buckland, Warren (ed.), Hollywood Puzzle Films (New York: Routledge, 2014).
A sequel to Puzzle Films (2009), focusing on contemporary Hollywood films that use techniques of complex storytelling, including Inception (2010), Source Code (2011), The Butterfly Effect (2004), The Hours (2002) and films ba
sed on the science fiction of Philip K. Dick, including Minority Report (2002) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).
Byars, Jackie, All That Hollywood Allows: Re-Reading Gender in 1950s Melodrama (London: Routledge, 1991).
A feminist reading of popular melodrama from the 1950s,
especially Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life, as well as the male melodramas of James Dean: Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Giant.
Carroll, Noël, Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
A dense philosophical examination of the work of Arnheim, Bazin and Perkins.
Caughie, John (ed.), Theories of Authorship (London: British Film Institute, 1981).
Bibliography 207
A representative sample of essays on the various schools of auteurism, although Caughie has taken the liberty of shortening a number of the papers, in some cases quite drastically.
Cavell, Stanley, Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Cavell’s idiosyncratic (and rather unevenly written) study of a genre he has christened the melodrama of the unknown woman.
Cook, Roger and Gemünden, Gerd (eds), The Cinema of Wim Wenders: Image, Narrative, and the Postmodern Condition (Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1997).
A wide-ranging collection of essays that serves both as an introduction to Wenders’s cinema and a detailed discussion of specific films (including Until the End of the World and Wings of Desire).
Copjec, Joan (ed.), Shades of Noir (London: Verso, 1993).
This theoretically informed anthology reassesses the status of film noir as a genre, and argues that such a reassessment is necessary for two reasons: the re-emergence of film noir in contemporary Hollywood, and the uneasy sense that film noir was never adequately discussed in the first place.
Corner, John, The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction to Documentary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).
Accessible case studies of classic documentary films from the 1930s to the 1980s. A good starting point for anyone who wants to pursue documentary further.
Corrigan, Timothy, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Fourth Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).
A concise and practical guide for students on how to write about films, from taking notes during screenings to the style and structure of essay writing.
Doane, Mary Ann, The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940s (London: Macmillan, 1988).
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Doane’s book is a sophisticated and lucid study of four types of 1940s women’s films – dominated by medical themes, the maternal melodrama, the classic love story, and the paranoid woman’s film.
Douchet, Jean, Alfred Hitchcock (Paris: 1967; Cahiers du Cinéma, 1999).
Eisenstein, Sergei, Writings, Volume 1 : 1922–1934 (ed. and trans. Richard Taylor) (London: British Film Institute, 1988).
The first of three authoritative volumes of Eisenstein’s collected essays.
Elsaesser, Thomas, ‘Germany’s Imaginary America: Wim
Wenders and Peter Handke’ (1986), available from the
author’s website: http://www.thomas-elsaesser.com/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=68
Elsaesser, Thomas and Buckland, Warren, Studying
Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Detailed analyses of nine contemporary American films from different theoretical perspectives.
Gledhill, Christine (ed.), Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film (London: British Film Institute, 1987).
A seminal collection of (occasionally difficult) essays on the melodrama, including Thomas Elsaesser’s foundational essay, ‘Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama’.
Gottlieb, Sidney (ed.), Hitchcock on Hitchcock (California: University of California Press; London: Faber and Faber, 1995).
A comprehensive collection of Alfred Hitchcock’s writings on the cinema.
Grant, Barry Keith (ed.), Film Genre Reader (Texas: University of Texas Press, 1986).
A comprehensive anthology of 24 essays, divided evenly into theoretical approaches and studies of individual genres.
Bibliography 209
Haberski, Raymond J, It’s Only a Movie: Films and Critics in American Culture (Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001).
An informative and readable historical account of the rise of the
‘golden age’ of American film criticism in North America, the age of Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael in the 1960s, together with their attempts to confer cultural respectability on popular movies. The book also charts the decline of the golden age in the 1970s.
Hayward, Susan, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Third Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
More than a glossary, this invaluable reference book includes both shorter entries and mini essays on the industrial, technical and theoretical concepts that currently dominate film studies.
Hillier, Jim (ed.), Cahiers du Cinéma, the 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985); The 1960s: New Wave, New Cinema, Reevaluating Hollywood (1986).
The first two volumes in a three-volume series publishing representative essays from Cahiers du Cinéma. An indispensable collection.
Hillier, Jim, The New Hollywood (New York: Continuum, 1993).
My account of women film directors working in Hollywood is indebted to Hillier’s chapter, ‘Unequal Opportunities: Women Filmmakers’, pp. 122–42.
Jacobs, Lea, The Wages of Sin: Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film: 1928–1942 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991).
An articulate and well-researched study of the representation of fallen women in 1930s melodrama, demonstrating how
censorship has influenced the genre.
Jenkins, Henry, ‘Historical Poetics’ in Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich (eds), Approaches to Popular Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 99–122.
210
Jenkins offers an overview to the internal (or poetic) approach to the cinema. A useful supplement to the first part of this book.
Jermyn, Deborah and Redmond, Sean (eds), The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood Transgressor (London: Wallflower Press, 2003).
A series of academic essays on Kathryn Bigelow, including a detailed case study of Strange Days.
Kael, Pauline, I Lost it at the Movies: Film Writings 1954–1965
(London: Marion Boyars, 1994).
Kael’s first book (originally published in 1965), containing reviews and provocative essays on film.
Kaplan, E Ann (ed.), Women in Film Noir, Second Edition (London: British Film Institute, 1998).
This is the authoritative guide to the way women are
represented in film noir. It is concise, lucid and accessible.
Essential reading.
Klinger, Barbara, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Klinger looks at the way Douglas Sirk’s films have been
promoted and discussed in reviews, by fans and by academics, and studies in detail Rock Hudson’s star image.
Lane, Christina, ‘From The Loveless to Point Break: Kathryn Bigelow’s Trajectory in Action’, Cinema Journal, 37, 4 (1998), pp. 59–81.
A scholarly examination of the first four films of Bigelow’s career, focusing on gender issues.
Lynch, David and Gifford, Barry, Lost Highway [script]
(London: Faber and Faber, 1997).
McMahan, Alison, Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2002).
A detailed history of the work of the first woman film-maker.
Bibliography 211
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Neale, Steve, Genre and Hollywood (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).
This book offers a detailed investigation into existing accounts of genre, plus a new account of film noir and melodrama. It is organized into three distinct parts: 1. Definitions and concepts of genre; 2. A comprehensive examination of all the major genres, plus the way they have been previously studied; 3. Theories, descriptions and industry accounts of Hollywood genres.
Neale, Steve, ‘Melodrama and Tears’, Screen, 27, 6 (1986), pp. 6–23.
An important essay explaining why we cry when watching
melodramas.
Nichols, Bill, Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
A companion volume to Representing Reality, offering case studies (the Rodney King video tape, reality television, Eisenstein’s Strike, Oliver Stone’s JFK, and performative documentary). As with Representing Reality, a difficult but important book.
Nichols, Bill, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).
An important but densely written book. The chapter on
documentary modes of representation has been used as the foundation for Chapter 5. My aim has been to make this
important chapter of Nichols’s book accessible to the general reader.
Palmer, R Barton (ed.), Perspectives on Film Noir (New York: G K Hall & Co., 1996).
This anthology republishes a representative set of French and Anglo-American essays that first identified film noir as a distinct style or genre of film-making.
Perkins, Victor, Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972; New York: Da Capo Press, 1993).
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An important book on the criticism and evaluation of narrative films. Perkins combines the approaches of both the realists and formalists (see Chapter 1 of this book) by arguing that film is a hybrid medium, consisting of both realist and formalist tendencies. To be evaluated as good, each film needs to create a balance between realism and formalism. A film can achieve this balance, according to Perkins, by firstly producing images that conform to the realist principles of credibility (of being ‘true-to-life’), and secondly, by unobtrusively adding symbolic meanings (or significant form) to these realistic images.
Film Studies- An Introduction Page 24