A Hidden History Of Film Style

The image that appears on the movie screen is the direct and tangible result of the joint efforts of the director and the cinematographer. A Hidden History of Film Style is the first study to focus on the collaborations between directors and cinematographers, a partnership that has played a crucial role in American cinema since the early years of the silent era. Christopher Beach argues that an understanding of the complex director-cinematographer collaboration offers an important model that challenges the pervasive conventional concept of director as auteur. Drawing upon oral histories, early industry trade journals, and other primary materials, Beach examines key innovations like deep focus, color, and digital cinematography, and in doing so produces an exceptionally clear history of the craft. Through analysis of several key collaborations in American cinema from the silent era to the late twentieth century—such as those of D. W. Griffith and Billy Bitzer, William Wyler and Gregg Toland, and Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Burks—this pivotal book underlines the importance of cinematographers to both the development of cinematic technique and the expression of visual style in film.

The image that appears on the movie screen is the direct and tangible result of the joint efforts of the director and the cinematographer. A Hidden History of Film Style is the first study to focus on the collaborations between directors and cinematographers, a partnership that has played a crucial role in American cinema since the early years of the silent era. Christopher Beach argues that an understanding of the complex director-cinematographer collaboration offers an important model that challenges the pervasive conventional concept of director as auteur. Drawing upon oral histories, early industry trade journals, and other primary materials, Beach examines key innovations like deep focus, color, and digital cinematography, and in doing so produces an exceptionally clear history of the craft. Through analysis of several key collaborations in American cinema from the silent era to the late twentieth century—such as those of D. W. Griffith and Billy Bitzer, William Wyler and Gregg Toland, and Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Burks—this pivotal book underlines the importance of cinematographers to both the development of cinematic technique and the expression of visual style in film.

Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by various film historians and celebrates a century of cinema. The author examines the contributions of many directors and shows how film scholars have explained stylistic continuity and change.

The first and only history of motion picture style. The relation of film style to film technology. New methods for the formal analysis of films. A practical approach to film theory. The application of all this to the analysis and evaluation of the films of Max Ophuls. A complete rewrite of the first twenty-five years of film history.

Acclaimed for its breakthrough approach and its combination of theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, this is the standard work on the classical Hollywood cinema style of film-making from the silent era to the 1960s.

While giving the laundry room of Grace Chapel Inn a thorough cleaning, Alice Howard finds an old hatbox containing her father's journal from the early 1900s. As she reads it aloud each evening to her sisters Louise and Jane they discover fascinating events their beloved father had never even hinted at. With Alice dressing up for a change, Jane concocting delicious new recipes for the inn's guests and Louise knitting a beautiful pink sweater--for a pig--the sisters move through the one year anniversary of their father's death with a deeper love and respect for their life together.

You know film noir when you see it: the shadowed setting; the cynical detective; the femme fatale; and the twist of fate. Into the Dark captures this alluring genre with a cavalcade of compelling photographs and a guide to 82 of its best films. Into the Dark is the first book to tell the story of film noir in its own voice. Author Mark A. Vieira quotes the artists who made these movies and the journalists and critics who wrote about them, taking readers on a year-by-year tour of the exciting nights when movies like Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Sunset Boulevard were sprung on an unsuspecting public. For the first time, we hear the voices of film noir artists speak from the sets and offices of the studios, explaining the dark genre, even before it had a name. Those voices tell how the genre was born and how it thrived in an industry devoted to sweetness and light. Into the Dark is a ticket to a smoky, glamorous world. You enter a story conference with Raymond Chandler, visit the set of Laura, and watch Detour with a Midwest audience. This volume recreates the environment that spawned film noir. It also displays the wit and warmth of the genre's artists. Hedda Hopper reports on Citizen Kane, calling Orson Welles "Little Orson Annie." Lauren Bacall says she enjoys playing a bad girl in To Have and Have Not. Bosley Crowther calls Joan Crawford in Possessed a "ghost wailing for a demon lover beneath a waning moon." An Indiana exhibitor rates the classic Murder, My Sweet a "passable program picture." Illustrated by hundreds of rare still photographs, Into the Dark conveys the mystery, glamour, and irony that make film noir surpassingly popular. About TCM: Turner Classic Movies is the definitive resource for the greatest movies of all time. It engages, entertains, and enlightens to show how the entire spectrum of classic movies, movie history, and movie-making touches us all and influences how we think and live today.

Who can forget the over-the-top, white-on-white, high-gloss interiors through which Fred Astaire danced in Top Hat? The modernist high-rise architecture, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, in the adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead? The lavish, opulent drawing rooms of Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence? Through the use of film design—called both art direction and production design in the film industry—movies can transport us to new worlds of luxury, highlight the ornament of the everyday, offer a vision of the future, or evoke the realities of a distant era. In Designs on Film, journalist and interior designer Cathy Whitlock illuminates the often undercelebrated role of the production designer in the creation of the most memorable moments in film history. Through a lush collection of rare archival photographs, Whitlock narrates the evolving story of art direction over the course of a century—from the massive Roman architecture of Ben-Hur to the infamous Dakota apartment in Rosemary's Baby to the digital CGI wonders of Avatar's Pandora. Drawing on insights from the most prominent Hollywood production designers and the historical knowledge of the venerable Art Directors Guild, Whitlock delves into the detailed process of how sets are imagined, drawn, built, and decorated. Designs on Film is the must-have look book for film lovers, movie buffs, and anyone looking to draw interior design inspiration from the constructions and confections of Hollywood. Whitlock lifts the curtain on movie magic and celebrates the many ways in which art direction and set design allow us to lose ourselves in the diverse worlds showcased on the big screen.

Ghost in the Well is the first study to provide a full history of the horror genre in Japanese cinema, from the silent era to Classical period movies such as Nakagawa Nobuo's Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (1959) to the contemporary global popularity of J-horror pictures like the Ring and Ju-on franchises. Michael Crandol draws on a wide range of Japanese language sources, including magazines, posters and interviews with directors such as Kurosawa Kiyoshi, to consider the development of kaiki eiga, the Japanese phrase meaning "weird" or "bizarre" films that most closely corresponds to Western understandings of "horror". He traces the origins of kaika eiga in Japanese kabuki theatre and traditions of the monstrous feminine, showing how these traditional forms were combined with the style and conventions of Hollywood horror to produce an aesthetic that was both transnational and peculiarly Japanese. Ghost in the Well sheds new light on one of Japanese cinema's best-known genres, while also serving as a fascinating case study of how popular film genres are re-imagined across cultural divides.

Although many bluesmen began leaving the Magnolia State in the early twentieth century to pursue fortune and fame up north, many others stayed home. These musicians remained rooted to the traditions of their land, which came to define a distinctive playing style unique to Mississippi. They didn't simply play the blues, they lived it. Travel through the hallowed juke joints and cotton fields with author Roger Stolle as he recounts the history of Mississippi blues and the musicians who have kept it alive. Some of these bluesmen remain to carry on this proud legacy, while others have passed on, but Hidden History of Mississippi Blues ensures none will be forgotten.