History & Criticism

Few directors are characterized by both extraordinary film craft and the ironic reputation for lowbrow films. Despite his many achievements as a child of the Italian Cinecitta studios, however, Sergio Leone has been judged severely by writers who find...

A beloved film comedienne who worked alongside the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and dozens of others, Thelma Todd was a rare Golden Age star who successfully crossed over from silent films to talkies. This authoritative new biography traces Todd's...

Discover the science behind the most popular sci-fi franchise of all time! We marvel at the variety of creatures and technology and the mystery behind the force. But how much of the Star Wars world is rooted in reality? Could we see some of the...

Legendary actress and two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland is best known for her role as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939). She often inhabited characters who were delicate, elegant, and refined. At the same time, she was a...

Ground-breaking in its departure from its predecessors, When Harry Met Sally (1989) established classic romantic comedy themes and tropes still being employed today. Placing the film in its historical, social and generic contexts, Tamar Jeffers-McDonald...

First in a series designed to situate and explain the films of French directors. A concise, accessible and original reading of Truffaut's films. A timely evaluation of the films of a popular director whose work features on most A-level French syllabuses...

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) is one of the most historically pivotal of all films. The first American film of the celebrated German director F.W. Murnau, Sunrise tells the story of a love triangle between characters named only as The Man, The...

Inspired by an alleged real case of demonic possession in 1949, The Exorcist became an international phenomenon on its release in 1973. A blockbusting adaptation of a best-selling novel, it was praised as 'deeply spiritual' by some sections of the...

The Wizard of Oz 'was my very first literary influence,' writes Salman Rushdie in his account of the great MGM children's classic. At the age of ten he had written a story, 'Over the Rainbow', about a colourful fantasy world. But for Rushdie The Wizard...

Building on students' enthusiasm for screened entertainment, Looking at Movies is more successful than any other text at motivating students to understand and analyse what they see onscreen. The Seventh Edition features new and refreshed video,...

A ground-breaking comparative treatment of cinematic images of atrocity, combining critical perspectives on contemporary film and human rights. A few days after 9/11, US Vice-President Dick Cheney invoked the need for the USA to work 'the dark side' in...

With a foreword by Kathleen Jamie. Trees can evoke powerful feelings. For Henry David Thoreau, the woods are places beyond civilisation; for Ursula Le Guin and J. R. R. Tolkien, they are loaded with otherworldly potential; and for those fleeing...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781903364062Author John GibbsFormat PaperbackPage Count 144Imprint Wallflower PressPublisher Wallflower PressWeight(grams) 226gDimensions(mm) 217mm * 139mm...

Popular culture mirrors the human soul and it can't lie about the state it is in-which is what makes it an essential guide on the quest for self-knowledge. Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist is a series of autobiographical explorations...

March 20, 2019 marked the end of an era -- Disney took ownership of the movie empire that was Fox. For almost a century before that historic date, Twentieth Century-Fox was one of the preeminent producers of films, stars, and filmmakers. Its unique...

With The Modern Myths, brilliant science communicator Philip Ball spins a new yarn. From novels and comic books to B-movies, it is an epic exploration of literature, new media and technology, the nature of storytelling, and the making and meaning of our...

Few filmmakers, if any, make the kind of impact that Martin Scorsese has made on American cinema. The winner of every prestigious film award, including the Oscar, Scorsese is a living legend. Bestselling author and award-winning filmmaker Mary Pat...

This essential book covers the key areas for A Level Film Studies students, building confidence through a careful, step-by-step approach. The first part of the book establishes a basic understanding of the grounding of film analysis in the various...

Released in 1984, "Once Upon a Time in America" was the final work of Sergio Leone, best known for Speghetti Westerns such as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". This "testament film" marries the director's flamboyant, expressionistic style to a story full...

For well over a century, those who create motion pictures have touched our hearts and souls; they have transported and transformed our minds, intoxicated and entranced our senses. One artist's vision is the single most prominent force behind the scenes:...

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) is an esteemed member of the twentieth century's pantheon of outstanding films while also perhaps being the director's most accessible film. It is a rarity in that on the one hand it was a successful mainstream horror...

The Animation Studies Reader brings together both key writings within animation studies and new material in emerging areas of the field. The collection provides readers with seminal texts that ground animation studies within the contexts of theory and...

Contemporary French cinema is an essential introduction to popular French film of the last 35 years. It charts recent developments in all genres of French cinema with analyses of over 120 movies, from Les Valseuses to Cache.Reflecting the diversity of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781786275776Author Maria PramaggioreFormat PaperbackPage Count 472Imprint Laurence King PublishingPublisher Laurence King Publishing

After an unparalleled string of artistic and commercial triumphs in the 1950s and 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock hit a career lull with the disappointing Torn Curtain and the disastrous Topaz. In 1971, the depressed director traveled to London, the city he had...

Ever since its world premiere at the Cannes film festival in May 2005, audiences have been talking about Michael Haneke's Cache. The film's enigmatic and multi-layered narrative leaves its viewers with many more questions than answers. The plot revolves...

The films of Akira Kurosawa have had an immense effect on the way the Japanese have viewed themselves as a nation and on the way the West has viewed Japan. In this comprehensive and theoretically informed study of the influential director's cinema,...

In this vivid and accessible new account of the dawn of film in Britain, internationally respected film historian and curator Bryony Dixon introduces us to Britain's first cinematic pioneers - an eclectic mix of chemists, engineers, photography...

Fields never got around to writing his autobiography, but at his death in 1946, he left behind a vast assortment of notes, outlines, scrapbooks, letters, scripts, scenarios, and photographs. Now his grandson, Ronald J. Fields, has edited and woven this...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593540152Author Matt SingerFormat HardbackPage Count 352Imprint G P Putnam's SonsPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 556gDimensions(mm) 236mm *...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781904764717Author Lester FriedmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Wallflower PressPublisher Wallflower PressWeight(grams) 664gDimensions(mm) 238mm *...

Cult Cinema: an Introduction presents the first in-depth academic examination of all aspects of the field of cult cinema, including audiences, genres, and theoretical perspectives. Represents the first exhaustive introduction to cult cinemaOffers a...

"I read Hawks on Hawks with passion. I am very happy that this book exists." -- Francois TruffautHoward Hawks (1896--1977) is often credited as being the most versatile of all of the great American directors, having worked with equal ease in screwball...

A leading film critic on the evolving world of streaming media and its impact on society The city at night under lockdown, a time of plague and anxiety. It is an exciting new age of television, the light that flutters in every cell in the city. But no...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780226813868Author Professor Julia A SternFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint University of Chicago PressPublisher The University of Chicago...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781493067855Author Charles DennisFormat PaperbackPage Count 168Imprint ApplausePublisher Globe Pequot PressWeight(grams) 277gDimensions(mm) 226mm * 152mm *...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780941188432Author Mark W. TravisFormat PaperbackPage Count 402Imprint Michael Wiese ProductionsPublisher Michael Wiese ProductionsWeight(grams) 690g

Gone With The Wind is one of the most popular movies of all time. To commemorate its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2014, The Making of Gone With The Wind presents more than 600 items from the archives of David O. Selznick, the film's producer, and his...

War Culture and the Contest of Images analyzes the relationships among contemporary war, documentary practices, and democratic ideals. Dora Apel examines a wide variety of images and cultural representations of war in the United States and the Middle...

A diverse range of leading scholars, activists, archivists and artists explore the histories, practices and concerns of women making film and video across the world, from the pioneering German animator Lotte Reiniger, to the influential African American...