History & Criticism

Siegfried Kracauer's classic study, originally published in 1960, explores the distinctive qualities of the cinematic medium. The book takes its place alongside works in classical film theory by such figures as Bela Balazs, Rudolf Arnheim, and Andre...

Everyday Movies documents the twentieth-century rise of portable film projectors. It demonstrates that since World War II, the vast majority of movie-watching did not happen in the glow of the large screen but rather took place alongside the glitches,...

Notes from the Dream House is a `best of' selection of reviews by the celebrated Observer film critic Philip French. Spanning half the history of cinema, his reviews cover a great variety of films, from westerns and gangsters to art movies and musicals -...

A cigar-chomping storyteller who signaled "Action!" by shooting a gun, Samuel Fuller has been lionized as one of the most distinctive writer/directors ever to emerge from Hollywood. In such films as The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street, Shock...

In such celebrated works as Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson has established himself as one of America's most observant cultural commentators. In Signatures of the Visible, Jameson turns his attention to cinema - the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781903364314Author Jacob LeighFormat PaperbackPage Count 192Imprint Wallflower PressPublisher Wallflower PressWeight(grams) 364gDimensions(mm) 233mm * 155mm...

All too often, the movies of Sofia Coppola have been dismissed as "all style, no substance." But such an easy caricature, as this engaging and accessible survey of Coppola's oeuvre demonstrates, fundamentally miscontrues what are rich,...

What do horror films reveal about social difference in the everyday world? Criticism of the genre often relies on a dichotomy between monstrosity and normality, in which unearthly creatures and deranged killers are metaphors for society's fear of the...

Zombies, werewolves and chainsaw-wielding maniacs are tried-and-true antagonists of horror films. But none can match the visceral dread evoked by a kid with an innocent face and a diabolical stare. Cinema's evil children attack our cherished ideas of...

Just as punk created a space for bands such as the Slits and Poly Styrene to challenge 1970s norms of femininity, through a transgressive, strident new female-ness, it also provoked experimental feminist film makers to initiate a parallel, lens-based...

A lavish hardback containing Orson Welles' Portfolio, much of which has never been seen before. Orson Welles, famous as an accomplished actor, writer, producer and visionary director, had originally aspired to become a musician or artist. Having studied...

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson's most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of "postmodernism". Jameson's inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from "high" art to "low" from market ideology to architecture, from...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781903364550Author Jane BarnwellFormat PaperbackPage Count 144Imprint Wallflower PressPublisher Wallflower PressWeight(grams) 198gDimensions(mm) 220mm *...

Looking for a great idea for date night or to entertain friends? Why not cue up Casablanca with some French 75s and a Moroccan-themed spread? Turner Classic Movies: Movie Night Menus spotlights thirty crowd-pleasing films from the 1930s through the...

This anthology explores the resilience and ubiquity of the Gothic in cinema from its earliest days to its most contemporary iterations. Fifteen newly commissioned chapters by prominent scholars in the field of Gothic and cinema studies examine the myriad...

Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, and starring James Fox, Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, Performance was filmed in 1968, but not released until 1970. When its studio backers saw the director's cut, they were so shocked by the film's sexual...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781683964728Author Mark FertigFormat HardbackPage Count 340Imprint FantagraphicsPublisher Fantagraphics

For nearly half a century Philip French's writing on cinema has been essential reading for filmgoers, cinephiles and anyone who enjoys witty, intelligent engagement with the big screen. I Found It at the Movies collects some of the best of Philip...

In this book, David MacDougall, one of the leading ethnographic filmmakers and film scholars of his generation, builds upon the ideas from his widely praised Transcultural Cinema and argues for a new conception of how visual images create human knowledge...

One of the world's most erudite and entertaining film critics on the state of cinema in the post-digital-and post-9/11-age. This witty and allusive book, in the style of classic film theorists/critics like Andre Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer, includes...

Withnail and I sank almost without a trace when it was first released in 1987. Financed by HandMade Films, the late George Harrison's production company, and drawing heavily on first-time writer-director Bruce Robinson's experiences, this virtually...

In a comprehensively revised and updated new edition, James Naremore provides an illuminating critical account of the films of Stanley Kubrick, from his earliest feature, Fear and Desire (1953), to the posthumously-produced A.I. Artificial Intelligence...

A renowned movie critic on film's treatment of one of mankind's darkest behaviors: murder "[Thomson's] analysis of death in Hitchcock movies is gorgeous. His restlessness is palpable. There is an anxiety in this brief, hurried book that suits these...

"The Dread of Difference is a classic. Few film studies texts have been so widely read and so influential. It's rarely on the shelf at my university library, so continuously does it circulate. Now this new edition expands the already comprehensive...

"Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, Ferrari without fuel-only worse. For the common cold robs Sinatra of that uninsurable jewel, his voice, cutting into the core of his confidence." - Gay Talese In the winter of 1965, writer Gay...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781569768389Author Robert K. ElderFormat PaperbackPage Count 304Imprint Zephyr PressPublisher Zephyr Press

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780451416391Author Rita MorenaFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint CelebraPublisher Penguin Putnam Inc

From the late 1920s through the thirties, Greta Garbo (1905-1990) was the biggest star in Hollywood. She stopped making films in 1941, at only thirty-six, and thereafter sought a discreet private life. Still, her fame only increased as the public and...

No film critic has ever been as influential or as beloved as Roger Ebert. Over more than four decades, he built a reputation writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and, later, arguing onscreen with rival Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel and later...

An original reflection on Italy's postwar boom considers potentials for resistance in today's neoliberal (dis)order What can 1960s Italian cinema teach us about how to live and work today? Clocking Out challenges readers to think about labor, cinema, and...

Media semiotics is a lucid investigation of the critical approach in contemporary media studies. Using examples such as Big Brother and Billy Elliot, Jonathan Bignell steps easily from basic concepts to more complex theories, while devoting chapters to...

Derek Jarman was the most important independent filmmaker in England during the 1980s. Using emblems and symbols in associative contexts, rather than conventional, cause-and-effect narrative, he created films noteworthy for their lyricism and poetic...

Recognized in America chiefly for his films, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) in fact reinvented interdisciplinarity in post-war Europe. Pasolini self-confessedly approached the cinematic image through painting, and the numerous allusions to early modern...

While the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari became an international film classic, its director, Robert Wiene, was disparaged and even forgotten. Wiene's oeuvre, however, exhibits a surprising versatility and quality, featuring Raskolnikov, an expressionist...

This field-defining collection establishes unfinished film projects-abandoned, interrupted, lost, or open-ended-as rich and underappreciated resources for feminist film and media studies. In deeply researched and creatively conceived chapters, scholars...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780941188906Author Steven D. KatzFormat PaperbackPage Count 362Imprint Michael Wiese ProductionsPublisher Michael Wiese ProductionsWeight(grams) 812g

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307958921Author Foster HirschFormat HardbackPage Count 672Imprint Alfred A. KnopfPublisher Alfred A. KnopfWeight(grams) 1021gDimensions(mm) 243mm * 169mm...

What is the relationship between cinema and spectator? This is the key question for film theory, and one that Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener put at the center of their insightful and engaging book, now revised from its popular first edition. Every...

Cleo de 5 a 7 (Cleo from 5 to 7), Agnes Varda's classic 1962 work depicts, in near real-time, 90 minutes in the life of Cleo, a young woman in Paris awaiting the results of medical tests that she fears will confirm a fatal condition. The film, whose...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9783283012908Author Steve CarverFormat HardbackPage Count 256Imprint Edition OlmsPublisher Edition OlmsWeight(grams) 1415g