Short History of the Movies, A, 11th edition
Published by Pearson (January 14, 2010) © 2011
- Gerald Mast University of Chicago
- Bruce Kawin University of Colorado at Boulder
- Hardcover, paperback or looseleaf edition
- Affordable rental option for select titles
The eleventh edition of A Short History of the Movies continues its long-standing tradition of scrupulously accurate details, up-to-date information, and jargon-free writing style that has made it the most widely adopted film history textbook.
This edition offers students a panoramic overview of the worldwide development of film. From the early experiments with motion photography, through the American studio years of the 1930’s and 1940’s, from Neorealism and the New Wave, up to the present age of digital cinema, A Short History of the Movies provides a comprehensive presentation of the history of cinema. This eleventh edition has been revised and updated to include current scholarship, recent industry developments, and new films and filmmakers.
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- Provides solid scholarship in its emphasis on key technical and aesthetic principles in an accessible, intelligent, and highly readable format.
- Contains approximately 500 colour and black-and-white photographs–including frame enlargements and production stills– that enhance the narration.
- Presents the material in chronological order and in concise chapters making the text easy to synchronise with a survey course.
- Includes an extensive and unparalleled filmography and bibliography—ideal for background assignments or individual study.
- Illuminates the conflicts and controversies in many areas of filmmaking by evaluating great works from a wide range of directors, including D.W. Griffith, Carl Dreyer, Wim Wenders, Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alfred Hitchcock.Â
- Extensive coverage of international film facilitates comparison between American films and those of other countries, particularly England, Germany, Russia, France, Italy, Japan, Iran, and China.
- Draws from a more diverse array of filmmakers, including women, independent, multicultural, and international filmmakers, such as Spike Lee, Mike Leigh, Chris Marker, Oscar Micheaux, Agnes Varda, and Lois Weber.
- More information on important historical developments, from the early 'cinema of attractions' to today's digital 3-D. You’ll find updated discussions of independent U.S. production, transnational cinema, digital effects, HDTV, Blu-ray Discs, cell-phone cameras, and YouTube.
- New discussions of recent films which you may have seen have been added, including Ashes of Time Redux, Coraline, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gomorra, Inglourious Basterds, Let the Right One In, Private Century, A Prophet, Samson & Delilah, Slumdog Millionaire, and Synecdoche, New York.
- A new section, "Complexity in Early Film," lists the key innovations from 1893 to 1908 in a clear and systematic way that makes it easier to follow the development of the single-shot, multi-shot, and multi-scene film.
- Directors who are now emerging like Paul Thomas Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and Julian Schnabel have been added to this edition, and coverage of directors who are established such as Danny Boyle, the Coen brothers, Werner Herzog, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Julie Taymor, Jan Troell, Gus Van Sant, and Andrzej Wajda has been updated.
- Many topics on international and independent cinema have been added or updated, such as new coverage of J-horror, Zhang Yimou's Olympic ceremonies, Scorsese's documentaries, Sundance, Nigerian film, and the Mexican international production company Cha Cha Cha. "Third World Cinemas" now reflects contemporary political developments and terminology. There are updated statistics on India and its cinema, with a more objective treatment of Bollywood.
- The discussion of the contemporary "Return of the Myths" has been revised to include The Dark Knight. Descriptions of such classic films as The Last Laugh and Battleship Potemkin have been revised based on newly restored editions.
- The glossary has been expanded, the filmographies have been updated to 2009, the bibliographies have been consolidated for easier reference, and the DVD lists have been updated and revised.
- Improvements have been made to the discussions of the camera obscura, the magic lantern, the brain's processing of sequential images, the first dream films, the Vitaphone shorts, La Roue, Metropolis, The Robe, Persona, Memento, Buñuel and DalÃ, Dulac, home video, the auteur theory, May 1968, the "tradition of quality," film ratings, direct cinema, and more.
- Box-office figures have been updated to 2008, and the comparison with the peak year of 1946 has been adjusted for inflation, as have many other important figures. The number of films released by independents and by MPAA members has been updated to 2008. Hollywood business developments have been updated to 2009.
1. Introductory Assumptions.
For Further Viewing.
2. Birth.
Frames per second.
        Pictures on Film.
        Speed.
        Flicker and the Continuous Signal.
Persistence of Vision and Other Phenomena.
        Seeing with the Brain.
        Visual Masking and Retinal Retention.
        Early Observations.
        Separating and Integrating Frames.
        The Phi Phenomenon and Beta Movement.
        Short-Range Apparent Motion.
        Constructing Continuity.
        Scientific Toys.
        Émile Reynaud.
Photography.
        Muybridge and Marey
Thomas Edison.
        W. K–L. Dickson and William Heise.
        Early Cameras and Films.
        The Kinetoscope.
        A Sound Film and Studio.
        Projection.
        The Magic Lantern.
        The Loop and Other Solutions.
        The Lumière Brothers.
        R.W. Paul.
        The Vitascope.
The First Films.
For FurtherViewing.
3. Film Narrative, Commercial Expansion.
Early Companies.
Narrative.
        George Melies.
        Cohl and Others.
        Edwin S. Porter.
        From Brighton to Biograph.
       Complexity in Early Film
Business Wars.
The Film d’Art.
For Further Viewing.
4. Griffith.
Apprenticeship.
        Biograph: The One-Reelers.
        Two Reels and Up.
The Birth of a Nation.
Intolerance.
1917-31.
        Broken Blossoms and Way Down East.
        The Struggle.
For FurtherViewing.
5. Mack Sennett and the Chaplin Shorts.
Krazy Keystones.
Charlie.
For FurtherViewing.
6. Movie Czars and Movie Stars.
Stars over Hollywood.
        The First Stars.
        California, Here We Come.
The Emperors and Their Rule.
        Major Studios.
        Movie Palaces.
Morality.
        Sermons and Scandals.
        The Hays Office.
Films and Filmmakers, 1910-28.
        Thomas Ince.
        Douglas Fairbanks.
        DeMille and von Stroheim.
        Greed.
        Henry King.
        Oscar Micheaux and the Race Movie.
        Webber and Watson.
        Weber and Women.
        King Vidor
        Lubitsch and Others.
        Flaherty and the Silent Documentary.
The Comics.
        Laurel and Hardy and Hal Roach.
        Harold Lloyd.
        Harry Langdon.
        Buster Keaton.
        The Gold Rush and The General.
Hollywood and the Jazz Age.
        Modernism.
        Jazz, Booze, and It.
For Further Viewing.
7. The German Golden Age.
Expressionism, Realism, and the Studio Film.
Fantasy.
        Caligari.
        Destiny and Metropolis.
        Nosferatu and Others.
Psychology.
        The Last Laugh.
        Pabst and die neue Sachlichkeit.
The End of an Era.
        Beyond the Studio.
        Exodus to Hollywood.
        Using Sound.
        Lei Riefenstahl.
For FurtherViewing.
8. Soviet Montage.
The Kuleshov Workshop.
Sergei M. Eisenstein.
        Battleship Potemkin.
        October.
        Sound and Color.
        Mother.
        Later Works.
Other Major Figures.
        Alexander Dovzhenko.
        Dziga Vertov.
Socialist Realism.
For Further Viewing.
9. Sound.
Processes.
Problems.
Solutions.
For Further Viewing.
10. France between the Wars.
Surrealism and Other Movements.
Gance and Dreyer.
        Abel Gance.
        The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Rene Clair.
Jean Renoir.
        Grand Illusion.
        The Rules of the Game.
Vigo and Others.
        Jean Vigo.
        Carné and Prévert.
For Further Viewing.
11. The American Studio Years: 1930-45.
Film Cycles and Cinematic Conventions.
        The Production Code.
        Cycles.
        Studios and Style.
        Women in the Studio Era.
The Comics.
        Late Chaplin.
        Disney’s World.
        Lubitsch and Sound.
        Frank Capra.
        Preston Sturges.
        George Cukor.
        The Marx Brothers.
        Mae West.
        W.C. Fields.
Masters of Mood and Action.
        Josef von Sternberg.
        John Ford.
        Howard Hawks.
        Alfred Hitchcock.
        Orson Welles.
For Further Viewing.
12. Hollywood in Transition: 1946-65.
        The Hollywood Ten and the Blacklist.
        3-D, CinemaScope, Color, and the Tube.
Films in the Transitional Era.
        Freedom of Speech, Preminger, and the end of the Blacklist.
        Message Pictures: Kazan and Others.
        Adaptations and Values: John Huston and Others.
        Film Noir and Other Genres.
        The Freed Musicals.
Surfaces and Subversion.
        Samuel Fuller .
        Late Hitchcock.
        Nicholas Ray.
        Late Ford.
        Douglas Sirk.
Finding the Audience.
For Further Viewing.
13. Neorealism, New Wave, and What Followed
Italian Neorealism.
        Roberto Rossellini.
        De Sica and Zavattini.
        Luchino Visconti.
Romantics and Antiromantics.
        Federico Fellini.
        Michelangelo Antonioni.
        Pasolini and Bertolucci.
        Germi, Leone, and Others.
France---Postwar Classicism.
        Cocteau and Others.
        Max Ophüls.
        Robert Bresson.
        Tati, Clouzot, and Others.
1959Â and After.
        The New Wave.
        François Truffaut.
        Jean-Luc Godard.
        Alain Resnais.
        Chabrol, Rohmer, and Rivette.
        Varda, Marker, and the Documentary.
        Malle and Others.
For Further Viewing.
14. National Cinemas: 1945-.
Sweden and Denmark.
        Ingmar Bergman.
England.
        Postwar Masters.
        Another New Wave.
        Leigh, Loach, and Others
Central and Eastern Europe.
        The Czech Golden Age.
Poland.
Hungary.
The Balkan States.
Cinemas Asian
        Japan.
        India.
        China.
        Taiwan.
        Hong Kong.
        Korea.
For Further Viewing.
15. Hollywood Renaissance: 1964-76.
American Auteurs.
        John Cassavetes.
        Woody Allen.
        Robert Altman.
        Francis Ford Coppola.
        Martin Scorsese.
        Malick, De Palma, and Others.
        Stanley Kubrick.
The Independent American Cinema.
        Early History.
        Film Poets.
For Further Viewing.
16. National Cinemas 2: 1968-.
Das neue Kino.
        Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
        Werner Herzog.
        Wim Wenders.
        Von Trotta and Others.
Third World Cinemas.
        Emerging Cinemas, Emerging Concerns.
        Instructive Dramas.
        Documentaries.
        Gutierrez Alea and Sembene.
Other English-Language Cinemas.
        Australia.
        New Zealand.
        Canada.
        Ireland and Elsewhere.
Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
        Paradjanov, Tarkovsky, and Others.
        Glassnost and After.
Iran.
The New Internationalism.
        Luis Bunuel and Spain
For Further Viewing.
17. The Return of the Myths: 1977-.
Star Wars and the New Mythology.
        Superheroes, Slashers, and Cops.
        Myth and Anti-Myth.
        Popular Heroes and Postmodern Irony.
Leading Directors.
        Lucas and Spielberg.
       David Lynch
       Jim Jarmusch
       John Waters
       Joel and Ethan Coen
       Jonathan Demme
       Terry Gilliam
       Carl Reiner and Others
       Robert Zemeckis
       Tim Burton
       Oliver Stone
       Quentin Tarantino
       Robert Rodriguez
       John Sayles
       Charles Burnett
       Spike Lee
       Luis Valdez
       Gus Van Sant
       Julie Taymor and Others
       Ridley Scott
       Christopher Nolan and Others
For Further Viewing.
18. Conglomerates and Videos: 1975-.
It’s A Wonderful Deal.
        Sequels and Blockbusters.
        Conglomerates.
        For Sale: Studio.
        The Budget Explosion.
        Executive Decisions.
        Theatres.
        Studio Shake-ups.
Movies in the Age of Video.
        Tape and Videotape.
        Analog and Digital Information.
        Sampling and Conversion.
        Videotape Recorders.
        Cassettes and Discs.
        DVDs.
        Out of the Vaults.
        Pixels and Lines.
        Film and Video Frames.
        Changes on the Set.
        Nonlinear Editing.
        Copies and Originals.
        Colorization.
        Electronic Cinema.
For Further Viewing.
19. Digital Cinema: 1999-.
Doing without Film.
Beginnings.
Production and Distribution.
The Look of the Future.
For Further Viewing.
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For Further Reading.
Distributors.
Glossary.
Acknowledgments.
Index.
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